4 ways to become more waste-free today

• Get creative with excess fruit!

You don’t need to be a contender for My Kitchen Rules to whip up a raspberry and mint frappe. Or perhaps orange and mango is more to your liking?! Frappes are the fancy way of saying a slushy drink made by blending fruit, fruit juice and ice. They can cost a bomb at cafes but they are super refreshing, delicious and depending on your ingredients, nutritious. Not to mention, they’re a star performer for utilising an ‘oversupply’ of fruit! So next time you’re fruit bowl is bursting and the contents are about to spoil, freeze the fruits in airtight reusable containers. Then when you feel like a sweet treat, brekkie on the go or weekend slurp with your paper run, blend up a frappe, pop into a quality, reusable beverage bottle, or for thicker blends, a reusable food jar, and go!

• Reuse & kick rubbish to the curb.

Perhaps the biggest wastage of all comes in the form of plastics and more precisely, the over-packaging of food. Squeeze pouches, chip packets, metal, plastics, glass, cardboard, juice cartons… oh the list is endless. But, do we really need to use plastic sandwich bags for our daily lunches and carrot sticks? Or one-serve yoghurt tubs? We can minimise loads of waste from our work and school lunches by choosing good quality and great performing reusable food containers and beverage and drink bottles that keep the contents fresh, contained and at the desired temperature. There’s even reusable insulated snack jars, cutlery, straws and cloth napkins!

Good buys: Try the Genuine Thermos® Brand Vacuum Insulated Bottle for hot or cold drinks, which uses Thermos™ vacuum insulation to keep contents hot for 18 hours and cold for 24 hours. Or, for cold foods, the Genuine Thermos® Brand Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Food Jar, which utilises Thermos™ vacuum insulation technology for maximum temperature retention, keeps cold up to 14 hours and keeps hot up to 9 hours.

• Reinvent your leftover dinners for next day lunch and dessert.

Don’t just freeze your fruit for a rainy day! You can become more waste-free by saving on all food wastage, from expired tin foods to last night’s leftover dinner. Australian consumers throw away around 3.1 million tonnes of edible food a year, and another 2.2 million tonnes is disposed of by the commercial and industrial sector, according to the Department of the Environment and Energy. That’s a lot of very edible food wastage – we could save.

Pack leftover dinners in reusable insulated food containers and jars for next day work and school lunches (and save time queuing at the canteen!). From hot soups and pasta to shepherd’s pie or even cold desserts, fruits and veggie sticks – a good quality container can keep foods super fresh and temperature perfect.

You’ll save food wastage, packaging and cash. Hat trick!

Good buys: Genuine Thermos® Brand cooler bags are a great pick for school and work lunches – the IsoTec™ superior insulation keeps food fresh, it has a heat-sealed, PEVA lining and durable easy care fabric. For a family-friendly size option, try the Thermos® Radiance 24 Can Cooler.

• Upsize your supermarket purchases

Have a think about what foods you are consuming. If your family consume a six-pack of single serve yoghurts weekly, it might be smarter to ‘upsize’ to a 1kg tub? There’s a lot less packaging wastage in one container versus six single serves, and you’ll save money. Just refill your reusable container and pat yourself on the back!

Good buy: The Genuine Thermos® Brand Stainless Steel Vacuum Insulated Food Jars use Thermos™ vacuum insulation technology for maximum temperature retention, hot or cold. The 710ml will keep the whole family’s yoghurt cold for up to 24 hours and soups hot for up to 14 hours!