How to Start a Zero-Waste Kitchen

Start a zero-waste kitchen with a one-week trash audit, not a shopping trip. The audit tells you which kind of waste your kitchen produces most, so your first change goes where it removes the most trash. This page walks you through that audit step by step, then shows you what to do with the result: how to store food so less of it spoils, how to choose reusable containers, and where to send the scraps you can't avoid.

A zero-waste kitchen sends as little as possible to the landfill. The useful way to think about it is as an order of operations, often called the five Rs:

• Refuse: don't bring in what you don't need, such as extra packaging or freebies.
• Reduce: buy and cook less of what you end up throwing away.
• Reuse: replace disposables with things you wash and use again.
• Recycle: send packaging you couldn't avoid to recycling.
• Rot: compost the food scraps that are left.

The order matters because each step is cheaper and does more than the one after it. Here is a concrete example. Say your audit shows that half a bag of salad greens goes slimy every week. Composting those greens (Rot) keeps them out of the landfill. Buying a smaller bag (Reduce) also keeps them out of the landfill, and it saves you the money as well. Start as high on the list as the problem allows.

Food is where most kitchens should expect to start. In the EPA's figures, food makes up 24.1% of the municipal solid waste sent to U.S. landfills, and wasted food is responsible for 58% of landfill methane emissions. The U.S. generated 66.2 million tons of food waste in 2019, and only 5% of it was composted (EPA). Your own kitchen may differ, which is why you audit before you change anything.

The audit costs nothing and takes one week. You need three things you almost certainly already have:

1. A sheet of paper and a pen, taped to the fridge or the cabinet door above the trash can.
2. A closed container for food scraps, such as a lidded tub, a large jar, or a container kept in the freezer. The EPA suggests keeping fruit and vegetable scraps in a closed container on the counter, under the sink, or in the fridge or freezer (EPA). Use the freezer if you're worried about smell.
3. Your normal trash and recycling bins, used exactly as you do now.

Don't buy reusable containers, wraps or a compost bin yet. Until the audit is done, you don't know which of those you need.

Change one thing at a time so you can see what each change did. If you swap three habits in the same week and the trash shrinks, you won't know which swap to keep paying for.

Buying the whole kit up front. You'll know this has happened when you have a cabinet full of new containers and the trash can looks the same. Reusables only pay off when you use them for a long time. One review of beeswax wraps put the environmental breakeven against plastic wrap at 6 to 12 months of consistent use (Sustainable Kitchen Expert). The fix is to buy only the swap your audit pointed to, and use what you already own first. As one long-running guide puts it, "It doesn't have to be all or nothing".

Scraps that smell or draw fruit flies. This usually means scraps are sitting too long or in a container that isn't sealed. Empty the container more often, or move it to the freezer. In one 30-day test of countertop pails, vented lids attracted fruit flies faster than fully sealed ones (Peccadille). Compost Magazine's view is simpler: "If you empty daily, almost any container will do fine."

Putting the wrong things in a home compost pile. The sign is a pile that smells rotten or gets dug up by animals. Meat, fish, bones, cheese, dairy, fats and oils, and large amounts of cooked food don't belong in a backyard pile, because backyard piles don't get hot enough to break them down safely (EPA). New York's environmental agency adds that these items attract animals (NYSDEC). Remove what you can, and cover the rest with a thick layer of dry leaves.

Too many greens, not enough browns. A wet, slimy, sour pile means it's out of balance. The EPA recommends two to three times more browns (dry leaves, shredded cardboard) than greens (food scraps) by volume. It also says to cover fresh food scraps with 4 to 8 inches of browns to prevent odor and deter pests.

For most kitchens the audit points at food. Work through the next three steps in order: keep food from spoiling, use the parts you'd normally toss, then compost what's left.

Storage: what to look for

The point of better storage is that less food spoils, so the first criterion is an airtight seal. Test it by filling the container with water, closing it, and turning it over. If it drips, it won't keep food fresh. Silicone stretch lids can put an airtight seal on bowls and containers you already own.

After the seal, choose by material, using what each one is good and bad at (Sustainable Jungle):

• Glass is the safest choice for chemical concerns, but it's heavy and breakable. Borosilicate glass can go from freezer to oven. Ordinary soda-lime glass shouldn't face sudden temperature changes.
• Stainless steel is durable and light, which suits lunches. Steel tiffins and bento boxes tend to leak more than glass, so they're the wrong choice for soups.
• Silicone is a workable middle ground for freezer bags. It isn't biodegradable, and recycling it mostly means a specialty program.
• Fabric and wax wraps breathe, so they work well for bread and produce. They're wrong for anything wet or hot.

Two cautions. A "BPA-free" label isn't enough on its own, because the common replacements BPS and BPF show similar endocrine-disrupting activity. And microplastics can move from plastic containers into food, especially when you microwave or store acidic food. If you already own plastic containers, use them for dry goods and reheat in glass.

The cheapest place to start is free: reused glass jars. The original metal lids are often coated with a BPA-based epoxy, so replace the lids if the jars will hold food. Stackability is worth checking before you buy anything, since containers that don't nest take over a cabinet. None of the sources tested it, so judge it in person. If paper towels topped your audit, the same idea applies: use washable cloth first. For plastic wrap, our switch to beeswax alternatives guide covers which foods wraps can and can't handle.

Use scraps before they're scraps

Stems, peels and ends are food until they go in the bin. Chopped broccoli stalks, herb stems and vegetable trimmings can go into the same week's cooking. Fermentation will turn discarded produce into food that keeps for weeks. Keep a freezer container for trimmings that you'll use later in stock.

Route what's left to compost

The EPA defines composting as "the managed, aerobic biological decomposition of organic materials by microorganisms". At home, that means one of the options below.

Timing favors starting now. One review cites late March through early October as the best composting season, depending on climate (Reviewed), so an outdoor pile started this month will slow down soon. Fall still helps in one way: the dry leaves you rake now are the browns a spring pile will need, so bag them and save them. To start a backyard bin, the EPA recommends a 4 to 6 inch base of bulky browns, then alternating layers of greens and browns. Chop scraps small, and keep the pile as damp as a wrung-out sponge (EPA).

Countertop food recyclers that grind or dry scraps are a separate category. The EPA doesn't count their output as compost (EPA).