Forming new habits is the key to cutting household waste.
Australians end up throwing out one in every five bags of groceries we buy, according to the website Food Wise. But food waste isn’t the only problem. The Ethical Consumer Group says we each consume about 165 kilograms of packaging a year and only half is recycled.
Hugh Butcher is trying to ditch that excess baggage. He was one of over a dozen Melbournians who recently took part in the Ethical Consumer Group’s weeklong, zero-waste trial (you can find details, tips and blogs on the organisation’s website).
Mr Butcher’s main tactic was to adhere as closely as he could to the waste hierarchy: avoid first, then reuse, recycle and last of all, dispose. That meant buying products in bulk and carting reusable containers whenever he went shopping. “Common foods that I eat, like pasta and nuts, I now buy in bulk – not pre-packaged. It’s my new standard practice.”
Environmental consultant Jenny Henty says a group effort is the perfect way to begin to cut your household waste. “When you’re starting off, it’s really good to have like-minded people who are trying to do the same thing.”
She argues that food wastage is a critical issue. “A huge amount of water and energy goes into producing the food. And then, if it decomposes at the tip, it generates methane, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas.”
To avoid spoilage, Ms Henty recommends planning meals, shopping with a list and buying only what you need. When you throw food away, make sure it goes into the compost.
As for packaging, we can cut back by switching to reusable bags and containers. “I use cloth bags for my fresh bread and I’ve got net bags for things like beans and peas,” Ms Henty says. She buys her dry goods in bulk, takes her own containers to the butcher and chooses cardboard containers rather than plastic wrapping.
But at chain supermarkets, that can be tricky. “You’ve got to change your shopping list,” she says. “You need to buy basics and cook at home.” Try shopping at markets, health food stores or supermarkets that sell goods in bulk (including cleaning products).
That might sound overwhelming, but it needn’t be so, if you take one item on at a time. “Step-by-step, you get into new habits that are no extra work,” Ms Henty says. “And if you reduce your supermarket buying, you can actually save a lot of money. When I cut out a lot of stuff I used to buy, I realised the food was better and I ended up happier as a result.”
At the end of his zero-waste week, Mr Butcher had only a few things in his rubbish bin – mainly wrappers from products he’d bought previously. “It was amazing what I got my waste down to,” he says. “I thought I was in for a massive shock, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”