In a recent post Simon and I assessed our carbon foot prints with a number of commenters also ‘fessing up to the impact we have on the environment through our daily lives. We proposed posting on a number of actions we can take to reduce our number, so this post will be the first of hopefully a regular series. I want the posts to be practical, and vere well wide of suggestions that will have readers eyes rolling. Addressing climate change and being green just isn’t sexy, and so often the convenience we are now use to is a contributory factor so the suggestions we whittle out of the legions of actions we could adopt, should be feasibly introduced into our normal days quite well. That said if any of you are inspired by our posts and somehow end up with the ripples created by your gold fish in your fish tank generating the power for your house, then I will be quite proud!

So - to the topic: I’m a terrible man for wasting food - only last week I bought 5 pork chops, cooked 2 of them that evening and then preceded to forget they were in the fridge, eating out or getting home late so that 3 days later when I remembered they were there the only safe option was to bin them. Similarly this weekend, cooking a fry for some mates and some post pub chicken, each created unnecessary waste. Had I just taken time to stash the leftovers in the freezer or re-use them quickly in a meal I wouldn’t be so conscious of an awful lot of waste being produced by just myself and of course the financial damage.

At home my dog gets any left overs and we are good recyclers and for other refuse, like vegetable peelings there is a nicely gestating compost heap developing out the back. I can still only imagine the level of waste produced by a family home, this UK based site claims that families throw away 1/3 of the food they buy. We can’t have figures like that be a reality when the world is facing a food crisis.

Like most of the recommendations made by people urging us to lead a more environmentally friendly, there will be effort required, as there is with any new entry into our routine so in any of these suggestions I’m going be as reasonable as possible and genuinely attempt to adapt my own practices and report back accordingly. The ESRI reported that up to 80% of household waste is sent to landfills - there are spiralling levels of issues that an unnecessarily created waste is then disposed of using an environmentally damaging technique, one already strained by waste level generation across the board. As opposed to large MNCs being the culprit, we are in a position here to manage the source of this waste. Obviously hotels and restaurants produce higher volumes, but all good practices must start somewhere.

The 3 actions I propose undertaking are:

1. Buying freezer bags - the pork chops that sat in the fridge, the sliced pan of bread that I picked up without thinking and is now going stale down in the kitchen, unused, because I haven’t eaten at home over the weekend - all unnecessary waste. Now defrosting is not a fun activity and I really don’t like using the microwave to defrost, but had I taken the time to freeze ithe chops in pairs and similarly the sliced bread in smaller batches, they would each be defrosted quickly. I’m lucky enough to be moving house at the end of the month and will take the opportunity to start a more effective and efficient relationship with my freezer.

2. Cooking smarter - this website ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ has a catalogue of recipes for reusing left overs. This might seem a bit miserly - but frying up some left over rice with vegetables or warming through mince to make a sloppy joe with, each make tasty dinners and a good use of the time you may have taken to make a bolognese the night before or indeed smart use of a carton of rice not used when you got a take away. Again, I’m not going to go making any great claims to overhauling my cooking regimentally, from herein though my meals will be planned to make the best use possible of all ingredients.

Buy meat from a butcher - now I pass a Centra every day and it being opened 24 hours its convenience will always mean trump any other shop - my default position is lazy so therefore in terms of how I shop, I’m going to build towards being a smarter shopper. Action No. 1 will be that from tomorrow the only meat I will buy will be from a local butcher - locally sourced, minimal wrapping and lets be frank, most importantly the meat will have been recently cut and be less expensive.