by Diane De Cenival

I am sure you have heard of the zero-waste movement. Food waste is one part of it. In fact, we waste food from harvesting and processing all the way to grocers and into your own home. A simple example would be when you eat apples or potatoes. Most people peel the skin of the produce off and only eat the inside. The skin goes straight to the trash, when in fact you can use it in a variety of ways. According to Our World in Data, nearly one-quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from food production. Food that is never eaten (food lost in supply chain and consumer waste) accounts for 6% of food gas emissions. so it is important to use it fully and not waste any part!

If you believe you don’t waste food, here is an experiment you can conduct: Put all of your food-waste into a bucket during the week, instead of the trash.

More often than none, you will find yourself filling the bucket fully. To help you with your food waste we found the perfect 5 steps:

1. Make a grocery list.

Make a list when you go for your daily or weekly supermarket visit. Write down all the meals you plan on having by each day of the week. Then, on the side, write the ingredients you need for each meal. That will not only reduce food waste it will help you with reviewing your pantry. You will not buy unnecessary things and you will save time daily. You will already know what you have planned to eat so no issue with looking into the fridge for what is left and what you should combine with it.

2. Use ingredients you already have!

We are all in the same situation when one day the fridge has some remains of food. Instead of waiting until it goes bad: here is a tip. Nowadays, a lot of websites exist where you can enter the ingredients you have in your kitchen and they will propose a lot of different recipes to do. If you cannot find any recipe to use your perishable good you can use some as a fertilizer for plants.

Eggs or banana peels: Crush them in a fine powder and give it to the plant. Those will give the plant the minerals it needs.

3. Make your own kitchen stock.

With the rest of meat or vegetables like onions peel, a really easy thing to do is cooking your stock. For an easy vegetable stock: use your garlic and onions peels, all of your vegetables peels as well as the ends, salt & pepper as well as all the dried plants you feel like. Easy and quick as that! you can then use your stock to add flavor to all of your dishes!

4. Compost your food waste.

Compost is no longer just for homeowners. You can create your compost in your apartment. You can find a lot of videos and articles online explaining how to properly create a compost inside your flat! The most important thing is to keep your compost balance, not only fill it with food but also paper, cardboard and other compostable things.

5. Start a food waste bin.

Getting more and more popular: a food waste bin can be asked at your council. They are in general small boxes expecting only food waste. This will help tackle the issue of waste and help with a new initiative for climate change.

You can find more information on how you can reduce your food waste, here.

Don’t forget to tag @sustainthemag on Instagram to share your tips on reducing food waste!