My war on waste!!!

Pollycat

Don't want to derail this thread (thanks to lillibet dripping for starting it :T) but while I'm on a roll with reminiscing about old books, I remembered reading one many years ago that I loved.

It was about the witches of Pendle & I eventually found the name - Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill - but it was out of print.

Then I found they'd done a reprint so I bought it from Amazon.

I so enjoyed re-reading it.

eandjsmum

Lynplatinum wrote: »

Hiya

eandjsmum - my friend is very good at doing embroidery or creating fabric roses or patches that look like they are special designer stuff to cover up unrepairable bits on her finds from the 50p bucket in charity shops. Folks often comment on how stylish she is and think she has bags of money - actually she is as poor as a church mouse!:rotfl:

Perhaps you can take a leaf out of her book?
Nite all

Thanks
My sweatshirt came from a CS complete with shop tags so I know it was new I couldn't believe my luck when I found it.. Its only a small drip so if covering it up doesn't work copying the logo might.

Ilona

GreyQueen wrote: »

This is Ilona's dog in a coat, don't know if it's the umbrella coat, could have been, by the look of it:

http://meanqueen-lifeaftermoney.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/time-for-winter-coats.html

Oooops, sorry, missed this. Yes that's the coat, didn't realize it was three years ago. He is still wearing it to this very day. Thank you Grey Queen.

Ilona

pickledonionspaceraider

This war on waste thing, I think it is a great idea, but I cannot see how it will catch on , on a grand scale. People are mentioning it is 'shopping how your grandmother would have' - and exactly, back in my grandmothers day, women did not work full time and raise a family - they were oft at home keeping house and shopping locally - as that was the only place they could get to. Nowadays time is so valuable that shopping is just another job to do at the weekend - along with everything else that needs to be done prepping for a full work week the next week

Earlier on, I saw someone mention that they had emptied an item out of its packaging and actually gave the packaging back to the person on the till - am I missing something? how is that helping the war on waste? - it is just keeping your waste out of your bin

suki1964

pickledonionspaceraider wrote: »

This war on waste thing, I think it is a great idea, but I cannot see how it will catch on , on a grand scale. People are mentioning it is 'shopping how your grandmother would have' - and exactly, back in my grandmothers day, women did not work full time and raise a family - they were oft at home keeping house and shopping locally - as that was the only place they could get to. Nowadays time is so valuable that shopping is just another job to do at the weekend - along with everything else that needs to be done prepping for a full work week the next week

Earlier on, I saw someone mention that they had emptied an item out of its packaging and actually gave the packaging back to the person on the till - am I missing something? how is that helping the war on waste? - it is just keeping your waste out of your bin

Oi. less of how my grandmother used to shop. more like how I used to shop ( and Im only 52 lol )

for me its about going back to those days when we shopped for only what we needed. when we needed it and we didn't waste a thing - cos we couldn't afford to

And its not so difficult to write a list, meal plan, and buy only what's needed, even in these days of supermarkets

Indeed I find it easier to do nowadays as I have a freezer and fridge, back in the late 60s mum had a cold shelf in the larder and the fridge and freezer never made an appearance until the early 70's - and then we had power strikes 3 days a week so no point in keeping them stocked

The person who handed back her packaging was in her own way saying to the supermarkets ' i dont want your excessive packaging'. it was her own personal stand


No one is expecting this war on waste to catch on as it has on this forum, but everyone who posts on this forum is already mindful of waste - be it money, food, packaging - and we share ideas

When I joined this site and found this forum, I thought I was already doing 'my bit' for the environment and my purse, I have since realised I was just paying lip service

Ive learned so much from the posters here, and whilst Im still not hardcore, Ive come on leaps and bounds

My food waste is nearly Zero

My household waste is less then one small bin liner a week

My electric and heating bills have decreased

Ive learned about food miles and I now source most of my food locally ( and yes I was on the phone to sainsburys this week complaining that were only stocking Danish Bacon so I went without ) _ that I dont grow myself


I can afford to work part time and still live comfortably even though hubby has had a drop earnings of about 2/3rds in the past few years


Waste means different things to different people. I prefer to spend an hour a day cooking from scratch then 'wasting" my money on convenience food, yet 12 years ago Id have chosen take out or a ready meal any day of the week, thinking my time was more precious

Yes your life is probably very different to mine and you may think that shopping every few days and cooking daily is a waste of your time, and thats ok cos we are all different. Just threads like these do sometimes make someone think about their 'waste' and start thinking how to change it

Even if it is just boiling up a chicken carcass for soup

[Deleted User]

Here here suki1964 I think you have hit the nail on the head.I too waste very little and whether its food,utilities or paper ,waste is waste and if only 1% of the population thought about what we all try to do on here, it may help change our land from being a gigantic rubbish tip.

I have been recycling since I was a little girl back in the 1940s when everything was reused as much as was possible.There were no throw away things then as there was very little around to buy in the shops as factory production for all sorts of things had slumped when factories were turned over to munitions.
In the decade of the 1940s many women worked and had to send their children away to safer places.In the 1950s things slowly got better although I can still remember rationing and shortages of all sorts of stuff.Christmas for me as a little girl wasn't fancy electrical computer games, it was a dolls house that my late brother made for me out of orange box wood and painted with scavenged paint God know where he got it from but the outside looked suspiciously like the local council paint .The outside was painted brown,cream and green :):) the inside he managed to cover the walls with off cuts of paper he had begged from the ironmongers big books of paper samples The little sitting room actually had flock wallpaper which I thought was so smart:) My middle brother made me tiny furniture out of left over bits of balsa wood from his model airplane kits and the even managed to make a tiny sink and gas stove out of an old tin army plate of my late Dads.The amount of work that had gone into making me this dolls house must have been hours ,but I had no idea until Christmas morning when I was given it .I don't think I could speak for awhile I was so excited as I didn't know anyone who had such brilliant brothers as I had.
True my Late Mum didn't go out to work but then again she didn't have all the labour saving gadgets that we all take for granted today either .She never owned an ironing board it was done on the kitchen table with an old army blanket and an old sheet on top.The iron was a flat iron heated up on the range until my Dad bought her an electric on in the mid 1950s and she was chuffed to bits.That was plugged into the middle light as there were no ring mains then either and any floor plugs were not always that safe.
She had a boiler for the washing, and a mangle, and never owned a fridge,freezer washing machine or microwave but still managed to raise three healthy children.
Using less doesn't mean going back to candlelight,it just means thinking about what you have and making do with less.
I am happy to do that then I can spend what I have saved on things I enjoy ,like my family holiday annually. That's another thing Holidays were few and far between, it was usually going to stay at relations houses or them coming to stay with you.All our relations lived in Scotland so trekking up there was quite an adventure on the SMT overnight bus from Victoria and the excitement of having a blanket and sleeping on a bus was great.So we didn't have all the advantages of today's children but I wouldn't have swapped my childhood for anything .Nothing like a thick slice of toast cooked on a fork in front of an open range then spread with dripping and pepper and salt.Not a lot of money then ,but lots of good memories

Goldiegirl

pickledonionspaceraider wrote: »

This war on waste thing, I think it is a great idea, but I cannot see how it will catch on , on a grand scale. People are mentioning it is 'shopping how your grandmother would have' - and exactly, back in my grandmothers day, women did not work full time and raise a family - they were oft at home keeping house and shopping locally - as that was the only place they could get to. Nowadays time is so valuable that shopping is just another job to do at the weekend - along with everything else that needs to be done prepping for a full work week the next week

Regarding 'shopping as my grandmother would have'. I only did that for the 1st year of my marriage, before we got a freezer. It was a right pain in the neck if I'm honest. I had to go out in my lunchtime at work, and I hated pushing round the busy shops and dragging food back to the office. I was delighted to get a freezer and it made my life so much easier.


I tend to think that if my nan had any choice in the matter she wouldn't have been going out every day to get food for the family (6 children at home at one stage) and then making everything from scratch, day after day - if there'd been anything to make her life easier, I'm sure she'd have grabbed the opportunity.


If people like shopping daily, then that's fair enough - but I think it only works if you have shops you want to buy in, within walking distance to your house, otherwise there would be the issues surrounding using the car more than is strictly necessary and wasting petrol. Waste isn't just about food and packaging and umbrellas - if a person is serious about a war on waste then I think they need to look at the bigger picture. There's fuel and energy to think of too - Should you get rid of your car, or switch to one that doesn't guzzle as much petrol. Should you reduce your energy consumption by going back to hand washing and the mangle? Should you consider replacing appliances with ones that are more energy efficient? Sometimes it pays pays off to replace things before they actually fall apart.


I mentioned umbrellas, as there's been a lot of discussion about what to do with broken ones. I'm happy to use an umbrella as long as it functions as an umbrella, but after that, it's thrown out. I've just spent the last six years thoroughly de-cluttering my house. I don't want to re-clutter it again with 'just in case' things.


I don't have huge amounts of waste, but, at the end of the day it comes down to lifestyle, time and inclination, and people set the bar where they are comfortable.

clouds21

Hi,
I haven't had time to read all the pages yet but well done on getting this thread underway, lillibet!
I think we need to change legislation and specifically make retailers responsible for paying for the disposal of packaging. When Germany introduced recycling legislation which included putting the onus on retailers in 1985, everyone would dispose of all packaging after paying at the tills. The mountains of cardboard and plastic were phenomenal to see. Result: retailers put pressure on manufacturers to change and in many cases reduce packaging and consequently this reduced the amount of waste. Also, there needs to be a national rule for councils recycling, it's daft that some councils do take certain plastics or tin foil but others refuse. To do this it would be easy enough to contact a councillor and start the ball rolling through your local council. I think I might just do that!

lillibet_dripping

clouds21 wrote: »

Hi,
I haven't had time to read all the pages yet but well done on getting this thread underway, lillibet!
I think we need to change legislation and specifically make retailers responsible for paying for the disposal of packaging. When Germany introduced recycling legislation which included putting the onus on retailers in 1985, everyone would dispose of all packaging after paying at the tills. The mountains of cardboard and plastic were phenomenal to see. Result: retailers put pressure on manufacturers to change and in many cases reduce packaging and consequently this reduced the amount of waste. Also, there needs to be a national rule for councils recycling, it's daft that some councils do take certain plastics or tin foil but others refuse. To do this it would be easy enough to contact a councillor and start the ball rolling through your local council. I think I might just do that!

Oh, Clouds - thank you so much for this. I KNEW I had seen or read this somewhere along the way! I know that my miniscule gesture of handing back the celery packaging was almost laughable, but if we all did this, then the supermarkets would not be reaching their own recycling targets. They would then have to work with the producers to reduce the packaging.....
If Germany can do it, why can't we?

lillibet_dripping

This http://www.earth911.com/earth-watch/trash-planet-germany/ makes interesting reading.....