My war on waste!!!

lillibet_dripping

Today's 'baby step'......
Mindfully making my lunch today (sardines on toast!!), instead of draining the oil away down the sink, it's now sitting in a mug in the fridge (covered!!) to add to the dogs dinner tonight. That will make their coats shine!!
Rinsed out the tin and that's now gone to recycling. Tried the company's 'fully-traceable can' option on their website but kept getting 'invalid barcode' and 'invalid can code'. I feel an email coming on......

Former_MSE_Andrea

Love your post lillibet dripping!

I have a feeling you may be posting in the same Facebook groups I have!

If you haven't, the new Wastenot group is starting off nicely and Rachelle Strauss' Zero Waste group has a couple of thousand people sharing tips in it.

Really glad to see you joining in

mumps

lillibet_dripping wrote: »

Today's 'baby step'......
Mindfully making my lunch today (sardines on toast!!), instead of draining the oil away down the sink, it's now sitting in a mug in the fridge (covered!!) to add to the dogs dinner tonight. That will make their coats shine!!
Rinsed out the tin and that's now gone to recycling. Tried the company's 'fully-traceable can' option on their website but kept getting 'invalid barcode' and 'invalid can code'. I feel an email coming on......

I do miss my old dogs. They were rescues and had known real hunger so nothing ever went to waste, when I peeled vegetables they sat at my feet and caught the peelings (carrots were their favourites), they liked all the left overs and nothing ever went to waste. I often find myself thinking they will love that when I have a big of waste meat or something and then realise I have no dogs to give it to.

lillibet_dripping

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Love your post lillibet dripping!

I have a feeling you may be posting in the same Facebook groups I have!

If you haven't, the new Wastenot group is starting off nicely and Rachelle Strauss' Zero Waste group has a couple of thousand people sharing tips in it.

Really glad to see you joining in

I don't really 'do' facebook - just to keep tabs on my kids:rotfl:
However, I will pop over there and check out the groups you mentioned!!!

lillibet_dripping

mumps wrote: »

I do miss my old dogs. They were rescues and had known real hunger so nothing ever went to waste, when I peeled vegetables they sat at my feet and caught the peelings (carrots were their favourites), they liked all the left overs and nothing ever went to waste. I often find myself thinking they will love that when I have a big of waste meat or something and then realise I have no dogs to give it to.

It's a daily dilemma deciding who deserves the potato and carrot peelings more - the stock pot, the freezer, the dogs, the chickens or the compost heap!

GreyQueen

Out of curiousity, I've just pawed through the one and only waste bin in my home to see what I've thrown away in the last 16 days. By volume this is under 50% of a plant bucket and excludes the recycling and the food waste (such as onion skins, pepper cores, pear stalks). The teabags are being phased out but in the mean time, the bin contains the bags and the contents are going for composting.

The contents were; one emptied tube of handcream, bic disposable razor, sachet for face pack, 2 bottletop seals from under the caps of milk bottles, 3 sachets which held dried yeast, 2 plastic wrappers for blocks of cheddar, 2 biscuit wrappers, a satsuma mesh with attached label, four plastic bakery wrappers, 4 bits of misc plastic wrapping, 4 bits of tablet strip (plastic and foil) a sweetie bag, a sauce sachet, a flavoured rice sachet, the plastic bit off a pack of batteries (card bit in recycling), half a pencil with the lead broken, the seal off a Prungle tube (:o) the plastic wrapper from a YS gammon joint and the elasticated mesh girdle from same, a broken elastic band, the slit-off top bits of 2 tetrapaks (themselves recycled), the plastic label peeled off a 4 pinter milk bottle, three sachets of very date expired rehydration treatment booted out of first aid kit and about 70 teabags (just the bag, not the tea-leaves) and a child's handful of small ends of yarn and thread - yarn ends too tiny to even make part of a tuft of the hooked rug.

Hmm, could be a helluva lot better. I shall have that large handcream tube out and wash it and put it in the recycling. Don't normally eat biscuits or sachets of rice or sauce. Owned both because purchased on YS at silly discounts, think the sauce was 6p. Teabags will eventually be phased out of the household, once I've used most of the supply - will keep a few back for using at work.

I have a lot of sachet yeast in the cupboard, probably about a year's supply, but will have to look at replacing that with a less packaging intense option such as a drum. At the moment, its 8 sachets of plastic'foil' in a cardboard carton, and only the cardboard is recyclable.

Re the cheese packaging, I haven't any supermarket nearby which has a deli counter where I can buy cheeses cut to order and hopefully dropped into my own packaging. There is an artisanal 'cheese shop' but they're rather beyond my pocket with their cheeses starting at about £18/ kilo. I have looked and needed to be revived with smelling salts.

Well, I found that a pretty thought-provoking exercise. Will now re-assemble my bin and vac the (tiled) floor and have a good read of the my zero waste website.

ETA; have sharpened the pencil a couple more times and got past the broken bit of the lead so will be able to get some more use out of that.

This is the first time I've ever sat down and studied on the contents of the bin. None of it was a mystery as I put it all there, but it was educational to see it all at once and think about the habits which caused it to be there, and what could be done differently in the future.

NewShadow

meritaten wrote: »

ROFLMAO! I have seen several versions of my username - but this one had me in stitches!

Autocorrect fail, but I'm glad it made you smile

lillibet_dripping wrote: »

I wish some enterprising person would open up the 'Weigh and Save' shops again. They fit perfectly with my pre-cycling mission. Take your own containers, weight out the amount you want, pay and HEY PRESTO!
Whatever happened to them?

There was one in northwitch (NW eng) last time I was up that way (about 9 months ago). It's the same one that's been there since I was a kid.

Sells oats, cereals, sweets, dried fruits, wash powder. Also sells bulk packs of loo roll and tea bags.

I used to pick up crystallised ginger for my nan there.

GrannyKate

When I was in Riga, Latvia the amazing market had everything loose including cake decorations like chocolate sprinkles. Slightly off putting were the fish which were mostly still alive.

VJsmum

GreyQueen wrote: »

sachet for face pack,

Egg white face pack. Whisk up an egg white till frothy (use up yoke in cooking), apply some to face with hands or brush. Stick bits of loo roll to face, apply remaining egg white. Look a fool for about 20 mins and hope no one comes to the door while it dries and then peel off. Compost arisings, celebrate more youthful skin and lack of rubbish

There are various u toob videos

GreyQueen

VJsmum wrote: »

Egg white face pack. Whisk up an egg white till frothy (use up yoke in cooking), apply some to face with hands or brush. Stick bits of loo roll to face, apply remaining egg white. Look a fool for about 20 mins and hope no one comes to the door while it dries and then peel off. Compost arisings, celebrate more youthful skin and lack of rubbish

There are various u toob videos

Yeah, I know that, I bought the sachet in a moment of weakness. Don't usually bother with face packs more than once a year, I prefer a daily rub down with a pan-scourer to maintain my youthful glow.:rotfl:

Just been watching the first part of the Wastemen documentary. Interesting to see Newcastle Council's call centre - bit bigger than ours but the all same kinds of calls.

Oh the joys of the student houses; bright enough to go to uni but totally incapable of either reading a waste calendar or checking online.....!:eek:

Made me feel quite at home, watching that. I liked their enforcement officers' attitude to bin offenders. I find it especially joyous if the public alerts us to a major flytipping incident and I can dispatch an enforcement officer fast enough to catch them red-handed.:rotfl: