NOVEMBER 2025
Led by Shyamoli Gramopadhye and Arpit Kaur from Skrap, a Mumbai-based environment sustainability firm, “Trash Talk & DIY Kitchen Hacks” was a lively and interactive workshop, brimming with practical hacks you can start using before your next grocery run.
The session opened with an alarming statistic: 2,500 litres of water is used for growing just one kilogram of rice. This was just one of the many examples that highlighted that when food dies silently in our fridges, we’re also wasting water, fuel, transport, and the labour it took for it to get to us.
Members shared their own frequent casualties: coriander and leafy greens that wilt mid-week, lemons overripened in fridge drawers, and bananas going brown before anyone could intervene.
Arpit asked a deceptively simple yet overlooked question: Where does our waste actually go once we throw it out?
This was followed by unraveling the brutal truth—when food lands in a landfill mixed with plastic, it either mummifies (no oxygen, no decay) or rots anaerobically, releasing methane, the same gas behind many of the landfill fires we hear of in the news. Add to that the cocktail of kitchen waste we generate today—plastic, paper, food scraps, quick-commerce packaging—and the problem only multiplies. Then there’s leachate, the brown, chemical-loaded liquid formed when food breaks down alongside diapers, sanitary waste, metal, and plastic. It seeps into the ground and contaminates the very water that surrounding communities depend on.
Before we can reduce waste, we need to separate it. Skrap broke down an easy system:
To test the participants’ instincts, Arpit kicked off a rapid-fire guessing game called Bin to Win It. The chat lit up instantly, trying to guess the correct answer for each, for example:
– Takeaway containers? Recyclable—but only if washed.
– Tea bags? Reject waste, since most contain plastic.
– Wooden cutlery? Biodegradable.
– Aluminium foil? Endlessly recyclable and surprisingly valuable to scrap dealers.
While the group got most of the answers right, it quickly became clear that while most of us think we know where our waste belongs, we’re often not confident enough to act on it consistently.
We then segued to actionable ways of reducing, reusing, and recycling waste at home.
Composting: A Beginner-Friendly Demo
The heart of the workshop was a surprisingly simple demo that showed just how doable composting is, even in a small apartment with just containers (composters), food scraps, cocopeat or dried leaves, and a microbial starter (diluted sour curd works perfectly). Using a 1:2 ratio of food waste to cocopeat (a byproduct of processing coconut husks) one can easily layer a small self-sufficient composting unit.
Members shared some composting hacks too: adding turmeric to reduce flies, adding more cocopeat during the monsoon, and using crushed dry leaves once you gain confidence.
Managing Dry Waste: What To Do With All That Packaging?
Most members identified grocery staples–the packets used for rice, dal, sugar—as their main culprits, with quick-commerce bags and boxes close behind.
Skrap’s advice? Buy from bulk or packaging-free stores, carry your own containers wherever possible, avoid ordering one-off items online, and clean recyclables before sending them out.
Love Your Leftovers: Storage, Planning, and Creative Cooking
This segment was where the chat box exploded with ideas. Some innovative suggestions that emerged from the discussions were:
Creating an ‘Eat Me First’ zone in your fridge.
Storing bread in the fridge 2-3 days before its expiry date.
Wrapping washed, dried greens in a piece of cloth to keep them fresh longer.
Shifting bananas to the fridge before they become overripe mush.
Doing a Friday Fridge Cleanout—making one big dish with all the almost-expired bits.
Use an online ingredient-jumble recipe generator to turn “random fridge contents” into dinner.
For parties, weddings, or big gatherings—donate leftovers through organisations like Robin Hood Army or Feeding India, or set up a community fridge in your building.
Repurposing Scraps: What You Can Make From Peels and Stems
Members shared a bunch of ideas, from turai-peel chutney to cauliflower-stem kimchi. Skrap added ideas for:
Potato peel chips
Floral potpourri
Coffee body scrubs
Citrus-peel bioenzyme cleaners
DIY apple cider vinegar
Chutneys, soups, fermented odds-and-ends
These conversations then set the stage for the final, fizzing highlight.
How to Make Tepache (Fermented Pineapple Soda)
What you need: pineapple peels, jaggery/brown sugar, water, ginger or spices, a glass jar, and a muslin cloth.
Method:
Mix all ingredients together and keep covered in the glass jar
Let it ferment for 2–3 days
Strain with a muslin cloth
Bottle and refrigerate
It’s refreshing, naturally fizzy, and reduces pineapple peel waste.
One batch of peels can even be reused as a starter.
Skrap covered what to do if you see yeast (fine, still drinkable) versus if you spot mold (throw it away), how to adapt the recipe using apple or mango peels, and how to prevent your bottle from exploding (refrigeration!).
A No-Waste Kitchen is Possible
As we were about to wrap up, the chat was buzzing with comments and commitments: From, “I’m starting composting today!” to “No more plastic garbage bags,” the shift in mindset was palpable.
If you try your hand at composting, set up a three-bin system, or make your first batch of tepache, tag @skrap_india and @localfoodclub.in on Instagram!
Skrap is an environmental sustainability firm that helps businesses and brands adopt sustainable practices and zero waste solutions. Know more about their work and approach to waste management here.