Camping, trench foot and falling into a wheelie bin

Kate Hughes is plumbing new depths to sort out the family’s food waste

Spoiled food due to missed deliveries often goes straight to landfill (Getty)

In some ways, ending last week upside down in a stinking wheelie bin was inevitable. Like the rest of the country it seems, I took the kids to Cornwall for the weekend. And also like the rest of the country, we camped. Camping or, if we’re feeling flush, self-catering means we can control the waste we directly and indirectly produce – or don’t – far more easily because we can feed ourselves in exactly the same way as we do at home.

And at home, we’ve found that the key to eliminating throwaways, particularly plastic packaging on food, is to make everything from scratch – and I really do mean everything – using local, seasonal ingredients.

Blah, blah, blah. All of us have heard this chat before – mostly from the posh lot wandering about in farm shops on random Tuesday afternoons clutching wicker baskets before parting with more than my monthly mortgage payment for ‘a few bits’.