Skip the takeaway

• Cook at home instead of ordering takeaway or delivery
• Keep a home-made back-up in the freezer for the nights you can’t be bothered
• If you do get takeaway, BYO container and skip the cutlery and sachets
• Snap a photo of your home-cooked dinner to log this pledge

Takeaway is convenient, but it comes with a lot of stuff: containers, lids, bags, cutlery, sachets. Most of it gets used for 20 minutes and then it’s rubbish. Some of it ends up as litter. In NSW, takeaway containers made up about a third of litter by volume in 2019–20.

It’s a global pattern too. A study in Nature Sustainability found single-use bags, bottles, food containers and wrappers made up 44% of litter items across seven major aquatic environments. Those are the waterways and beaches a lot of us run, swim and paddle along.

No judgement on the odd takeaway night. This is about making home-cooked the easy default, so the containers stay out of the bin and off the trail.

Because protecting the places we play starts with what’s for dinner tonight. 💙

• Know your danger zone: It’s usually 7pm, you’re cooked from training, and the app is right there. Plan for that moment instead of fighting it.
• Stock the freezer: Double your next pasta sauce, curry or soup and freeze the extra in portions. Future you will be grateful.
• Have three 15-minute meals: Eggs on toast, a stir-fry, a loaded wrap. Know them off by heart.
• Do a ‘fakeaway’: Craving pizza or a curry? Make your own version and turn it into a Friday night thing.
• BYO when you do order: Ask your local if they’ll fill your own container. Plenty will. It’s easiest when you pick up in person.
• Tick ‘no cutlery’: Most delivery apps let you opt out of cutlery, napkins and sauce sachets.
• Bin it right: Scrape out the food and check with your council whether lids go in the recycling. Recycling Near You has the details for your area.
• Rope in the crew: Swap the post-parkrun takeaway for a rotating club brekkie at someone’s place.