It’s the hub of the home – here’s how to give it a green make-over

The humble kitchen – the place where you cook up a storm, experiment with new recipes and enjoy the tastes of homecooked meals. It may seem an innocuous part of your home, but it could, no matter how unintentionally, be having an impact on the environment. With fridges packed full of plastic-wrapped products and perfectly edible food going to waste in our bins, kitchens can easily become the opposite of eco-friendly. Here are seven ways to make yours kinder to the Earth.

Rearrange your fridge

Stats on food waste are enough to make you lose your appetite. For example, total household food waste is reported at 7.1 million tonnes, with 70 per cent of that said to still be edible and worth an estimated £15 billion, according to wrap.org.uk. In a bid to eat more and waste less, consider changing the way you unpack your weekly shop. Organise your fridge space so that items that go out of date sooner are at the front and in your eye line. In addition to this, try to follow a ‘first in, first out’ rule to stay in sync with food expiry dates. The bottom shelf tends to be the coldest spot in your fridge, so store older food here and arrange in ascending date order up to the top shelf for newer food.