1. Set (yourself) up for success
Our first tip is the longest and hardest for a reason. (It’s not actually that hard but requires a little work.) First, set aside an hour to research what local recycling options are around you: your local supermarket should recycle soft plastics, plus you know those bins outside your house? Yeah, you might be underusing one! From here, designate a basket for soft plastics, another for recycling, food waste and anything else that’s in your area that you can recycle or donate. Now, ritualise your waste! Treat it like a game, except at the end, we all win.
When you’re finished making dinner, make a note to rinse your glass jars first, dry ‘em and recycle them in the right spot, put the soft plastics in the soft plastics basket, food scraps in the food waste bin… you get the idea! Do the ‘hard’ work first, and you won’t ever have to think about it again.
2. Mind your beeswax!
When it comes to common culprits, cling wrap is the worst. Make a switch to nifty beeswax wraps instead. Subsequently, as a rule of thumb, anything that then gets food on it usually then needs to get tossed into the bin, so when you’re cooking, thinking twice if you need to line the pan with baking paper or tin foil is always a good habit to get into. These may seem like little things, but ‘little’ things always make a big difference when it comes to protecting Mother Earth!
3. Contain yourself
Along with the same tune of kitchen stuff, we can get into an easy habit of overindulging in those little reusable bags made out of plastic: they just seem so useful! Whether it’d be for storing your snacks, wrapping up a sandwich for work or prepping goodies for the school rush, there are heaps of alternatives. It just takes one thoughtful switch that can do the trick. Plus, storing your ready-made meals or chopped veggies in the fridge, we think, should go in some fab glass containers! There’s just something about heading to the fridge when you’re hungry and seeing all your food in pretty, glass containers that beats a plastic, tin foil or a cling-wrapped mess!
4. Switch off
An oldie, but a goodie. Remember your parents (or grandparents) telling you to turn something off if you’re not using it? We don’t have the stats, but surely if you’ve got everything on and you're not using it, some things can be switched off. So… switch things off at the source. Watch that power bill also go down, too. Use that extra money to buy more pods or that jacket you saw that was on sale. Too cute!
5. One-stop shop
Here’s a wild idea: go grocery shopping once a week. We know. That’ll require you to jot everything down, plan out all your food for the week, and meticulously ensure you don’t waste a single speck or crumb. Buuuuuut: it truly works.
Better yet, it stops you from buying sushi for lunch or going out for dinner with friends during the week when you should be binge-watching The Bachelor on the couch with the homemade gnocchi you made.
Cutting down the amount you shop not only ensures you reduce gas emission and food waste, if you make an event of it and ride or walk to the store, you’re shopping locally and doing you (and your bank account) a fave. Hello, some matching earrings for that jacket!
6. Don’t fill ‘er up!
SUCH an easy one to do. When you go to make a cuppa, simply fill up the kettle with the actual amount of water you need. Don’t fill ‘er up all the way and stand around idly. Get in, dunk that teabag and get out. This is something so overlooked (but!) once reminded, so easy to remember to do. Tick, tick and tick.
How was that? Easy, peasy, eco-lemon squeezy? We hope that helps in our efforts to get you to tweak just a thing or two around your home. If you also need another hot tip while you’re here: for the love of delicious pods, get a reusable coffee cup.
Need one ASAP?
Here’s a handy link we prepared earlier
Get in touch on our socials @podandparcel #podandparcel
