If you guessed that composting is the best solution to making good use of kitchen waste, you would be wrong. A lot of kitchen waste isn’t always meant for the garbage and will be perfect to recycle in a totally different way.
The Usual Suspects
Preparing food in your kitchen is one aspect of daily life that we all have had experiences with, yet the most annoying part of preparing food is the abundance of leftovers. It’s not your fault that your classic casserole didn’t go over so great, but that’s not your fault either. Some leftovers are just meant for the garbage since they aren’t very popular with everyone in your family.
This isn’t limited to meals that are boring or tasteless since family get-togethers and holiday events often have lots of food and side dishes that become leftovers. This is usually remedied by sending guests home with plenty of food so you don’t have excess food sitting in your fridge. But when it isn’t, it can quickly be a big question for what to do with these dishes afterward.
This is where a little bit of recycling comes in handy to transform some dishes so they can be enjoyed differently. One perfect example is mashed potatoes which are perfect for adding to bread dough or fried to making potato pancakes for breakfast. Cooked vegetables can be mixed into instant noodles or spaghetti, covered with cheese and pasta sauce to make a quick poor-mans lasagna.
Fruit salads and sliced fruits should have to go to waste either and can be blended into wonderful smoothies and nutrient-rich fruit drinks. If your kids like frozen popsicles, this fruit slush can be turned into the best-frozen treats they’ll be happy to devour in no time at all. If there’s a bit too much bread that is starting to go to waste, it can be sliced up and dried in your oven to make the perfect amount of breadcrumbs using an ordinary blender.
What About Other Kitchen Waste?
Preparing food also has a habit of making excess waste that can’t otherwise be turned into food that you recycle. But there are uses for these items that are good for other items that are around your home or backyard. So it may seem that you have kitchen waste that might include coffee grounds, eggshells, used tea bags, old vegetables, and fruits, peelings, and stems, shells from nuts, and fruit pits.
These items can be collected in an ordinary container that has a small amount of potting soil. Most items will start to break down that has a lot of moisture like vegetable and fruits so these containers need a fair amount of air and be kept in a cool place where bugs and flies can’t get to it so easily. Eggshells and leftover shells from nuts need to be crushed into smaller bits so they’re not just thrown in as big pieces.
Try cutting up leftover stems and larger pieces so everything is sugar cube sized. It’s also important to cut up tea bags so these are also cut up likewise. After a few days or no more than a couple of weeks, these items will make a nutrient-rich mixture that’s good for putting in your potted plants or mixed into the soil around your garden plants.
Use These Items For Home Crafting
Alright, for the record, you don’t want to start using banana peels for making home make Play-Doh… The idea here is that some items can be used if they are dried out and used for creative crafting ideas. Food dehydrators, salt, and silica sand are the best items to preserve select items that can be preserved and made into very interesting home-crafted artwork. Just as quirky an idea as it sounds, there is a growing interest in Eco-friendly art.
The name of the game these days is leaning more toward the recycle value and aspect of items that you don’t normally see in the art world these days. Some people use aluminum cans to make sculptures and others use glass bottles, but when was the last time you saw a portrait created from kitchen scraps? Don’t believe us since we have the proof that it’s becoming a highly lucrative form of home crafting art expression!
With so many new artists that are looking for new ideas to put their attention into, this is one idea of how to recycle and make a pretty penny from it also. Some collectors readily buy these types of artwork on Etsy and eBay regularly. And, if you can’t find this category so easily- just search for Food Scrap Art. There’s even a video on Youtube that shows you how to turn food waste into natural pigments that are used for painting.
Summing Up Organic Waste
Anyone who decides to recycle will understand that this is good for the environment. This is why many more of us are starting to think about ways to use our so-called organic trash in more thoughtful ways. Whether you decide to use it to make your garden greener, chances are it’ll make a landfill just as green if you toss these items out with the regular trash. The only advantage is at home, you can put it to some good use for free.
And since many people have been getting more accustomed to being at home more often, keeping waste down in the kitchen just happens to make good sense. When there is an alternative use for organic waste, you want to find the best method that will work out in your favor. And whether you decide to repurpose leftover food for optimizing meals or simply are keeping excess waste to a minimum, learning to recycle is always a good choice.
It just so happens that now you’ve learned a few new ideas that can point you in the right direction to making your kitchen more eco-friendly than before.
