How Can You Cut Your Kitchen Waste By 75% In Just Two Months?

Reading time: 8 minutes

Yes, you read it right. It's possible to cut your kitchen waste that much in such a short time. And happy news, you don't have to go bonkers to change your habits completely.

These 20 smart tips will help you to get started easier and reduce your kitchen waste by more than 75% only in two months!

Reducing Waste While Shopping

1) Plan Your Meals

How would it help? By making a list with weekly meals in mind, you can save money, time and eat healthier. If you don't overbuy more than what you expect to use, you will be more likely to keep it fresh and use it all. Also, instead of pressuring yourself to do a whole week at a time, plan for 3 or 4 days worth of meals and work from there.
Tip: When planning meals, try to pick recipes that have some overlap of ingredients. If you need just a little of the product, then try to choose another recipe to use the reminder.

2) Only Buy What You Need

How would it help? You can plan a meal around what you already have in the house and then add only those items that you need to fill in the gaps. Also, try not to make lots of impulsive purchases that mostly will go to waste.
Tip: Make your shopping list based on how many meals you’ll eat at home. Will you eat out this week? How often?

3) Bring Your Own Bags

How would it help? Probably the first step to take when starting a zero-waste kitchen. Forget plastic because it's not that fantastic. Bring your reusable bags with you. Just keep the extras in your shopping bag. And try not to accept a plastic bag unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Tip: If you take plastic bags home with you, be sure to take them back to the stores to be recycled or use them again while shopping instead of taking new ones.

4) Consider Buying In Bulk

How would it help? Buying in bulk can be a great thing for your wallet and the environment. You can stock up pretty much everything, starting with dry ingredients like pasta or spice and wet ingredients like oil or peanut butter. Production that might expire soon is a no go for stocking up. Plan your shopping list smartly.
Tip: You can bring your own containers to the store to reduce the waste even more. Also, don't buy in bulk those products you have never tried before because you may end up throwing them away. That again could create even more waste.

5) Choose Eco-Friendly Packaging

How would it help? Look for products packaged in recycled materials or those that are reusable, recyclable, or biodegradable.
Tip: Become familiar with what is recyclable in your area. You can learn online how to recycle and choose the most eco-friendly packaging available.

Grow and Preserve Your Own Food

6) Growing Your Own Food is Worth it

How would it help? Another great way to reduce the amount of waste in the kitchen is to grow your own food. Forget extra packaging leftovers. Growing your own food produces almost no waste and gives you fresh, healthy, and in-season produce to feed your family.
Tip: Regrow your leftover scraps, like celery, scallions, or leeks. You can do this even if you don't have a backyard or spacious kitchen. Simply take the remains of the head of a vegetable and stick them in a plate filled with water.

7) Learn How to Compost

How would it help? You may think food is biodegradable, right? Not exactly. Most landfills are so tightly packed they create an environment free of oxygen, which makes it very difficult for items like apple cores and orange peels to biodegrade properly. Instead, these items degrade without oxygen, and methane gas is released as a byproduct.
Everyone can compost no matter what, but if you feel like it's not for you, simply Google composting spots nearby to find local compost drop-off locations.
Tip: Keep a big bowl next to you while you cook to toss in stems, seeds, peels, and any food scraps you plan to collect for compost. That way, nothing will accidentally get thrown in the trash.

8) Preserve Your Food

How would it help? Decided to grow your own food? Well, you may find it useful to know how to preserve food to get the maximum value. Canning, dehydrating, fermenting, and freezing are easy ways to reduce waste and preserve what you grow. If you have a bowl full of fresh cucumbers from the garden, learn how to turn them into homemade pickles. If you have lots of tomatoes, learn how to make your own sauce.
Tip: Follow the proper canning processes when canning food at home. Consider taking the time for learning to make sure you are doing it correctly because it may cause health issues.

9) Donate or Barter

How would it help? Donate or barter what you don’t need or want. Maybe you made too much soup, but your friends or neighbours would appreciate it. Maybe, you grew too much product and want to trade it. Get creative and give away any unwanted resources instead of letting them go to waste.
Tip: Google local places that take in food donations. And think of it as a meal kit. You can also add a canned vegetable and a fruit and voilà! It's a dinner. Also, consider donating not only food but also other goods. The same zero waste principles work beyond the kitchen.

Reducing Waste While Cooking

10) Cook Smart

How would it help? Blend it up, mix, stir-fry, prep. Possibilities are unlimited.
Random items that are about to go to waste could be cooked in stir-fries. Collect all the bits that look like they need to be used soon, like single carrots, half packages of mushrooms, leftover scraps from other meals.
Bowls are a great way to use a mixture of various veggies and greens in one dish. Top it with extra protein to make it highly nutritious. And if you are out of ideas, just blend it. Blending always saves the day.
Tip: Prepare perishable food soon after shopping. It will be easier to whip up meals or snacks later in the week, saving time, effort, and money.

11) Befriend Your Freezer, Freeze Super Ripe Produce

How would it help? If you are not in a rush to make banana bread from those sad bananas that were hanging out on your kitchen counter for way too long now, you could simply save them by freezing. Or any other product. Chopped or mashed, save them for smoothies or baking.
Tip: Freezing helps to add that icy texture. So, you could easily add frostiness to the smoothie or other drinks without any additional ice.

12) Turn It Into a Snack Board

How would it help? Get creative and use odds and ends in your fridge and pantry to assemble a snack board. Using a few pieces of fresh fruit, nuts, cheese, or whatever you like and have in the kitchen to invent an epic brunch board.
Tip: Don't go overboard: choose protein, nuts, or dried fruit, preferably healthy items, like vegetables or fresh fruit, cheese of your choice, some kind of bread, and a dip. Try to keep the balance between sweet and salty.

13) Label Your Leftovers and Organize Your Fridge

How would it help? One of the biggest issues is forgetting the food in the fridge. But there's a simple solution. Write a date on leftovers, so it’s easy to tell with a quick glance just how old each item is. And keep your fridge organized. That way, your food stays fresh for a longer time, and you can simply find the products you haven't used yet.
Tip: Use mobile apps for recipes and meal planning that have a calendar function. You can add your recipes to the days that you cook them, so you can remember how old your leftovers are.

14) Wash Vegetables and Fruit in Containers Instead of Under Running Water

How would it help? The typical method of washing fruit and vegetables under a running faucet uses much more water than filling a large bowl with water and scrubbing it in there. This is especially useful when you are washing something like berries, and there are a lot of tiny objects.
Tip: Reuse your kitchen water. It's not usable anymore for human consumption, but it's perfectly fine for watering plants or cleaning the house.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Existing Kitchen Essentials

15) Compostable and Recyclable Cleaning Tools

How would it help? Ditch disposable paper towels and plastic sponges. Reusable towels, copper scrubbers, or compostable wooden dish brushes are on the way to go. Invest in long-lasting items to get back the full value.
Tip: Double-check the materials, cleaning tools are made of. Try to avoid plastic and choose options made from copper, wood pulp, or bamboo that are kinder to nature.

16) Reusable Storage Containers

How would it help? Storing for later extends the life of your food, which prevents you from throwing it away and cuts down on waste. Avoid containers made from toxic plastic. Instead, look for glass, metal, or silicone options.
Tip: If you are taking your food to-go and want to microwave it later, glass might be a convenient option. And if you are more concerned about the weight of glass, go with the metal or silicone containers.

17) Reusable Coffee Mugs

How would it help? Not only are reusable coffee cups better for the planet, but they also have perks like being spill-proof and keeping your coffee hotter for way longer.
Tip: Ouch, hot! Cold? Insulated mugs are also great for keeping drinks, like smoothies and iced coffee cold.

18) Reusable Straws

How would it help? Get a reusable straw. They live a long life and are made of recyclable materials. Also, they don't need to be produced in such huge quantities as plastic ones. Most recycling facilities can’t even recycle plastic straws. It’s the 11th most common item found in ocean trash, and Americans alone use 500 million of drinking straws every day.
Tip: If you have a habit of chewing on a straw, doing this with a glass straw can seriously harm your teeth. Some people choose bamboo or silicone reusable straws over glass or steel straws for teeth safety.

19) Reuse Your Glass Jars

How would it help? When you are emptying a new jar and questioning, should you keep it or is it enough already... Jars are great for storing bulk food, leftovers, or bringing food to go. You can even freeze food in them. (Don't forget to leave a few inches of space at the top for frozen expansion)
Tip: If somehow you don't have trillions of mason jars laying around, thrift stores are a great place to find them. Otherwise, try not to buy, firstly reuse the ones you have.

20) Learn More About What’s Recyclable and What’s Not

How would it help? Not everything can be recycled easily. There are some tricky ones. With a quick Google search, you could find a lot of valuable information and lists of how, where, and when to recycle. To make the beginning easier, you can download recycling mobile apps.
Tip: Leftover food in packaging can contaminate a whole recycling collection. Give it a quick shake with hot water before putting it in the recycling.

If you got to the end, well, that was quite a ride. Congratulations on taking it so far and keeping up.

Even with a small amount of effort, you can cut your food waste dramatically, save money and time. And most importantly, give a helping hand to the environment.

Don't try to be perfect. Even minimal changes to the way you shop, cook and consume food will help to reduce your footprint. And it doesn’t have to be challenging. Give it a try yourself!