365 Sustainable Decisions Challenge

To be able to have some notes in sight, without having to clutter my desk, I decided to make a pin board. But I don’t want a standard brown one, as I think that looks boring when I’m not using it. That’s why I made flowers from slices for cork and painted them.

When carefully eating away the pulp out of half an orange, and by making sure that in the middle the “stem” is still standing, the orange peel can be used as a candle. I poured olive oil in it, waited for a few minutes and as you can see, it worked.

What a great idea: I came across a recipe to make pesto from radish leaves. These are normally leftovers for me, so I'm glad I can use them from now on. Recipe: https://medium.com/@rethink2gether/easy-tasty-zero-waste-recipe-cherry-tomato-and-radish-salad-with-burrata-and-radish-top-pesto-50f4102f83d Credit: @rethink2gether

I recently ate in a restaurant. For my meal, they served ketchup in a bottle. For the other meal, they served sauce in a small cup. I have seen this before and think it is much better to serve in a bottle, because if it is in a bottle, everything that is left can be passed to the next customer. If it is in a cup, they have to throw leftovers away because of hygienic reasons.

I find it horrible when I go to a cafe and get a single cookie that is wrapped in plastic. So when I serve a cookie, I make sure it isn’t.

I'm sure this is great to do with children, as they learn how to prevent food waste and have something rewarding as a result.  

As a kid, I used to close my nose if I had to eat something I really didn’t like, because I then tasted less. I used this trick again to be able to eat a type of chocolate I bought as replacement for chocolate sprinkles, but really didn’t like (#296). I don’t want to throw it away of course.

After having created a new laundry basket (#314), I wondered what to do with the old, broken one. As the sides contain nice flowers, I decided to cut these parts out and keep them as templates for crafting. Also, the bottom part is a perfect tray when carrying cutlery and plates.

I accidentally let some bread became old. So I did some research on what I can still do with old bread. Making croutons sounded like a good idea, as I can eat it with my next salad.

Now, this makes me happy: I have been shopping organic products, in a shop in which they sell without packaging. For storage, I reuse glass jars that used to contain pizza sauce. These jars nicely fit in my drawer, so that I can see what I have, and nothing goes off.

To be able to feed everyone on earth, the food supply chain needs to become more sustainable, for example by spoiling less food. In this article, I explain why bacteria play an important role to achieve this: https://medium.com/climate-conscious/how-biological-detoxification-improves-sustainable-food-supply-710e82e3c4b9 Fungi in corn (credit:  KOOKLE  on  Shutterstock )

I always try to get leftovers out of a bottle as much as possible, so I don't waste anything. Put putting the bottle upside down didn't help anymore and scraping it out with a tool (#181) wasn't possible due to the shape of the bottle. That's why I decided to use one of my pasta noodles instead, which worked perfectly.

This doesn't look like the tastiest of carrots, but as I want to prevent food waste, I decided to peel off the brownness. And although the carrots was not crispy anymore, it tasted just as good.  

Where I live, I can buy a piece of bread called "Brezel". It has a lot of salt on it, which is way too salty for me. I used to throw away the salt after taking it off, but this time, I decided to keep it for a future meal.

When cutting paprika, I didn’t really pay attention to cutting away as little paprika as possible. This resulted in throwing away a bit of paprika unnecessarily. Now I do pay attention.

I wanted to make a salad with pasta in it, but realized I still had bread that was about to go off. So, I decided to leave the pasta out and eat the bread instead. No food wasted!

I don't know the details, but I guess that a lot of food that cannot be sold on time is thrown away. That is such a shame and not good for the environment either! So, I was happy to learn about lacto-fermenting vegetables, which makes them last a lot longer!

While traveling, I had a bread at the bakery. As I had to take the paper bag, I decided to at least use it as tray. This way, the salad that fell off didn't fall on the ground and on the bag instead, allowing me to eat it. So, no food wasted.

I saw someone else doing this and find it a very clever idea to get the last bit out of the carton. And I didn’t even realize that there is always a tiny bit left.

The food on the party I wrote about in #615 was presented in a buffet. To make sure I was able to eat everything, I made sure I only took a little at a time. My reasoning: When I finish my plate and am still hungry, I can go back to get more. This way, I won't have any leftovers that are wasted.