Minimising dinner party waste

Besides the ecological benefits, a dinner party that generates little to no waste will, in turn, mean very little cleaning up to do afterwards.

Communicate your eco-friendly values

As much of our waste is the price we pay for convenience, a zero-waste lifestyle can take some effort and planning to achieve. Hosting a zero-waste evening is no different.

Inform guests of your intentions. This can help reduce the possibility of receiving over-packaged gifts. Ask visitors to only bring items they can reuse, should they insist on bringing something.

Create a sustainable menu

Plan to use seasonal ingredients from local vendors and small businesses. Take reusable fabric bags for produce and bakery items, instead of single-use bags and packaging.

Local butchers and fishmongers will usually fill containers you bring from home. Avoiding plastic wrap reduces waste and saves resources.

Without the constraints of supermarket buying agreements and the bureaucracy of large organisations, local businesses will be better positioned to provide customised amounts of ingredients, reducing the need for wasteful excess.

Ask guests with allotments or garden produce to help supply ingredients, if you struggle to source any. Homegrown produce will have the lowest food mileage, encourages seasonal eating, and saves resources.

No need for food waste

Save stalks and leaves you can’t incorporate into your party menu. Boil them with meat bones and other scraps to create a nutritious stock. Strain and compost scraps, along with unusable cuttings or peelings.

Creative leftovers reduce waste

Incorporate party leftovers into soups, pasta sauces, or stews in the days following. Pop them in a slow cooker on low heat for an easy post-party meal.

If there are too many leftovers for even the most imaginative chef, send guests home with portions in reusable containers to enjoy the following day. Completely inedible scraps can be collected and used for compost.

Make your own dessert

Baking ingredients are often some of the easiest to acquire without excessive or single-use packaging. If you are unable to fill your own containers, flour, sugar, and butter can be easily purchased without disposable plastic.

To get fresh fruit for sweet treats, try services selling ‘ugly’ produce rejected by supermarkets purely for their non-standard appearance.

Sustain the sustainability

Send your guests off with sustainable party favours. A reusable bamboo straw, a set of wooden cutlery, and a cardboard pack of herb seeds to grow at home can help reduce future waste.

Compostable products make minimising waste easy

Washing up a party’s worth of dishware and cutlery is a resource-intensive activity when heating, water, detergents (often in plastic bottles), and plastic-based sponges are considered. Not to mention the time spent.

Biodegradable party tableware can be home composted along with food scraps, so there’s no need for scraping and separating, no waste, and no clogged drains.

Resilient and eco-friendly disposable plates and bowls

Durable when holding oily foods and liquids, palm leaf tableware is also microwave and freezer safe, making leftovers simple to manage. With all the quality and care it affords, disposable partyware retains the convenience you’ll want, but without the potential environmental damage after use.

The areca palm leaves used to make palm tableware are only collected after falling naturally to the ground. Similarly, natural wheat straws are made from stalks from grain harvests that would be discarded or burned. 

Like plastic, sugarcane has a fast production line, taking less than a year to reproduce. Bagasse is made from a by-product of sugarcane – however, unlike plastic, sugarcane bagasse is a great choice for disposable tableware as it is biodegradable and compostable. 

As these products are manufactured from renewable natural resources that would otherwise be wasted, they reduce waste from the outset, going on to become compost used to regenerate natural life.

Supplying your zero-waste catering needs

Give yourself a break when planning your next dinner party. FOOGO green’s eco-friendly party tableware, provides the compostable disposable plates, bowls and cutlery to get your sustainable dinner party started.

See the complete range of convenient FOOGO green eco-friendly tableware in our online store.