Zero Waste Week 2016 – Day One

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It’s all go today in the Gypsy Soul household; the kiddies are back at school, I’m back to work (without distractions) and it’s also the first day of Zero Waste Week. As you may have seen on my last post this years theme is reducing food waste, something which I believe almost every household is guilty of. The average person throws away over £60 per month of food. 

My Zero Waste Week Pledge

I have pledged to have an empty food waste bin by the end of the week, in hindsight this may have been a little over ambitious but I’m willing to give it a go. The other half is not so keen, he believes all it will result in is a freezer filled with pots of veg peelings and random bits of food at the end of the week. I assured him that wouldn’t be the case as I  was dusting off my pots.

The Plan

I shall be documenting my progress on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so if you are interested to see how I get on please do follow me there. I have been trying to foresee what waste we are likely to end up with so I have a rough plan of what to do with it.  

We have a composter in the garden so I shall be making good use of that with things like used tea leaves, I’m not sure there is much else I can do with those. I plan to add all our vegetable peelings to the bag I keep in the freezer, with a plan of making veg stock when I have enough peelings. I shall also keep potato peelings to make homemade crisps. I have done them before and the kiddies loved them!

Meat leftovers on plates may be an issue as that cannot go into the composter and I really don’t like the idea of reusing/saving meat off of people’s plates. I guess that boils down to portion control which can be difficult with children. I guess I could always give meat leftovers to the dog but that may upset his tummy. Any ideas most welcome!

Although this pledge sounds a little daunting I am looking forward to the challenge. Rae the founder of Zero Waste Week has supplied me with a very handy food waste audit produced by Love Food Hate Waste.

Plan for Day One

For lunch I shall just have a ham sandwich, no waste there and tonight is an easy supper as we have left over roast from yesterday. That will be enough for Phil and I. The kiddies will have a cooked meal at school so they will only need a ‘snacky tea’ as I call it. Probably some of my homemade bread toasted with beans on top and a yoghurt for pudding.

So in theory today should be a no food waste day, fingers crossed. Check back later to see how we got on.