Cutting Down on Lunch Time Waste

Quick and easy is great when it comes to lunch, especially when you’ve got a busy week at work. But if you’re looking to improve your environmental performance, it could be well worth putting a bit of thought into what you’re lunching on. In our line of work, we often carry out waste audits where we roll up our sleeves and take a look at the contents of our customers’ bins, to help them understand their waste better and recycle more. When we complete waste audits, one of the highest culprits of contamination is lunch time waste: sandwich wrappings, salad bottles, unwanted food, the list goes on. So, we’ve gathered together some top tips with this particular part of the waste stream in mind, to help you and your colleagues slim your bin. 

Invest in a sandwich tub so you’re not using cling film or foil to wrap all your sandwiches – it’ll help them to stay un-squished too!

Make your own salad dressing, you can buy little re-usable dressing bottles, make a batch of your favourite dressing and you’ll save money as well as reducing waste.

If you’re going out for lunch – take a reusable bag, and think, do you really need the plastic cutlery and napkins provided by the café, or are there some reusable ones back at the home or in the office?

Finish your lunch – if you’ve packed too much, see if anyone else wants it or save it for tomorrow.

Try buying things like yoghurt in bigger tubs and decanting some into smaller pots.

So, there you have it. 5 easy ways to reduce the waste produced by your lunch. If you’ve got any other tips, we’d love to hear them:

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If you’d like more tips on how you can increase your recycling rate, give us a call to discuss how a waste audit could help you.