Zero Waste to Landfill

So what do we really mean by zero waste? The simplest way to think of it is zero waste to landfill - nothing that we use or produce gets sent to landfill. Everything that is used is put back into another cycle of its own, just as nature intended. 

Earthnutz are zero-waste by design. We make three different products, from peanuts alone!

1. Virgin Peanut Oil

2. Peanut Protein Crisps 

3. Bird Food

The bird food is not commercially viable to make, but it’s a gift from us to the garden birds of Kent 🙂 

Our Peanut Protein Crisps and Virgin Peanut Oil, however, are for sale and they're both seriously tasty and seriously good for you. Using whole foods and a lot o’ love, we make both the crisps and oil into artisan, quality products to use at home and to eat on-the-go. 

To help guide us in our zero waste policies, we use the 5 Rs - and this may help you in your journey towards a zero waste lifestyle, too: 

1. Refuse 

2. Reduce 

3. Reuse

4. Recycle

5. Rot

Refuse

These opportunities are often the most obvious, but the easiest to miss. It’s the free magnet when you spend £10, the party bag at a kid’s party, the lanyard at a conference, the straw at a restaurant. If you're paying attention, at the point of purchase, you can often refuse something that would later end up as waste and you never really chose to consume in the first place. We do this with suppliers - making sure delivery crates are returned, refusing freebies that we don’t need and refusing to buy something if the packaging doesn’t meet our standards. 

Reduce

These opportunities are also easy to miss. It’s the BOGOF deals, the reduced label food, or buying new shoes when you can repair the old ones. We’re always looking to reduce the number of orders and shipments from our suppliers and to reduce the number of packets or the weight of materials that our ingredients come packaged in.

Reuse

Reusing things can be fun, but also impractical when you haven’t got enough space to store it! Hopefully, if you’ve been able to refuse and reduce first, the number of items that need reusing is manageable and you begin to see things in your house in a different light - I saw an old welly boot used as a plant pot the other day and thought it was ingenius! At Earthnutz, we use various platforms locally and a network of family and friends to reuse anything that has value. 

Recycle

This is typically useful for packaging and, in most parts of the UK now, is kerbside and convenient. We recycle anything left over from all of the above points either at specialist recycling facilities or kerbside. 

Rot

Natural compost is the best way to get rid of food waste and feed your plants! Failing that, many councils have food collection bins that reuses the food waste as energy. Living in the countryside, this is something that we support in a big way. 

Let us know what you think of the 5 R's and things that you do to minimize your own waste!