Your Sustainable Home - Litterless Lunches & Food waste

Published 8 May 2020

Your Sustainable Home - Litterless lunches & food waste

Did you miss our ‘Litterless Lunches and Food Waste’ webinar? No worries, here’s an overview of it, including a recording of the webinar + helpful links and supporting information for you to check out at your own leisure.

Join us and our pals from Love Love Food Hate Waste, Pare Kore and Enviroschools Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui as we explore ways you can save money, reduce waste and create meals that everyone will love. Simple solutions, easy swaps, massive saving and fun ways to engage kids. This is the first session in our two-part series on waste minimisation during COVID-19 and beyond.

Session 1: Litterless Lunches and Food Waste

Food waste is a big problem in New Zealand, with New Zealanders wasting $1.17 billion on food each year (or $250 per person)! So not only is cutting down your food waste good for the environment, it’s great for your wallet too.

Panellists & Chair:

Jenny Marshall, Love Food Hate Waste / WasteMInz
Te Kawa Rob, Pare Kore
Amanda Dobson, Enviroschools Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui
Kim Tabrum, Educator, Sustainability Trust
Polly Griffiths, Business Sustainability Manager, Sustainability Trust (Chair)

Still, want to know more? See the further resources below the video.

Looking for ways to save money and reduce the amount of food waste your household produces? Great. Here is your opportunity to get some free life hacks from the experts.

There’s A LOT of information out there and it’s difficult to know where to begin. To make it easier for you we’ve narrowed it down to some useful resources to get you started.

Wondering what to do with food waste while in lockdown? Same. Check out our blog on what to do with food waste while in lockdown.
Feeling crafty, have a go at building your own worm farm with our DIY worm farm blog.

Cutting down your food waste

Planning ahead: a little extra time planning your shopping list can save you money and food waste in the long run.
Utilise leftovers! They make easy lunches, or if you know you’re not going to eat them straight away, pop them in the freezer.
Know your dates - Use By refers to food safety, and means do not eat after this date. However, Best Before is about quality it may be fine after this date as long as it smells and looks okay, just not at its best quality.
General tips from Love Food Hate Waste to reduce your food waste.
10 Top Tips to Tackle Leftovers.
Do this free online course to reduce your food waste.

Yum, fun food hacks:

Make your own crackers with Love Food Hate Waste’s super simple homemade seed cracker recipe.
Don’t bin broccoli stalks. They are a good entry-to-broccoli vegetable for kids as they’re not as bitter as the broccoli head and they pack a good crunch! If that’s not your thing, surely one of these is - eight ways with broccoli stalks.

Litterless lunches:

The idea of litterless lunches is built around reducing food waste and packaging, and then ensuring that anything left uneaten is reused or recycled. These tips are focused on school lunches, but there’s no reason adults can’t take them on board too! First, try and cut down the food waste.

Make sure you are giving your child enough lunch, but not going overboard!
Cook a little extra at dinner time, as leftovers make great easy lunches the next day (freezer roulette anyone?).
Encourage your kids to bring home scraps rather than throwing them away at school, so you know what isn’t getting eaten.
Compost uneaten food to save money and reduce waste going to landfill.
Check out Kapit Coast District Councils litterless lunchbox brochure.
Looking for inspiration for your local school? Check out what Papakowhai School did!

Then it’s time to focus on reducing packaging:

Invest in a good reusable lunchbox with plenty of separate compartments.

Avoid cling wrap and foil, as neither can be recycled. Try and wrap food in paper or cloth, or try out beeswax wraps.
Buy in bulk: cuts down packaging and can save money too.
Look for alternatives to individually wrapped items like yoghurts and muesli bars. Try making your own (and get the kids involved too)!

“We, the people, do have the power to stop the tragic waste of resources if we regard it as socially unacceptable to waste food.”

— Tristram Stuart

Some products in our Ecoshop you might like:

Have you seen our stainless steel SUP tubs? There is absolutely no reason why children should be the only ones with cool lunch boxes.
Looking for a matching stainless steel cup to go with your SUP tub? Check out our SUP cup range.
Wrap your food up with a beeswax wrap. Perfect for cheese. If you don’t trust us, trust our FOH Boss cause she’s French as.
Protect your leftovers the right way with these awesome reusable bowl covers (made right here in Wellington).
Reusable drink bottles are one of the easiest ways to cut down your food waste: try an Ecotanka.

In the instances where you cant avoid producing food waste, you could try:

Bokashi Bin - the Bokashi Bin system is by far the easiest way to get composting at home
Worm farm - Worm is the word, not bird. Get a worm farm and let them turn your food waste into black gold.