Your kitchen may be the heart of your home, the place where you enjoy spending much of your time, but the truth is, it’s also where most of your household’s energy and materials are consumed. Between your fridge, oven and counter-top appliances, the cooking process naturally demands a lot of electricity. And when it comes to meal prep, packed lunches and even leftovers, we naturally find ourselves using an array plastic of food containers, cling film and tin foil as storage solutions.
And while it’s natural to want easy solutions, they can often clash with our efforts to waste less. But wasting less doesn't need to be difficult. It starts with wasting one less thing. That's why Ecover has teamed up with Little Miss Waste Less, and some of her friends, to bring you a host of kitchen hacks to cut down on waste.
If you’re anything like Mr. Perfect, you love it when things just work. And while a snazzy non-stick frying pan may cook food like a dream for the first few uses, it never lasts as long as you hope, and you’re soon furiously scraping at it with the spatula. With a damaged coating, you've no choice but to throw the pan away, wasting a whole lot of metal and plastic in the process. Little Miss Waste Less suggests investing in a good quality cast iron skillet if you can afford it. It allows you to keep re-seasoning it and enjoy perfect cooking results every time. More importantly, with proper maintenance, it could last for decades.
There's nothing better than cooking when you're not in a rush. In fact, Mr. Lazy is never in a rush. That's why he loves batch-cooking a big stew or ragù. Try it for yourself by braising it over the course of a few hours in an electric slow cooker rather than the oven or a gas hob, as you’ll use a lot less power. If you’re roasting or grilling, there’s an even lower energy solution – an air fryer. It seems like everyone is either buying or talking about buying one at the moment, but for good reason. On some of the larger models, you can cook entire meals, including a Sunday roast, all at once, without needing to have the oven on for hours, and the results are just as impressive.
Little Miss Tiny found that her supermarket was just too far away for her little legs, so she preferred to shop locally. If you live within walking distance of a greengrocer or corner shop that sells locally sourced produce, make a point of visiting there instead of your supermarket. Even a weekend farmer’s market can be a good source for local ingredients, especially fruit and vegetables. The more local your fresh produce, the lower your personal food miles will be. Just don’t leave your reusable shopping bags at home like Mr. Forgetful!
Little Miss Waste Less has plenty of reusable alternatives to cling film and tin foil that are equally as convenient for food storage. Take beeswax food wrappers – they’re both washable and reusable and can even last up to a year, if properly cared for. You can also buy washable, flexible bowl covers, which are available in a variety of sizes, as well as reusable, dishwasher-safe resealable food bags to transport food.
Little Miss Neat, as you might imagine, went through a lot of cleaning products to keep her house tidy. One day she asked herself, why recycle an old bottle to make a new bottle, when you already have a bottle in the first place?
Little Miss Waste Less is a big fan of refilling and reusing what she already has. From laundry detergent and washing up liquid to floor soaps and toilet cleaner, all of Ecover’s high-performing cleaning products are made with plant-based, biodegradable ingredients. And there’s no need to throw any bottles away, as you can top them up at more than 600 Ecover refill stations across the UK, or order a refill online here.
Read the new book with your little ones to discover how we can all waste a little bit less #OneLessThing
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