Families urged to get in spirit of zero waste

Otago Daily Times

03-05-2025

On a mission to leave no carrot behind, Wānaka Wastebusters is once again hosting a food appreciation programme to get people in the spirit of zero waste.
Every Bite is a nationwide, month-long programme that gives participants tips and experiments to take part in at home.
Wastebusters was one of the first hubs to host the programme last year in Wānaka and Queenstown with great success.
With a zero-waste philosophy, Wastebusters was keen to jump on board a programme that tackled one of the world's most prominent causes of waste.
Current statistics show that between 30% and 40% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted and New Zealand households are losing $1300 of food each year on average.
As part of the programme, participants will start by attending a launch event on May 6 with local chef Evelyn Vallillee, of the Dripping Bowl, giving attendees an insight into how she ensures very little is lost in her kitchen.
Each person who took part would then given an Every Bite kit containing easy, low-waste food ideas to try at home for the next three weeks.
Each household faced their own challenges when it came to zero food waste.
Love Wānaka co-ordinator Ash Bickley shared her experience taking part in the programme last year, saying it gave her family of four an opportunity to have open conversations about their food consumption and waste.
"It was amazing," she said. "We really appreciated the opportunity as a family, I suppose, to better understand our food waste and what that looks like for us specifically."
Ms Bickley did the programme with her partner and two young children who were 5 and 7 at the time.
Having such a young family brought unique challenges when trying to reduce food waste in the house.
"Things like food waste from school lunches, half-eaten snacks, and I guess packaging waste ... we were able to be more mindful in terms of what was going into lunchboxes, how we managed that, and the rules that we set as a family."
Rebecca Kirby-Crowe also did the programme last year thinking she would cruise by as a someone who was already conscious and composted all her food waste.
However, by following some of the tips and tricks she came to realise there was still room for improvement.
"Going to the supermarket and buying a bag of carrots and if half of them end up in the compost, then it's a crazy amount of resource that's wasted just by, you know, poor planning," she said.
She also did the programme with young children and found one of the hardest parts was ensuring her children ate all of their fruits and polished off the contents of their lunchboxes.
As difficult as it was, she said the tips they were given about how to cook meals differently and manage their food changed their mindset at home. The Eat Me First cardboard insert she was given to put on a single shelf in the fridge was memorable and she still used it, as it meant everyone in the family knew what had to be used first.
"I found it really easy to get into a habit of just looking at that shelf first," she said.
Aside from helping families and individuals manage their food waste, Every Bite also has an online community where people are sharing their methods on Facebook.
The programme is open to anyone, and registration is online through the Wastebusters website.