My war on waste!!!

greenbee

If you don't want to make yogurt, that's fine. And yes, better to buy the odd pot on the occasion that you want some. But as fuddle points out, others may not realise how easy it is (I don't bother with the powdered milk, and use UHT so don't have to faff around heating it up), or that it lasts well (after all, it hasn't been in the supply chain for days!).

I agree that palm oil and sugar need dealing with - I don't really buy processes foods so palm oil isn't often an issue for me, but I do consciously avoid it. As for excess sugar - well, home made yogurt means I feed my brother's kids natural yogurt rather than the overly sweetened stuff they get at home. They seem to like it just as much

Goldiegirl

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!

We are a household of two and have been using Easi Yo successfully for two years, but we both have a pot of yogurt each, every day.


Our original reason for doing this was to save space in the fridge. A weeks worth of yogurt, with all its packaging took up a lot of space in the fridge. We bought some yogurt pots and lids from eBay, and started making our own. A litre of Easi Yo fills 8 of our yogurt pots, so that's 4 days worth. We then wash and reuse the pots for the next batch


Later on, when I discovered that I needed to follow a low sodium diet, and I found Easi Yo has less salt in than most other yogurts. This is now my main reason for using Easi Yo.


The amount of salt in food is always more important to me than the cost - but if you buy carefully, in bulk from an online seller, the cost per pot is normally less than a branded yogurt.


Of course, it means don't end up with loads of empty yogurt pots to get rid of each week. But the yogurt we would have bought in the shop is still being produced, and someone else will have the empty pots to dispose of, so I get the argument that the 'waste' is simply being re-distributed into someone else's bin.


I remember, when I was small, my mum had an old shopping bag that the green grocer would 'pour' vegetables into after he'd weighed them. But in other shops, there was always some sort of packing. In the butcher, a piece of greaseproof paper would be used to put round the meat, then it's go into a paper bag of some sort. No one ever took their own containers in for meat.


I think all we can really do is our best, and don't beat ourselves up if we aren't perfect.


I recycle / re-use / rehome what I can. We can't recycle things like butter tubs, and I've never found a use for empty ones. So I throw them out. I've just finished de-cluttering my house - I'm not going to keep just in case butter tubs to re-clutter the place. But, ice-cream tubs are useful for the freezer, so I keep a few of those. But if I have too many, then the surplus goes the recycling.


We all have our limits about what we will and won't do. Personally, taking a load of tubs with me when I go shopping, to avoid using new packaging is way to far for me. Where would it end. Taking empty bottles out, and decanting washing up liquid into your old bottles?

Rainy-Days

Fuddle - I have no inclination to make yoghurt because as I have clearly made the point, it relates to food waste!

The biggest timebomb this country faces is actually obesity! It is over production and over consumption of food. Often that food is adulterated to exponential levels of sugar. We as a country lost the basics when Home Economics as a lesson was scrapped. I was lucky I loved it and I also had an amazing cook in my late Mum who taught me how to cook.

The ready meal revolution took off in the 1980's has increased ever since and we as a country have lost the basic principles of how to prepare a meal from scratch. That ultimately means that the ready meal packaging goes into the bin!

In January of this year the Open University along with Newcastle City Council did a three part documentary on waste processing - it was screened on BBC2. It was an eye opener! It wasn't yoghurt cartons being the issue or even the odd carton of milk or empty pop bottle. It was abject food waste. Whole loaves of bread and unbelievably a whole gammon joint still with the £40.00 price tag attached to it! Why they couldn't freeze it is beyond me!

If we meal planned and then purchased what was needed and necessary then the actual issues surrounding bin waste would be noticeable.

On top of all of this the NHS is facing the biggest health timebomb at any time in it's history and that is Type 2 Diabetes! A good friend of mine has now got it! The amount of tablets - all in unrecycleable plastic blister sleeves (none of which you can recycle) is stunning! One quarter (or therabouts) of the NHS budget goes on drugs! That figure is set to increase ever more.

The fact is festering over a plastic sleeve at the till is frankly a nonsence given that roasting a chicken in a toxic plastic bag defeats the object. There is just some packaging that cannot be helped, but the issue relates back to the original thread on this forum :-

Make Do, Mend and Minimise.

Its a brilliant thread and is a shining example of how upcycling and looking after your things pays dividends!

fuddle

I understand Rainy Days I posted the reply when I caught up to the bottom of page 3. I stupidly didn't look to see if there was a page 4. Apologies.

In your circumstances you feel that making your own yoghurt relates to waste. In my circumstances it's not so. It didn't hurt to leave the post up because it might inspire someone in similar circumstances to my own, to have a go at making their own yoghurt.

Rainy-Days

I am with you Fuddle - BTW need to make an apology to you!

Last night whilst lying in bed I was thinking on the SW issue and your post. I was unduly harsh particularly given that I had very limited contact with SW who dealt with Senior Citizens. I did have contact with a couple of SW's who dealt with those with special needs. I have to say that they were exceptional and gifted people who always strived for the betterment of their charges!

I worked in criminal field and TBH dealing with some of the SW there who thought that hugging a feral teenager who terrorised the neighbourhood (and then trying to tell us that actually he/she is so misunderstood) used to send allot of us to the edge of dispair! It is such that doing that job can make you (or me in this aspect) very hardened to the point of being bigoted - and I accept that!

So, apologies once again!

maryb

I wash out my pots and tins because the smell must be overpowering for the binmen otherwise - especially milk bottles. Another thing I do is squish plastic bottles so that they are no longer perfectly round having one windy day watched the poor binman chasing coke bottles down the road

mumps

I've found a new recycling opportunity, well it is new to me anyway. Just been to Sainsbury's pharmacy to collect my prescription and heard an announcement about recycling your poppies, apparently the Royal British Legion can reuse some of the parts. I don't know if anyone else is taking them but you can hand them in at Sainsburys.

Slinky

mumps wrote: »

I've found a new recycling opportunity, well it is new to me anyway. Just been to Sainsbury's pharmacy to collect my prescription and heard an announcement about recycling your poppies, apparently the Royal British Legion can reuse some of the parts. I don't know if anyone else is taking them but you can hand them in at Sainsburys.

We bought the little metal ones in previous years so reuse them and make a donation without taking a new poppy.

mumps

Slinky wrote: »

We bought the little metal ones in previous years so reuse them and make a donation without taking a new poppy.

I think there are more options now, used to just be the paper poppy. Sainsburys were pointing out that it would cut costs for RBL so meaning more money for the charity next year. I thought it was a good idea.

Justamum

mumps wrote: »

I think there are more options now, used to just be the paper poppy. Sainsburys were pointing out that it would cut costs for RBL so meaning more money for the charity next year. I thought it was a good idea.

The Poppy Shop has a huge range of products. I wear the small metal poppies. You can get them with the year on. Last year they had one with the years 1914/2014 on, and this year they've done a 1915 one. They'll probably done one for each of the years of WWI. This year there was a special three legs of Mann one sold just over here (I believe) which I bought. I'm getting quite a collection! I do, however, buy a couple of paper poppies because my children have to wear a paper one if they're going on parade with Scouts.

I think it's a good idea to recycle the bits they can.