Waste not — The art of using everything

ABC Listen.

Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

Do you compost your food waste? Then props to you.

Well done.

We don't want food waste in landfill.

That's a certainty.

But let me ask you this, though.

What is food waste? Banana peel.

Fair enough.

Although banana peel curry is a thing.

I've made a few.

And the stems of your silverbeet, sure.

But Stephanie Alexander says they make an excellent gratin.

Coriander roots, then? Well, actually, they're the base for some incredible Thai sauces, like a Thai green curry sauce.

Look, I get it.

No time, no space in the freezer.

It happens.

But what about those leftovers you didn't eat? Or that cheddar cheese you forgot about mouldering in the back of the fridge? It all adds up, doesn't it?

If we talk about groceries, just in terms of the food that you have at home, you basically throw one in five bags away per capita.

So, I mean, that means basically you may as well throw one of those bags out at the supermarket and not take it home because you're not going to use it.

Every year, Australia wastes about 7.6 million tonnes of food.

That's an annual cost of more than $36 billion, thousands of dollars of your household budget wasted.

So how do we turn this ship around? My guests today say it is possible, but it requires changing habits and intentional action from industry, from government and from you.

The word that you just used then is intention.

Intention is the biggest one.

Zero waste is not realistic, let's face it, but intention.

So making a bit more of an effort, just use up that old spinach and those old wilted bits and bobs.

They're still good.

From ABC Radio National, this is Every Bite.

I'm Matt Preston, filling in for Jonathan Green.

Every bite is all about food and the places where food, culture,

science and history collide.

This week,

Waste Not, the art of using everything.