One restaurant’s trash has become another bar’s treasure, as the bartenders at RE in South Eveleigh transform the world’s top 10 most wasted food items into unexpectedly delicious cocktails.

In an effort to combat the 7.6 million tonnes of food waste that ends up in Australian landfill each year, RE founder Matt Whiley has this month launched a new cocktail menu using discarded oyster shells, chicken feet and produce from some of Sydney’s most well-known eateries.

It’s a smart move, given an estimated 70 per cent of all food waste is salvageable.

Whiley says it’s a lesson he learned at just eight years of age, when he began accompanying his grandfather to the loading dock of the local supermarket.

“We’d wait out the back for all of the bread and produce to be thrown away and then we’d take it home,” he says.

“There was nothing wrong with it. We’d put it in the freezer and live off food waste for the week.”

Now, instead of waiting out the back of Woolies, Whiley is receiving hundreds of oyster shells from two-hatted Bondi Beach restaurant Icebergs Dining Room and Bar, saving the unsold chicken feet from Marrickville’s Whole Beast Butchery and taking on older, unsold produce from Harris Farm.

From there, the mixology magic begins. Chicken feet are roasted, then cooked down in water, which is used in place of butter to create a super rich, fatty caramel. Banana skins are cured in koji salt, then vacuum sealed for two weeks, emerging “looking and smelling exactly like green olives”. Oyster shells are dissolved in vinegar, finely ground and mixed with water to create an “uber minerally, vinegary soda”.

The final product? It’s a cocktail menu with drinks such as the “Seafood shell” (Tanqueray, oyster shell amazake, black granny smith apple, waste wine vermouth and martini caviar) and “Bananas” (Bacardi Blanca, banana skin aperitif, poppy seed and black apple vinegar).

“They sound really weird, but they’re actually not,” Whiley says.

“If I didn’t tell you what was in them, you’d never know.”

Over the next six months, Whiley and his team hope to create 10 different cocktail ingredients from each of the 10 most wasted items. When a recipe turns out particularly well, he plans to share it on RE’s Instagram for people to try at home.

“I want everyone to see all the different ways the things you put in the bin could become something truly delicious,” Whiley says.

“Waste isn’t always ugly.”

It’s an ambitious plan, but Whiley still wants to do more. Within the next five years, the environmentally conscious barman hopes to create a circular food economy within Sydney’s hospitality industry.

“We’re [envisioning] a centralised warehouse where we could take all of the unsold produce from the surrounding farms, then hospitality providers could log onto a website to see what’s available,” he explains.

“We’d deliver the produce for free, then they’d pay a service charge that would go towards warehousing, logistics, and the farmer.

“There’s so much opportunity for wasted produce to find places where it can be used and appreciated.”