How to Reduce Kitchen Waste

Waste comes in many shapes and sizes, and as families, we can find interesting ways to reduce the amount of waste in our kitchen.  Find four ways your family can help eliminate waste in your kitchen including water, food, time and recyclables.

Water

• Do you know that pre-rinsing your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher wastes up to 75L of water each load?
• Stop pre-rinsing your dishes, just scrape off the excess food and put directly into your dishwasher.
• Finish Quantum Ultimate is a specifically designed product to skip the rinse
• Individually we can make small changes.  Collectively we can make a large impact. Canadians can save up to 40 billion litres of water annually
• Finish wants Canadians to use their dishwashers because it saves time, energy and water.
• Visit skiptherinse.ca to find out more ways to save water

Food

• When preparing hamburgers or turkey burgers, don’t throw away the excess. Label and store in your freezer
• Do you actually eat your leftovers or only look at the plastic containers that you stored them in and throw out at the end of the week? Plan your dinner meals.  For example, if you are having chicken one night, cook it all and use in another salad or another meal the next day
• Cut your vegetables for the week and separate into plastic bags in your fridge. Ready to go for school or work lunches
• Make breadcrumbs or croutons with bread when it is starting to get stale

Time

• For kid’s lunches, clear a spot in your pantry where you have a ‘quick grab’ option for snack items to make a no-think packing morning
• Tired of looking for the matching lids to your pots? Use stick-on-hooks and attach to the inside of your cupboards to easily find lids that match the pot you want to use
• Use a dish drying stand in your cupboard for plastic ware lids

Recyclables

• When separating your glass jars into the recycling box, use a blow dryer for 30 seconds to easily remove the label.
• Reuse these jars when storing leftovers in your refrigerator
• Use empty peanut butter jars to store craft items