28 FEBRUARY 2017

I hate rubbish in general, but wet, food scraps produced from vegetables and meat has got to be the worst. 

I used to follow my Mum’s method of getting rid of food scraps: throw them into a plastic bag and store that in a bin in one corner of the kitchen and hope for the best.

That never worked well for me. I don’t cook often enough, so by the time that bag is full, it would’ve been a week. By then, the food scraps would’ve turned into a smelly, rotten, ghastly mess. And worse, it attracted and bred pests (found maggots in my wet waste bin more than once). Throwing it out would generally be a nasty experience.

However, last year, in a desperate bid to reduce the roach population in my apartment, I decided to stuff my food scraps in the freezer. (No food sources, no roaches, so goes the theory.) 

It worked. But the weirdest thing happened: I enjoyed the experience of not throwing wet, smelly food scraps out so much that I wondered, is there a way to ensure that food scraps don’t end up in the landfill? Is there a way to ensure they even serve a purpose besides being rubbish?

There sure is!

Here are some of the things you can do with food scraps:

1. Waste not and reuse!

Use vegetable scraps to make vegetable broth, bones to make bone broth. I got this brilliant idea from Oh my Veggies: keeps vegetable scraps such as onion skins, stalks and peels to turn into nutritious vegetable broth. I now collect them in a baggie and keep them in the freezer until I have enough.
I do the same for bones; I toss them in a stock pot to make stock. All the waste produced from that I would…

2. Compost with a bokashi bucket

I live in an apartment, but that doesn’t mean I can’t compost my food. I have a bokashi bucket, which is a brilliant little Japanese invention that enables me to compost despite being garden-challenged. I keep the bokashi bucket in the yard, ready to be stocked with vegetable scraps.

Occasionally, I’d collect the liquid produced from the process and use it to water plants. Once the bokashi bucket is filled up, I’d bury the contents in the ground somewhere for it to complete composting.

3. BURY THEM

If you’re in no mood to invest in a bokashi bucket, you can also do things the old fashion way: Bury your scraps.

I often place scraps in my freezer until I have enough to toss into the local community garden’s compost heap.

Alternatively, as there’s land around my apartment, I’d often dig a hole and bury the scraps. Nature would do the rest.

Following just these tips, you’ll be able to funnel most of your food scraps away from the landfill, where they could be end up decomposing and leaving a dreadful mark on the environment.

How about you? Do you have any more tips on what to do with food scraps?