Steps towards zero waste - 2019

francophilissima

Hi inkie
Log on to Milkandmore who deliver nationwide in good time for breakfast. They also do juice cereals etc

Monty_Mouse_2

I agree with GreyQueen and Lifeisforliving19, I hate buying bin bags.


We get a lot of charities posting bags through the door for clothes collections, they make fantastic bin bags.



Also if we've bought something on-line and it's been delivered in a pastic bag then it gets reused as a bin bag.


Obviously, I'd prefer not to use plastic at all for bin bags, but given we have no where near us that will take plastic bags for recycling it seems better to reuse them for another purpose rather than just throwing away.

Greenbuzby

I love drinking fizzy water but felt bad about all the empty bottles so I bought a soda stream. I have 2 bottles that I re-use instead of filling up the bin every week with them.

GreyQueen

Monty_Mouse wrote: »

I agree with GreyQueen and Lifeisforliving19, I hate buying bin bags.


We get a lot of charities posting bags through the door for clothes collections, they make fantastic bin bags.



Also if we've bought something on-line and it's been delivered in a pastic bag then it gets reused as a bin bag.


Obviously, I'd prefer not to use plastic at all for bin bags, but given we have no where near us that will take plastic bags for recycling it seems better to reuse them for another purpose rather than just throwing away.

Pretty much my attitude, if I have the plastic, I might as well use it to contain refuse, rather than put it in another plastic bag which has been specifically manufactured to contain refuse.


I also use the plastic bags from multipacks of TP for the same purpose. My parents' home is snowed under with a ridiculous quantity of those bags from charities, several arrive per week. There are serious questions about the legitimacy of some of these charities, those that are legit are donating a very small % to the named charity, sometimes nogoodnicks drive around stealing the bags before the proper collection, and sometimes they have put bags out on the specified collection day and they've not been picked up.


For all those reasons, they do not use these bags for anything other than lining the kitchen bin. Their household of four (the adults one cat) fills one of those a fortnight, the rest is composted, recycled or repurposed.


Actual charity shop donations are taken by hand when they go shopping and delivered straight to the chosen charity plus gift aid.

dolly84

I don't leave those charity bags out either. I was told that they weigh in the clothing for rag but I don't know if that is the case or if they are sending it to other countries. I donate to the shop and I also have a bag on the go for rag which I donate to them too so they can weigh it in themselves.

-taff

Read the backs carefully, they print a lovely big picture on the front of who they purport to be supporting, but it's the same as the clothing banks that pop up everywhere, 1% goes to the charity, the rest goes to them. I'll make my own rag bag thanks, and sell it myself. And since it's unsolicited mail, the bags get turned inside out and the plastics recycled in it.

Nonnadiluca

We used to be inundated with these bags - more unwanted rubbish for us to deal with - so I have a sign on the letterbox, " No charity collection bags thank you". It's done the trick!

-taff

Just had one through the door, collecting for The British Forces Foundation...read the bag...£100 per tonne goes to the foundation. Depending on how the clothing is used, it's worth anything from 300 to 2,500, so....will never be putting anything in one of those bags.

stirchleygirl

Evening all - just found this thread via Martin's weekly email - and have had an enjoyable time reading through everyone's individual journey's, ideas and recommendations. I would like to reduce my waste as much as possible (I'm not going to aim for Zero as I'm disabled so some things are impractical for me to implement) and you all have really got me thinking.

Going back to some of the first posts about wrapping paper I've always opened my gifts carefully (I now use scissors) to be able to re-use the paper (started as a kid as we were poor - kept doing it as an adult as finances were tight and whilst I'm now - recently - financially comfortable I still do it to generate less waste) all those that I give gifts to (not just Xmas) know that I do this (and one family of friends who were initially shocked at how I opened gifts (from their point of view it was not fun if you didn't just rip the paper off) eventually admitted that they now 'do a Sandra' and save theirs for re-use. Apart from having to purchase a couple of rolls of Xmas paper a few years ago (in the Jan sales of course) to wrap larger gifts that don't fit the saved paper I haven't purchased wrapping paper (incl. birthday's) in decades. I also save all the gift bags, tissue paper, ribbons/bows/decorative bits to re-use (ribbon even plastic ribbon can be ironed flat on very low setting or cover with tea towel for re-use). Wrapping paper and tissue paper that can't be undone neatly (if shape of gift was awkward or they used copious amounts of tape) gets cut free of tape - if it can't be peeled off - and then put through the shredder to make that shredded gift packaging that can then be used to pad the bottom of a box or gift bag. My parents save me gift bags and ribbons from their gifts and any nice boxes that I can package a gift in (just cover the writing with some saved wrapping paper or a saved greeting card front using double sided tape). My sister gets quiet expensive gifts given to her that come in very posh boxes that she saves for me. I also save all greeting cards to re-use as gift tags or to make into new greeting cards. One friend even saves any greeting cards that she doesn't want to keep herself for me to re-use. I also save padded envelopes and those grey plastic mail bags from parcels that get sent to me to re-use when I need to post gifts to people.

I too reuse charity bags as bin liners but they also come in handy at Xmas to bunch groups of gifts together in that my sister collects to take back with her for her and her family and then other bag(s) to take to my parents for me. I never thought about re-using the tiny bags that they come in so I'll have a think about what I can use them for as I don't have pets. Actually I think I'll just do a sign for the door asking for them not to be put through alone with fast food menus and other unsolicited mail to save those just having to be put straight in the recycling bin.

I shop online for virtually everything due to my disability and whilst most SM do bag-less deliveries some still use bags so those get used in the small waste bins that are in each room. The small bags that some of then still use to contain some food stuffs get saved to put over the Av0n catalogue when I put it outside for collection.

Also as already mentioned some items from other online stores often come excessively packaged but I've noticed a shift to brown paper being used more instead of bubble wrap/polystyrene nuggets or those plastic air filled bags. Obviously I keep the delivery boxes, brown paper, bubble wrap & poly nuggets for future use but deflate and throw the poly bags. My PA (AKA carer) loved me at Xmas as once she saw my stash of parcelling items asked if she could use some which as I have a large stash I was have to let her have what she needed.

Inspired by this thread I did a search for other local ZW stores (thanks for the rec of CK in Brum) and came across this blog https://www.zerowastelife.co.uk/ that appears to have some useful info that some of you might find of use - though you probably already know the stuff.

I'm seriously going to go with less cleaning products once current ones have been used up. I already have bar soap in bathroom for morning hands & face wash (as done sitting down) but have anti-bacterial in hands-free dispensers in bathroom and kitchen for when just washing hands and for my PA to use (I did buy it in a 5litre bottle - plastic - but I suppose overall uses less plastic than buying individual hand-wash to the same quantity) and will be using some of it waters down in a spray bottle (when current purchased anti-b spray is finished - I will re-use that spray bottle for the purpose so prolonging its life.

I like the idea of colour coding cleaning cloths that someone mentioned. I have also saved the recipe for dishwasher powder that someone posted to have a go at when current box is finished.

I've got quite a lot of toiletries to use up but I will seriously consider what I replace them with and am looking at bamboo toothbrush and toilet rolls.

Someone on this thread mentioned about traveling for work and how they would tackle packing the solid toiletry bars - have you thought about getting someone of the OS soap containers (search online as travel soap container) most are plastic but would be long lasting I did spot a few metal ones but not sure about the rust factor/longevity.

Last year I purchased a mini cool-bag and a selection of sturdy easy open (as I can't always open/close those containers with the snap/clips) BPA free plastic food boxes (I can't have glass/crock/pyrex ones I as struggle to lift/hold weighty items) and got rid off (my PA had them) the old plastic take away containers that I'd been using as my immune system needs all the help it can get. This has enabled my PA to create my packed lunches for work from scratch and also batch cook the main meal and portion it up for me into these new containers (saves on cling film/foil) that I can then 'nuke' in the M/W so I no longer have to purchase ready meals with their mostly black plastic trays that our council is unable to recycle and is also much better for my health and finances. I'll have to ask my PA if she wants the rest of my cling film now it's no longer being used. I'll keep the foil as she uses it sometimes when cooking stuff in the oven.

I shall keep researching on ZW and looking at what I can change. So I'll be following this thread to see what everyone else is doing to keep me inspired. Thanks to the person who started this thread.

stirchleygirl

Inspired by those of you with or getting S0da Streams for fizzy drinks reminded me that I have an OS soda syphon lurcking very dustily on top of a kitchen wall cupboard. I did a quick g00gle and found that the gas cartridges are still available to buy so I'll be looking at getting that back in use and using it with squash for flavour as another poster mentioned. This thread is so inspiring.