Waste not want not

trailingspouse · 12 October 2016 at 10:38PM

What do you consider to be waste, and how do you avoid it?

I hate wasting food - I've just had to throw away a full, unused pot of potato salad because the weather turned cold, I was making stews instead of salads, and it got forgotten at the back of the fridge until it was well past its use-by date. I'm normally more vigilant than that!

And what about other things - gas and electric, water, time. How far do you go to avoid waste?

VfM4meplse · 12 October 2016 at 10:41PM

Great idea for a thread!

The constant area of waste in my life is electricity, I regularly fall asleep in front of the TV with the light on

paddy's_mum · 13 October 2016 at 11:03AM

trailingspouse wrote: »

How far do you go to avoid waste?

A long way! Most things go either in me, the dog, the compost bin, the woodburner or my local charity shop.

I was in a charity shop a couple of weeks ago and overheard two women muttering about how silly it was that a lovely quality, lined and padded curtain that had lost its pair should be put out for sale. I bought it for 50p, took off the rufflette tape, turned a hem and it's now a very nice lap rug.

Frugal isn't the same thing as tight-fisted by a long shot!

PasturesNew · 13 October 2016 at 1:23PM

I have zero waste. I do this by thinking carefully about all food I buy. I have to know I'll eat it - and eat it all - and I look at everything I buy and think about what I've currently got to eat my way through before allowing myself to buy "new food".

I'd have eaten the potato salad, irrespective of the weather. You could've always served it alongside something hot, e.g. breaded fish, or fishcakes. It could even, at a push, have been mixed with more onion and baked as a hot side dish of potato/onion/mayo.

trailingspouse · 13 October 2016 at 1:58PM

The potato salad was slightly fizzy - so no, I wasn't prepared to eat it (it was a long way passed its use by date). But I was very cross with myself for letting it happen!

Today I've made breadcrumbs from bread crusts that we haven't eaten, and put them in the freezer - they will be used as a topping on days when I don't have time to make pastry or mash potatoes.

EssexHebridean · 13 October 2016 at 2:26PM

I plan meals around "rolling over" foods - so last Friday evenings sausages had 2 more in the pack than I needed, they were all grilled together and the remaining two made sausage pasta on Tuesday night.
I also keep a "use-up" list in my Bullet(ish) journal - this helps with planning future weeks meals and also means I can target jars/dried stuff that may have been in the fridge/larder a bit longer than I ideally want.
When I plan my meals I look at the fridge first - then the larder. The storecupboard gets a check through once a month or so which is also when we refill dry goods like pulses, pasta, rice etc.
We try not to buy food on impulse as that doesn't help with the wastage thing - instead if one of us says we fancy something while we're shopping, we'll add it to the following weeks list/mealplan. As an example, MrEH said last week that we'd not had roast chicken for ages. This week we'll have a roast dinner on Sunday, then I'm going to do chicken enchiladas (probably for tuesday) as we have an enchilada kit in the cupboard that was bought for about 99p ages ago. The pickings off the carcass will go in a bag in the freezer to make risotto at some stage. Ideally I make stock from the carcass as well but that does have to depend on freezer space.

Bread crusts whizzed into crumbs is always a winner! :T

In terms of utilities, I'd be the first to admit that we're not the best with water but we do "choose" when to flush the toilet (you all know the mantra by now!) and turn taps off while cleaning teeth etc. We use buckets to catch rainwater for watering plants.
Electricity - we make the most of our economy 7 hours and run everything we can at this time using timer switches. (For reference, we know that the Fire Service don't recommend this, but we have working smoke alarms, and are on one level with direct access to outside from our bedroom, also). Heating stays off until it's actually cold - when MrEH puts a thick fleece on in the sitting room during the evening I know it's about time.

Lights are low energy bulbs everywhere we can (2 dimmer switched lights still need incandescents but once our current stock of these runs out we will be changing those fittings) and get turned off when we're not in the room.
Gas - only used for cooking and I try to follow the "Cook once, eat twice" rule. For anything that needs boiling water it's boiled in the kettle then poured into the pan.

suki1964 · 13 October 2016 at 3:09PM

Food waste is nearly zero

Like EH I do roll over meals, making sure the ingredients I buy are used in another meal

Peelings and stalks etc are boiled up for the hens

Plate leftovers are fed to the dog

What he's not allowed ( pots bread etc) goes to the hens

We burn junk mail, loo roll middles etc. Any old bits of wood found or scavenged are also burned. Indeed we even sell kindling made from replacing skirting boards and doors in the house

Water, we don't have water charges here, but we are still careful with it. Flush when we have to, turn tap off whilst teeth brushing, only take 2 min showers, only put a full load on, make sure dishwasher is full etc. We rarely need to water the garden so we don't worry about water butts.

Electricity is expensive here, so I'm as tight as a ducks bum with it. TVs are set to turn themselves off if they aren't being watched ( it's ok to fall asleep), we usually don't bother having a light on to watch tv. Only use the full oven if I can fill it, otherwise it's the little oven. Even then I try to get by cooking most meals on the hob

I reuse foil till it catches fire, bread bags are used as lunch bags for DH. Ice cream tubs are freezer tubs, milk bottles are used in the garage and garden for storage, waterers and cloches. Butter wrappers are left in the fridge for greasing tins when baking. Crusts of bread are turned into stuffing or treacle tart or just plain breadcrumbs. I've even used old crackers as pie topping

We aren't perfect but we do our best to not waste. Not for any saving the planet ideals, just for our own satisfaction

LameWolf · 13 October 2016 at 3:23PM

trailingspouse wrote: »

Today I've made breadcrumbs from bread crusts that we haven't eaten, and put them in the freezer - they will be used as a topping on days when I don't have time to make pastry or mash potatoes.

We eat our bread crusts in this house - imho it's the best part of the loaf!:o

I can't remember the last time we threw out food, if I'm honest; also I scrub root veg rather than peel, so less waste there, too.

We don't get leftovers, as I'm pretty good at making the correct amount for our meal (there's only Mr LW and myself, so it's pretty easy really) and if I make a "two-day meal" like Shepherd Spy (as we call it) we literally eat it two days in succession.

Our only real "extravagance" if you can call it that is we have a bath, but in mitigation, a good hot bath is the best way to sooth my arthritic joints. And we do share the bathwater.;)

jackieblack · 13 October 2016 at 4:52PM

suki1964 wrote: »

TVs are set to turn themselves off if they aren't being watched

How do they know? :huh:

Dclutterchique · 13 October 2016 at 5:17PM

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Great idea for a thread!

The constant area of waste in my life is electricity, I regularly fall asleep in front of the TV with the light on

Unless you have a very old set you should be able to set up an 'Auto Shut Down' option, so if no buttons are pressed on the remote control after a given period of time (usually 3 or 4 hours) the TV will turn itself off. If you don't have this you could set up the 'sleep mode' for a given period of time instead.

For the light could you have a side or table lamp on a timer set to go off just past you bed time so on nights when you don't fall asleep in front of the telly you can turn it off manually before going to bed but on nights when you do the light isn't burning away all night?

Mr.Generous · 13 October 2016 at 5:34PM

.

In terms of utilities, I'd be the first to admit that we're not the best with water but we do "choose" when to flush the toilet (you all know the mantra by now!) and turn taps off while cleaning teeth etc. We use buckets to catch rainwater for watering plants.
Electricity - we make the most of our economy 7 hours and run everything we can at this time using timer switches. (For reference, we know that the Fire Service don't recommend this, but we have working smoke alarms, and are on one level with direct access to outside from our bedroom, also). Heating stays off until it's actually cold - when MrEH puts a thick fleece on in the sitting room during the evening I know it's about time.

Lights are low energy bulbs everywhere we can (2 dimmer switched lights still need incandescents but once our current stock of these runs out we will be changing those fittings) and get turned off when we're not in the room.
Gas - only used for cooking and I try to follow the "Cook once, eat twice" rule. For anything that needs boiling water it's boiled in the kettle then poured into the pan.[/QUOTE]

You can get low energy CFL bulbs that are suitable for dimming. Everything else well done, except please flush the loo, its probably about 2p per p.

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Waste not want not

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