WEEK 1 - Love Food Hate Waste Challenge

You can register anytime throughout the challenge.

Did you know that Organic materials make up about half of what Queenslanders throw out each week. That adds up–it’s estimated that Australian households spend between $2,000–$2,500 per year on food that is wasted.

By taking the three-week Love Food Hate Waste Challenge you can put an end to food waste in your home, save money and reduce greenhouse gases.

Participants joining the challenge will receive:

• weekly tips, tricks, challenges and links to resources for you to use at home and share with family, friends and colleagues
• end of challenge survey to see how well you have done
• a chance to win one of 10 nutribullet blenders.

Throughout the challenge, we’ll be asking you to share your best food waste reduction tips, hacks and recipes on our socials and you could be featured on our Queensland Environment Facebook page.

Or here is Week 1 of the challenge to get you started:

Week 1: Love your leftovers

Welcome to the first week of the Love Food Hate Waste Challenge!

In most households, food waste starts before you even head out to the shops. Why buy more when you can use what you already have?

Using your leftovers is one of the easiest ways to cut food waste. Get creative and you can give leftovers a new life. Why not try one of these tasty treats.

• Three-ingredient peanut butter and banana ‘ice cream’ to use up any aging bananas.
• Cherry tomato pasta bake with sourdough and parmesan cheese to pop in aging tomatoes and use up stale bread.
• Cheats chicken shawarma wraps for any leftover cooked chicken

• Make it easy to find food that needs to be used up.
• Eat the oldest items first.
• Freeze excess food.
• Cook one meal each week that combines foods that need to be used up.
• Use your leftovers as a tasty lunch.
• Preserve any unused vegetables by pickling or preserving food.

The challenge

Create a shelf of your fridge or pantry for your leftovers or other food that needs to be eaten. Get everyone in the household to use food on this shelf first or rotate food by moving the oldest items to the front. Make it failproof by using transparent containers to easily see what’s inside.

What’s your best ‘use it up’ tip?

Share your progress with us by tagging @QldEnvironment and using #FoodWasteChallenge #qldenvironment on Facebook!

Did you know?

Australians waste approximately one in five bags of groceries a week!

The foods most commonly wasted in Australian households include bread, bananas, vegetable salads, cooked rice and cooked beef. What a waste.

Check out the Love Food Hate Waste recipe database for ideas on how you can love your leftovers.

Click here for more resources and information on the challenge.