My war on waste!!!

GreyQueen

Hi bluebag, I wash my stuff up for recycling but I can't see how it's using any extra water as it's the same bowl of water that I use for the regular dishwashing.

Clean recycling is more valuable than soiled recycling and very soiled recycling may even end up rejected, in which case it will be landfilled.

I am a frequent caller up t'tip (by bike) and one of my neighbours is part of the crew up there. My observation of the back of people's cars and their trailers is that they come in fully-loaded, often with a variety of things which indicate something of the nature of a house move/ major shed/ loft/ garden dejunk, and are bringing a few of the items not handled by household recycling, like small appliances, rubble, and fluro tubes/ compact bulbs, at the same time. I also sometimes bump into workmates up there and, anecdotally, most people seem to do a dump run once or twice a year.

It's busy tip and cars have to queue to get in, so everyone knows a dump run can take quite a bit of time, and this tends to make people use it efficiently.:rotfl:

When we did a dump run as part of the loft clear out in my parents' town, we tied it in with a chazzer drop-off first, then the tip, then the supermarket on the way home, so swinging a loop around town and using both the time and the fuel most efficiently.

[Deleted User]

I live alone and re the yogurt I buy a big pot and decant whats needed into a smaller dish as and when required.The empty big pot gets reused to hold other things, and if its got a plastic lid all the better as I can store cold soup in the fridge in it.
Re the sting bags My late Mum had a couple which went everywhere with her at the bottom of her bag great for picking up her shopping in and veg got packed brilliantly in them.No housewife worth her salt would go out during the 1940s-50s without a shopping bag of any sort as you never knew what treasures you may find Rationing meant odd things appeared at times in the shops so if you saw something when out that you hadn't seen for a long time it was bought home and then Mum would make something out of nothing to feed her children An orange was used and divided up scrupulously between my two brothers and I and Mum grated the rind to flavour her cakes.
Re those little net bags from satsuma's etc I save them up and run a thread through them to gather together and use as pot scourers or sink scourers.Those washing up sponges with one side sponge and a side that scours I cut in half and use half at a time. Cardboard egg boxes I use to grow small seeds when its spring time and I want a few bedding plants, a spoonful or two of compost a few seeds and they sit on my conservatory window ledge until ready to plant out in their plugs I don't even bother cutting the cardboard away as it will rot down once its in the earth
I do my best not to have much in the way of waste I have a large square thick handled bag given by the council which sits on a stool in m,y kitchen and its lined with a recycling bag.One a fortnight it gets put out full of paper etc.In fact I just put it out for the bin men this morning.
If I have any poly bags from the shops I will use one on a peg to hold things that can't go to be recycled.I suppose one of those once a week goes across to the rubbish bin in my local precinct two minutes away from my house.This bin is emptied every day.At the moment our council isn't using food waste recycling, only paper car and empty tins.

Pollycat

bluebag wrote: »

Not posted on here for a good while, so Hi to all. One thing that bothers me a lot about my recycling is the need to wash everything out before putting it in the bin.

I wonder if anyone has done a study on how many extra resources are consumed nationally for this. Clean water requires a lot of processing.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Hi bluebag, I wash my stuff up for recycling but I can't see how it's using any extra water as it's the same bowl of water that I use for the regular dishwashing.

Me too.
It would never have occurred to me to use clean water to rinse out a can of tomatoes.
It goes at the side of the sink and after I've finished the pots & pans, in it goes. I keep an old washing up sponge to use.

But - I don't have a dishwasher (and never have had one).
Could that be why bluebag washes out her tins etc? Because they can't go in the dishwasher?

My Mum reckons she's the only one in her set of flats (senior citizens, warden controlled) that actually washes out tins.
She guards her very clean burgundy bin very carefully.

GreyQueen

I honestly can't see why people feel that washing up the recycling is onerous. Unless you're eating off paper plates, presumably you're either dishwashing by hand or by machine, and the recycling can go at the same time?

I have a small silicone spatula which I use to get the last scrapings out of jars (depending on the viscosity of the contents, they might have been inverted for a while first). Ditto food cans. This means I can use every least dreg of the product which is very MSE and then minimises the washing up. The actual washing up takes seconds at the end of the bowlful.

After all, you ate the contents shortly before, why does the container with the dregs of the food on have to be treated any differently than the plates/ bowls with the dregs of the food on?:rotfl:

With a lot of things, it's simply a case of forming a habit. My kitchen is absolutely tiny and I manage all this without breaking sweat.

Rainy-Days

GreyQueen wrote: »

I have a small silicone spatula which I use to get the last scrapings out of jars (depending on the viscosity of the contents, they might have been inverted for a while first). Ditto food cans. This means I can use every least dreg of the product which is very MSE and then minimises the washing up. The actual washing up takes seconds at the end of the bowlful.

I love my silicone spatulas and I would say over the time I have had them (about ten years or so) they have more than paid for themselves doing jobs like this! Brilliant invention.

When I had to do the major loft clear out and also housemove I was at the recycling centre a reasonable amount; in fact the first three weeks I was there practically three times per week - so yes you are right.

Last time I was there was this summer after we had, had a big cull in the garden of shrubs etc.

GreyQueen

I wouldn't go as far as to run back into a burning building to save my silicone spatulas (I have 3, various sizes) but they are so useful that they would be high on my list of items to replace after a catastrophe.

lillibet_dripping

GreyQueen wrote: »

I've been thinking about this a lot over recent years and have come to the conclusion that I need to spend more time with my independants than I do with the supermarkets. If I buy mince from my independant butcher, it is scooped from a tray in the counter and bagged in a thin one-use plastic bag with a tape seal. If I buy the same thing from a supermarket, it is incarcerated in a plastic coffin (recyclable here) with a peel off plastic film lid (not recyclable here). Much more packaging.

I wonder if when I next need mince, if I take a spotlessly clean container, if they'll tare it on the scale and scoop straight into there, or if they'll scoop the mince onto a small bit of paper/ plastic on the scale and then shoot that into my container? Or if they'll refuse outright? I've been shopping with them for years and we have an affable relationship. I could try this at some point next week (meal plan for this week involves non-mince things which I already own).

EXACTLY THIS! They might quote health and safety at you, but the way I see it is if I come down with food poisoning because I've brought my mince home in my own container, I'm hardly going to take them to court over it because their lawyer will say 'did you use our packaging' and I will say 'no', therefore case dismissed.

All this discussion over plastics clarifies in my own head that what I'm trying to do is pre-cycle. Get rid of the packaging in the first place. At the moment, I see I will have to shop locally instead of at the supermarket - and that can only be a good thing.

Thank you to all of you who understand what I'm trying to do. I can't change the world, only MY world - one step at a time.

Thank you though to those posters offering a different opinion. It's always good to see the other side.....

greenbee

Rainy-Days wrote: »

I am the only one in the house that has yoghurt - DH avoids it! I also have it occasionally here and there so to make it and buy for example the Easi-Yo stuff is completely wasteful! If you are a family you can do this, but if you live on your own, or if there is just two of you, which vast amounts of households now are - then the argument becomes defunct doesn't it!

I live on my own and make my own yogurt. You don't have to make a full litre at a time, but I usually do. It will last up to 10 days sometimes - but if I'm not eating a lot for breakfast/post-run smoothies I'll use it in cooking e.g. curries. It can also be used to make soft cheese.

When I do buy yogurt for starters, I try to buy the ones that have a very thin plastic pot with a cardboard sleeve (or if I'm in the right place, a 100% cardboard pot).

Variation in recycling throughout the country IS frustrating. My parents have gone from having some of the worst, to one of the best (food waste, yogurt pots etc). Large cities tend to be good as well, as they have to pay for landfill in other areas.

Since I moved I no longer have doorstep glass recycling (but the bottle bank is behind the pub about 10 minutes' walk away, so good exercise), but do find the limitations on plastics and lack of food waste recycling frustrating. I can't currently compost food waste as my garden (like the house) is in a constant state of upheaval! My local tip is closer - but doesn't offer as many recycling options. However, it does do far more in the way of reselling of decent stuff than the old one (I bought a tripp trapp high chair for £5 - just needs repainting as it is currently purple...). The main tip is pretty good but busy, although I'm not sure that they do tetrapaks. I'm currently trying to make space in the garage so that I can store them to take to the site I know does do them when I'm passing.

My shopping tends to have minimal packaging - mostly I buy from a farm shop where nothing is packaged (bar the odd elastic band or paper bag which they are more than happy for you to leave behind). I find any trip to the supermarket makes me swear off them for ages.

My one indulgence is bottled water. I know this is bad, but the stuff that comes out of my taps is undrinkable, even after filtering, unless you remember to run the tap for ages. It might be better if I was using more water, but I found I was avoiding drinking and ending up dehydrated, so bottled water is the current solution.

Rainy-Days

greenbee wrote: »

I live on my own and make my own yogurt. You don't have to make a full litre at a time, but I usually do. It will last up to 10 days sometimes - but if I'm not eating a lot for breakfast/post-run smoothies I'll use it in cooking e.g. curries. It can also be used to make soft cheese.
.

I would never ever use it for soft cheese because I will be honest I really detest the stuff and cottage cheese would make me gag! It's either mature cheddar and at Christmas Stilton. I don't use yoghurts in curries either (only cream) and I only tend to buy maybe a couple of the Tesco Finest or the Sainsbury's TTD yoghurts. Sometimes if they have them on offer - and they have a reasonable shelf date I will get four, but I only tend to eat them late spring and through the summer months.

There is just no notion or even a modicum of interest on my part of making yoghurt! Sounds harsh, but I am not interested at all. I would much rather spend time either baking or arranging a really nice evening meal. We have 15 acres here along with three horses, two dogs and a cat, which takes up a fair amount of time and the fact that I have the freedom to buy the yoghurt when I want to is something that is personal to me! Faddling around making yoghurt then having to eat because I have made it and it's there (because I do not like food waste) is actually making it for all the wrong reasons entirely and in the end I am more likely to just throw it out - and what waste of money that is!

Years ago there was a programme on channel 4 called Wife Swop. Very interesting programme and a social experiment which showed clearly how different people live their domestic lives! The way I do things would be absolutely so different to how you do it. One size does not fit all and washing yoghurt pots out for the sake of it is in my homeis just utter madness when I simply have no forward on use for them in any sense or form. I have a whole shed full of plant pots, BTW!

The issue is simple, recycle where I can and if I can't then it goes into the refuse bin and it goes for incineration. I am not losing sleep over yoghurt pots and empty tins of beans when quite honestly there are bigger things going on in the world that we need to become more vexed about. The banning of plastic carriers bags was the right thing to do and for many years I used my own bags anyway - I used to get some strange looks when I took my fifteen year old traditional whicker basket into town, now I hardly get a stare with the bag tax enforced.

Palm oil and unncessary significant amounts of sugar added to our food is something that is a far bigger issue!

fuddle

Yoghurt can be made in the home with little more than a flask equipment wise. A small amout of yoghurt as a starter, powdered milk to help with thickening and, of course, milk.

Going right back to basics HFW talk about 'radiator milk' using a tub of the above, settled on the radiator. Having tried all three methods (slow cooker too) the radiator method was the best.

https://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/radiator-yoghurt.

One tub bought as a starter and a container for atop of the radiator then reuse both the tub and left over yoghurt for the next batch.

Apologies. I have just read that you have no inclination to make yoghurt. Hopefully the above will help someone else