Does Growing Herbs at Home Really Cut Food Waste?

By Ismail

Growing herbs at home can cut food waste, but only under specific conditions. The plant has to replace herbs you would otherwise buy and throw away, and you have to keep harvesting it. If it doesn’t, a pot on the windowsill is just one more thing to lose.

The research supports the broad idea that people who grow food waste less. It doesn’t yet show what a single pot of basil achieves, and that gap matters for anyone deciding whether to buy one.

Table of Contents

Why herbs are a useful test case

Herbs have an obvious mismatch between what we buy and what we use. A recipe may call for a tablespoon of chopped parsley, while the shop sells a whole bunch. The rest sits in the fridge, often with no plan for it.

A living plant changes that. You cut what the meal needs, and the rest stays attached and keeps growing. On paper, the leftover bunch disappears.

That logic is sound, but it is still a hypothesis. I looked for a robust figure on how much of the herbs households buy ends up wasted, and I couldn’t find one. Some numbers circulate online, often on sites selling growing equipment, but I couldn’t trace them to primary research, so I have left them out.

Three potted green culinary herbs growing together in natural light — Photo: Markus Spiske / Unsplash

What the evidence shows—and what it doesn’t

The strongest number comes from University of Sheffield research first published online in 2023 in Plants, People, Planet. UK households growing food in gardens and allotments wasted 95% less fruit and vegetables than the UK household average. The researchers reported a median of about 3.4 kg a year among the growers, compared with an estimated 68 kg nationally.

These households commonly gave surplus away, preserved it or froze it. The authors also suggest that people may place a higher value on food they grew themselves.

Three limits matter before applying that figure to a pot of herbs:

Who took part. The researchers recruited 197 people already engaged in food growing, and 85 participants returned sufficiently complete records. On average, they spent just under four hours a week gardening.
What was compared. Growers were compared with a national average. That isn’t a before-and-after test, so it can’t show that growing caused the difference.
The scale. These households grew about half of their vegetables. A herb pot supplies a far smaller share of what a household eats.

A 2026 qualitative study in the British Food Journal adds a useful counterweight. Its author surveyed a self-selected, relatively advantaged sample of food gardeners. The study found that growing food can also reduce appreciation of food and create waste, because growing, processing and storing a harvest brings its own challenges.

Taken together, growing food can go along with wasting less, but it doesn’t guarantee it. I found no study establishing how much waste a single pot of kitchen herbs prevents.

Where bought herbs go wrong

Fresh produce is a sensible place to look for savings, even though most data doesn’t isolate herbs. A European Commission Joint Research Centre study estimated 14.2 kg of avoidable fresh fruit and vegetable waste per person per year in the EU. Another 21.1 kg was considered unavoidable, such as inedible parts.

The UK charity WRAP looked at why food gets thrown out. It found 2 million tonnes of household food was discarded because it wasn’t used in time, with half thrown away whole or in unopened packaging. That analysis was published in 2016 using earlier household waste data, including data collected in 2012, so its totals should be treated as historical rather than current.

Neither figure is about herbs, but “not used in time” describes the leftover bunch well. A living plant addresses that one cause. It does nothing about forgetting to use herbs, or buying them for a dish you never make.

For more ways to use what is already in the kitchen, see Unsustainable’s guide to making better use of food scraps.

Three practical examples

These are illustrative scenarios, not measured results. They show how the same pot can help one household and not another.

The weekly basil cook: likely win. Someone who uses a handful of basil every week can snip what each meal needs, with no leftover bunch. This suits basil particularly well, because cut basil is sensitive to cold and often stores poorly in the fridge.

The occasional dill user: likely no gain. Someone who needs dill for one or two dishes a year might leave a plant mostly unharvested. Illinois Extension advises harvesting leaves before flowers develop, so a neglected plant may quickly offer less. Buying a bunch and freezing the rest could be simpler.

The supermarket pot on a dark windowsill: waste moves elsewhere. Supermarket herb pots are often small and crowded, designed for short-term sale. Repotted with enough light, water and space, they can keep producing for several weeks or even months. Left in poor light, they may die, and the waste moves from the fridge to the compost bin.

How to tell if growing makes sense

Start with the waste you actually have. For two weeks, note which herbs you throw away. If none appear, a plant won’t reduce your waste, however appealing it looks.

Growing is more likely to help if you can answer yes to these:

Do you use this herb most weeks? As a rule of thumb, frequent use is what makes a plant replace a purchase.
Do you regularly throw away part of a bought bunch? That is the waste a plant can replace.
Do you have enough light? Many culinary herbs thrive with around six hours of direct sunlight a day. Choose a bright position; for indoor growing, north-facing windows are often sunnier in the Southern Hemisphere, while south-facing windows are often sunnier in the Northern Hemisphere. City of Boston herb-growing guidance offers a useful starting point, but light needs vary by plant. Rosemary and thyme, for example, generally do best with plenty of sun.
Will you keep harvesting? Many herbs respond well to regular picking, so an untouched plant is a missed opportunity.
Do you have a plan for surplus? A healthy plant can outpace you, and freezing the extra can stop it becoming a new source of waste.

A plant also needs a pot, growing medium and water. The household food-waste studies above do not assess those inputs for an individual herb pot, so buying a plant you won’t use has a cost beyond the plant itself. For a broader look at those trade-offs, read our guide to sustainable gardening.

Lower-effort alternatives

Many readers can cut herb waste without growing anything:

Buy less. Choose a smaller pack when one is available. WRAP recommends that retailers offer a range of competitively priced pack sizes.
Store leafy herbs upright. The European Food Information Council advises trimming coriander (cilantro), parsley or mint and standing them in water in the fridge, loosely covered with a bag.
Wrap woody herbs. Keep rosemary, sage or oregano in damp kitchen paper inside a sealed container in the lower part of the fridge.
Keep basil out of the cold. Stand the cut stems in a glass with a little water, above 10°C and away from direct sunlight.
Freeze the rest. Chop herbs and freeze them in a sealed bag, or in an ice-cube tray with a little oil. Freezing can extend their usefulness for months; quality and storage recommendations vary.
Dry what you can. Dried herbs such as rosemary and thyme are useful when fresh herbs would otherwise go to waste.

If buying too much is the recurring problem, our article on reducing food waste and overbuying has more ideas.

So, does growing herbs cut food waste?

A pot of a herb you use every week, kept in a bright spot, probably does. A pot bought on impulse probably doesn’t. If one herb keeps ending up in your bin, grow that one, and if none does, leave the windowsill as it is.

About the author

Ismail runs Small Garden Guide, a beginner site for people growing houseplants and herbs in apartments and on balconies.

Sources and further reading

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