You’ve got to hand it to young Charlie Carrington. Not simply content to run a successful restaurant where he changes the entire cuisine every few months, now he’s saving the world.

But if anyone can pull off fast food without a footprint, it’s this overachieving 24-year-old.

Quick recap: so sure of his culinary calling, Carrington left school at 15 to become a chef and, after travelling the world to work in the kitchens of Gordon Ramsay, Shannon Bennett and, most formatively, Lennox Hastie’s Firedoor in Sydney, opened his own flame-powered restaurant, Atlas, when he was just 22.

Colours by Atlas is his new casual salads-and-soft-drinks offshoot just down the road. Quirky photography and pastel hues make for a handsome space, but it’s Carrington’s goal to create the first zero-waste fast-casual restaurant in the world that sets Colours apart. With a compost bin for rubbish and no single-use plastic in sight, he’s sating today’s hungers while thinking of tomorrow.

With a menu of just five bowls, sides and drinks from the five countries he’s featured at Atlas, the focus here pays off.

From Israel, there’s a gloriously vibrant salad of Moroccan carrots, tomatoes and cucumbers served on a swipe of hummus and sweetly nutty charoset lamb. But it’s the pickled celery that’s a true revelation – sweet, crunchy, sharp and outrageously good.

From Vietnam, fragrant steamed chicken comes with crunchy cabbage and a thick peanut sauce, while a crackling-topped tranche of pork belly served on black bean puree with corn, avocado and crisp tortilla chips affirms the best of Mexico.

Drinks are equally innovative: salted soda keeps the sweet in check in a chilli-spiked pineapple juice; a Peruvian ‘chicha morada’ – a spiced purple corn drink – surprisingly refreshing.

It’s fab fast food that’s guilt free to boot. Never has saving the world tasted so good.