Creating a low-waste household with kids

Hi folks! I’ve been focusing more on reducing waste in my household lately, and I wanted to share a few kid-friendly ways we’ve started making changes (and hopefully learn some new ideas).

1. Reusable snacks and lunch bags: My kids love packing their lunches with reusable bags, containers, and beeswax wraps instead of plastic wrap.
2. Composting scraps: Collecting food scraps for the compost bin has become a family activity. It’s also a great way to teach the kids about sustainability.
3. Upcycled crafts: We’ve started a “crafting with scraps” project, where we use leftover materials like cardboard, fabric, and glass jars for DIY projects. It’s been a fun way to make use of things that would otherwise be thrown out.

How do you all manage waste reduction with children? Would love to hear some creative ideas!

There have been a few simple things that we do to reduce waste.

1-We have early and direct conversations with the people in our lives who may be inclined to buy our kids something and ask them to only buy consumable items. Coloring books, craft items, etc. They take those and turn them into gifts for other people and we put whatever is left into the paper shredder and compost.

2-We don't buy or ask anyone to buy our kids the fake plastic items that look like the real items. If our kids want to play with tools or kitchen utensils then they are actually building something or cooking an actual food with the real thing. This has been very helpful in a lot of ways. Most plastic toys do not hold up well and we don't think they help prepare the kids for the real use of the toy very well. This is especially true if the toy will be exposed to the UV rays in the sun. Things just fall apart. I have been up on a ladder and have been able to ask my 5 year old to put the torx bit on the impact and hand it to me and he can do that. I can be under our vehicle and ask for an 11mm wrench an he can get it for me, etc.

3-Cooking from staples and providing what we can from our property keep packaging to a minimum. If we buy things outside of the home, we try to do so at a farmers market so we don't have any packaging. This can be tough sometimes because we do use the freezer to preserve some items and I vac seal those items usually. I am going to try canning them on the next go around so the container can be reused.

These are a few that have really helped reduce the amount of waste we receive and the amount of stuff being around in general.

Thanks for sharing the tips.  I don't have kids though it is fun to see other working towards a common goal.

I also agree with John about cooking with staples.  Way too many folks have the fast food frame of mind ...

I wish my kids weren't so wasteful. Especially with food. It kills me all the leftover food they scrape off their plates into the trash or beverages they dump down the sink.

And then there's the electricity...

What do you do when you and your spouse aren't on the same page about this? I've talked to mine about it and the conclusion is always that I just have to let it go. But I can't ever seem to.

That’s really lovely to hear your children are enjoying the low waste lifestyle.

Some things that I find help:

• Having the different bins be easy to tell apart - we don’t have fancy labels for ours, but my kids just know that the stainless steel bucket is pig scraps, the red bucket is for the worms.

• Making pasta from scratch. We don’t have a pasta machine, so we roll it out and cut it by hand, and my children enjoy doing this.

• Bread from scratch, and pretty much everything from scratch in the kitchen they enjoy helping with. With several people eating, it’s easy to see just how much plastic we are saving by making things ourselves rather than buying them. It could be an interesting project to figure out just how much plastic is being saved - if the family goes through a few loaves of bread and a couple of packets of crackers/cookies/etc every week, that adds up to a lot of packaging.

• Teaching how to mend clothes when they are old enough - the SkIP textiles sand badge could be a good starting point for teaching basic mending skills. My children have grown up watching me mend clothes, and see it as normal, once my husband was at the tip with one of my daughters and she was outraged that someone was throwing clothes away and said “they should have mended them!”

Josh Hoffman wrote:This can be tough sometimes because we do use the freezer to preserve some items and I vac seal those items usually.

For many years I’ve been collecting all the vac seal bags that some meat has been packaged in, and now I re-use them to package bulk meat, I've collected enough so that we can pack an entire quarter of beef without using any single use plastic. They just need to be rinsed out and dried on the dish rack after use. I don’t have a sealer, I just use a bag larger than the amount of meat I’ll be packing, and then fold it over at the top and pack it into a larger recycled bag with similar cuts of meat, so that the fold is kept closed while it’s freezing.

Ned Harr wrote:What do you do when you and your spouse aren't on the same page about this? I've talked to mine about it and the conclusion is always that I just have to let it go. But I can't ever seem to.

Would it be possible for you to ask the kids to scrape the leftovers in a separate designated container? You could compost it if you do not have chickens or worms to feed it to.

I am sorry that there is not a consensus for you in your household on these things. The Wheaton eco scale has been helpful in my conversations with family and neighbors. His observation is that it is good to start the discussion just one step above where you think someone is.

Maybe saving the food scraps will lead to something else. I know nothing about your situation but I do hope you all end up close to the same page eventually.

Josh Hoffman wrote:

Ned Harr wrote:What do you do when you and your spouse aren't on the same page about this? I've talked to mine about it and the conclusion is always that I just have to let it go. But I can't ever seem to.

Would it be possible for you to ask the kids to scrape the leftovers in a separate designated container? You could compost it if you do not have chickens or worms to feed it to.

I am sorry that there is not a consensus for you in your household on these things. The Wheaton eco scale has been helpful in my conversations with family and neighbors. His observation is that it is good to start the discussion just one step above where you think someone is.

Maybe saving the food scraps will lead to something else. I know nothing about your situation but I do hope you all end up close to the same page eventually.

Our compost bins always get filled, no issue there. It's not where the trash goes that kills me, it's watching my groceries go from plates into waste receptacles instead of into bellies.

As I said, that's just one kind of waste. There's also the lights left on, the thermostat clandestinely and thoughtlessly turned up in winter/down in summer instead of putting on a sweater or whatever, AC turned on without windows being closed in the summer, standing in front of the open fridge for minutes at a time, etc. etc.

Not enough scarcity mindset!

I've talked to my kids so much about it they can probably recite my speeches back to me from memory. They know exactly where food and electricity comes from and how it's distributed and how I work hard to afford it and how precious it is because others in the world lack it, etc. It's not the information/knowledge that they don't have, it's internalizing it and turning it into habits. It's attitude too: in their minds, all that info is just part of the nag, not part of a reason to change behavior.

Ned Harr wrote:
I've talked to my kids so much about it they can probably recite my speeches back to me from memory. They know exactly where food and electricity comes from and how it's distributed and how I work hard to afford it and how precious it is because others in the world lack it, etc. It's not the information/knowledge that they don't have, it's internalizing it and turning it into habits. It's attitude too: in their minds, all that info is just part of the nag, not part of a reason to change behavior.

I see.

My son is all grown up now and works renovating old buildings, mostly off grid. He often ends up working alongside his boss  and they sometimes end up in a local cafe for lunch together. His boss teases him if they have chicken because my son will eat every single morsel of anything edible off the chicken. My son just shrugs and says that when you've raised your own chickens from eggs, then helped turn them into dinner, it's just basic respect to not waste a bit. That chicken gave its life for your dinner.

Tact was never a strong point in our family...

Ned Harr wrote:I wish my kids weren't so wasteful. Especially with food. It kills me all the leftover food they scrape off their plates into the trash or beverages they dump down the sink.

How is that food getting on the plate in the first place? Have you considered giving smaller people smaller plates? I always used luncheon sized plates when the children were small so that the plate "looked full" even when there was less food on it.

When the boys reached adolescence and were eating more, Hubby had a tendency to give me - the "adult" more food than the boys, so I switched to always using a luncheon plate to emphasize that I in fact needed fewer calories than the boys did! I've continued to do so, as I find it really helps me not to over-eat when there are foods I particularly like around!

Similarly, we used 4 ounce beverage cups most of the time. I also stressed that we don't "drink our calories" as most fruit juices include concentrated juices to make them sweeter and most of us aren't active enough to need that much sugar. Also, sweet drinks that get spilled are a sticky mess to clean up, so I pushed water from that perspective. The fast food places that bundle in a "free" drink used to drive me to avoidance!

Josh Hoffman wrote:1-We have early and direct conversations with the people in our lives who may be inclined to buy our kids something and ask them to only buy consumable items. Coloring books, craft items, etc.

I found what worked in my household was to focus on toys that could reinvent themselves as the children grew. When my eldest was quite small, my cousin arrived from England with a large bag filled with all the lego her boys had been given and now thought they had out grown. My youngest is now 30 and insists he still hasn't outgrown it - if he needs to build something as a model or experiment, out comes the lego. (Mechanical Engineer) Yes, it is plastic and I suspect the modern stuff doesn't last nearly as long as our 40+ year old stuff does, but so far so good.

Similarly, we ended up with a critical mass of the wooden Brio Train tracks. I would definitely search out the old stuff, as the newer is more likely to break. It's great to watch adults get into playing with it!

We never did get a really good wooden block set, but that's another one that can grow and reinvent itself as children grow.

This does become more of an issue when you have more children. Even with just 2, my younger boy really needed nothing for his first Christmas. So what did Santa bring him? Mobility! Christmas morning he managed to squirm all the way across Grandma's living room and twiddled all the dials on her stereo system and he wasn't even 6 months old! This tradition continued, with bikes becoming another gift, but always second hand.

Jay Angler wrote:Have you considered giving smaller people smaller plates?

This is good.  If they have a small portion and are still hungry they can have seconds, rather than their first portion being wasted.  I'm inclined to think the fridge door being open is a small thing, but the A/C and heating is definitely not.  Maybe make some consequences for wasting it (Mean Dad: "If I find the windows open again with the A/C on, I'm disconnecting it for the rest of the day/week/forever!").  I guess I'm lucky that the rest of my family is on board with me about energy wasting (my teenage son even tells me off if I leave the light on for 60 seconds to go pee).

Another low-waste suggestion in general:  get everything secondhand, and pass it on when it's done with.  My kids almost exclusively wear, read, and play with secondhand things;  my husband and I do too.  Exception:  undies, socks and the occasional Lego set.  We donate outgrown toys and clothes--even our local nursery will take outgrown undies and socks up to a certain age.  Though sometimes we are the end of the line for clothes, being too worn out to donate;  but we take pride it knowing they went through their full potential if we do throw them out.

Jay Angler wrote:

Ned Harr wrote:I wish my kids weren't so wasteful. Especially with food. It kills me all the leftover food they scrape off their plates into the trash or beverages they dump down the sink.

How is that food getting on the plate in the first place? Have you considered giving smaller people smaller plates? I always used luncheon sized plates when the children were small so that the plate "looked full" even when there was less food on it.  

We also use the medium-sided (luncheon) sized plates--both for us and our kids. Our table and kitchen/dining room is small, so the larger dinner-sized plates just take up too much space. I put a small portion of each food on their plate, and then give more if they want more.

This might not be for everyone, but I usually scrape off whatever uneaten food is on their plate into glass containers to put in the fridge. The uneaten food then becomes stir-fry or soup for the next day. Or, it gets sent along with my husband as his lunch (he works nights). Sometimes I'll eat it for lunch the next day, too.

My wife and I already use the smaller plates with the kids and serve them way less food than we would serve to ourselves. I suppose one might then say "Well at least you're not throwing out a ton of food", which would be correct. It's the principle of the thing though, the general complacency with waste. Which, as I said, is also evident in other forms of waste (energy, water, etc.) perpetrated often by the kids.

At a certain point, I think unless you and your spouse are both 100% on the same page and have really inculcated the kids from birth with saintlike consistency, this is "just the way kids are". I find it super frustrating. (When I was a kid I'm sure I wasted lots of energy and water, though I was too hungry all the time to leave food on my plate.)

Nicole Alderman wrote:
This might not be for everyone, but I usually scrape off whatever uneaten food is on their plate into glass containers to put in the fridge. The uneaten food then becomes stir-fry or soup for the next day. Or, it gets sent along with my husband as his lunch (he works nights). Sometimes I'll eat it for lunch the next day, too.

We do a variation of this where we typically let our kids serve themselves when they get to age 3 or 4.  If they get full, we do not make them clear their plate. Whatever is left is served to them at the opening of the next meal. Even saved overnight and served at breakfast. They figure out how much to serve themselves in short order.

Let's remember everyone, that where children are concerned, I don't feel there is ever "one right answer", just lots of ideas for parents and children to experiment with and work on!

Nicole Alderman wrote:

This might not be for everyone, but I usually scrape off whatever uneaten food is on their plate into glass containers to put in the fridge.

That reminded me of another trick - make them carry their plate up the hill to the chickens and let them enjoy the leftovers. The child having to take it themselves seemed to really give them the idea that saving the trip by being more careful with their serving was a good thing.

Josh Hoffman wrote:

Even saved overnight and served at breakfast. They figure out how much to serve themselves in short order.

If it's healthy enough for dinner, it is absolutely healthy enough to be a breakfast food in my books! And yes, children can learn quickly.

However, more "remember" factors:
1. Some children are taste sensitive just like noise or touch sensitive. It takes time to overcome that and persistence at getting them to taste 1/4 tsp of some foods each week or so for at least a while. I would tell my friend's very fussy daughter that if it was that horrible, she could run to the bathroom and spit it out. Giving her that permission, gave her the courage to try things that she was genuinely afraid she would gag on.
2. Another friend's son insisted he was allergic to broccoli. Mom was skeptical. As an adult he needed allergy testing for another health problem and guess what - he was allergic to broccoli! I have never been tested, but wouldn't be surprised at all if beets showed up. I am one of the people for whom cilantro tastes like soap. We are all genetically different and we don't always get to choose our genes!
3. We *all* make mistakes. In my case, occasionally those were kitchen experiments that went awry. If it's truly awful, give everyone a pass!