Zero-waste living in the Amsterdam Area

Updated 10 August 2026 at 16:09

Being a resident of the Amsterdam Area makes living greener easier than many other cities, thanks to the ubiquity of cycling and the City’s many policies encouraging green and circular initiatives. As for waste – you’ll still come across a whole lot of plastic packaging in your life, and it’s not always easy to avoid it. To help, we’ve collected handy resources and tips on zero-waste living in the Amsterdam Area: from packaging-free veg boxes to kids’ bike subscriptions and from soap bars to foraging tips.

No-packaging fruit and veg boxes

Finding yourself more and more annoyed with each shrink-wrapped supermarket cucumber? A veg box subscription is one of the easiest ways to avoid plastic and other packaging when buying your fruit and vegetables, and the Amsterdam Area has several great ones on offer. Getting a veg box also supports eating locally grown, seasonal food, which is not only more sustainable, but tends to be much more delicious, too. All of the below schemes deliver to a variety of pick-up points in the Amsterdam Area. The produce is stored in a crate and you bring your own bags to pick up.

Stadsgroenteboer – fresh vegetables straight from a farm just outside Amsterdam. By signing up, you buy shares in their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) schemes.
Veggiebox – a wide range of fruit and veg boxes, including organic options and ‘saved’ produce as well as specialty boxes with snack veg, exotic fruit and more.
Groenhartig – organic and locally grown vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, micro-greens and fruit, with a good mix of standard and more unusual crops.
De Groente Amsterdammer – a community farm that grows 100 different crops, both fruit and vegetables, for the 200 families that have joined the scheme. At the same farm, Landgoed Rorik, you can also pick your own flowers, or adopt an apple tree and enjoy a bountiful harvest come autumn.

Rescue food

Globally, it’s estimated that about a third of food is wasted. The City aims to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030. The Too Good Too Go app shows which supermarkets, restaurants and bakeries in your area have perfectly good food that wasn’t sold that day (and would otherwise be thrown in the bin). Pay a fraction of regular cost via the app and pick up your order at the end of the day. No Waste Army offers a monthly or quarterly box of rescued products and produce – delivered right to your door.

Farmers’ markets and greengrocers

Farmers’ markets are another great option for buying food without packaging – plus, it’s a nice thing to do of a weekend, isn’t it? Just make sure to bring enough bags. The same goes for a visit to your local greengrocer (groentewinkel), whether it’s a quaint organic corner store or a big Turkish supermarket. And a special mention should go to Odin, a food cooperative with branches across Amsterdam. And when it’s spring, buy your flowers from street stalls instead of the supermarkets – they usually get wrapped in paper rather than plastic, and you could probably forfeit even that with a bunch of sturdy tulips.

Zero-waste and refill shops

The Amsterdam Area is home to a range of no-packaging and refill shops – just rock up with your own bags and jars and fill them up to your heart’s content. Delicious Food is a long-standing family-run shop with a large selection of organic food available in bulk, and its Westerstraat location means it’s very handy to combine with a visit to the beautiful Noordermarkt farmers’ market. Little Plant Pantry is a refill shop in Oud West that offers plant-based food – pulses, spices, pasta, coffee, nut butters and much more. Pieter Pot is an online refill shop with food sold in glass jars that you then return to be refilled.

In addition, there are some specialist shops where you can bring your own containers: for example Simon Lévelt for organic tea and coffee, and De Oliewinkel for an impressive selection of high-quality olive oil in vats (sold in glass bottles that you can then bring back to be refilled).

Plastic-free cosmetics

The Nature Bar in lovely and at times frantic De Hallen is a ‘soap studio’ making, and selling, beautiful soaps, shampoo, conditioner and shower bars as well as skincare. They also have a refill bar for bath salts, soap flakes and serums. And DIYS Soap is an online shop for plastic-free skincare, body and hair products, plus fun DIY kits for soap, skincare, lip balm and more. Their refill service allows you to swap any empty containers against store credit (with drop-off points in Amsterdam and Leiden). And Beewise is an Amsterdam-based online shop with lots of products for plastic-free living, including shampoo, conditioner and shower bars.

Zero-waste cafés and restaurants

Amsterdam’s thriving food scene has plenty of options for sustainable and low-waste – and delicious! – dining. In addition, a number of restaurants have a strong focus on foraged ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking: check Wilde Zwijnen, Kaagman & Kortekaas and Café Modern. And, don’t miss Taste Before You Waste’s Wasteless Wednesdays: a 3-course vegan dinner made from locally rescued ingredients.

Fruit and flower picking and foraging

Landgoed Rorik, mentioned above, offer flower picking, and they’re not the only ones – in fact, Amsterdam is surrounded by flower fields, farms and orchards where you can pick your own produce. You usually pay by bunch, weight or volume. The Dutch name for this is pluktuinen – picking gardens. In addition, there are some areas that are perfect for foraging – think wild garlic and magnolia blossom. If you’re unsure where to start, you can even book a foraging walk.

Grow your own

You don’t need a garden to grow food at home – many herbs and berries, for example, thrive on a sunny windowsill. Growing herbs from seed is not that difficult, either, even for beginners. And did you know the trick for keeping supermarket basil alive? The pots actually contain lots of separate plants to look full, which is the reason why they then quickly wilt – they simply don’t have enough space. Empty them out, gently tease apart the roots and replant into separate pots. Position these at different points in your home to see where they do best. You’ll still have some left over to give to your neighbours. Another trick is growing your own spring onions from the cut-off ends. And there’s lots more. Experiment with growing flowers from seed, for example. Finally, even the least talented gardeners can manage growing tulips from bulbs – and those get sold loose at Amsterdam’s famous flower market.

Libraries and second-hand shopping

Despite being quite an obvious way of reducing consumerism and waste, libraries somehow often get forgotten about. Amsterdam’s OBA has branches across town and many offer books in English and other languages. And a library of things, where you can rent items such as power tools, may be in the works, too. Amsterdam is also home to a ‘fashion library’, i.e. a fashion rental service. Finally, another great way of reducing waste is second-hand and thrift shopping, and Amsterdam is great at that.

Bike subscription services for kids

Children seem to outgrow their bikes faster than you can say fietsenwinkel, and so a bike subscription, where you can swap their suddenly miniature bike for a new one as soon as the need arises, is a no-brainer. One of the main bike subscription services in the region is Bikeflip, and Decathlon also offers a subscription model. And for older kids and teens that are tall enough for adult bikes, there’s trusty Swapfiets, too.

Reusable nappies

And so we have reached the butt end of this article – literally. Few things bring about as much plastic waste as a newborn’s metabolism. It’s not a bad idea, then, to go plastic free for their diapers. And reusable nappies are a much less messy proposition than you might think. The Amsterdam Area is home to a variety of shops offering them, plus plenty of advice. Many also have sets available to rent. Check out Billenboetiek, Happy Bear Diapers, Pure Start, Baby Bum, Nappys.nl and Kaatje Katoen.

Food Waste-Free Week

The campaign group Food Waste Free United (Samen tegen voedselverspilling) organises a week full of events to fight food waste, from workshops on how to make kimchi or bread pudding to community lunches with food prepared from leftover produce.