Pack it in!

What is the Rubbish Diet Challenge? 

We're always trying to encourage our lovely locals to cut down on their waste, but how easy can it really be? Challenge accepted!!

Alongside 8 other bloggers we'll be following the top tips and advice of household waste guru Karen Cannard of The Rubbish Diet, as she encourages us on how to out our bin on a diet too! You too can see her tips and advice, as well as see how she got on when the spotlight was on her bins at http://www.therubbishdiet.blogspot.com/.

We'll be blogging away here, as well as tweeting on @RubbishGeek and Faceybooking at Letswasteless Nelc

Week 2

Shopping in a waste aware way

This week’s focus for The Rubbish Diet Challenge is on Shopping!

I was feeling rather smug as I decided not to put out my general waste bin this week. All it had in it was a few pieces of polystyrene from a new TV. I wonder if there’s a way of buying electrical goods unpackaged?

Unfortunately because I wasn’t putting out my general waste bin, I forgot to put out my very full recycling boxes, so it’s either a two week wait or a trip to our friendly local Community Recycling Centre. And it rained. So they’re heavy. L

I went to an interesting talk this week with work on over-packaged products, and what consumers can do about it. Did you know you can report companies to Trading Standards if you feel something has excess packaging?

They can open up conversation with the company on improving efficiencies, making the packaging more easily recyclable or out of recycled materials. If the company can’t justify why the packaging use has been chosen, they may have to change it. I actually started boycotting one supermarket at one time because they had vac-packed an individual pepper!

Over the weekend I’ve been cleaning out my fridge ready for the fortnightly(ish) shop that’s well needed and using up leftovers. A lot of the products I’ve been buying come in the annoying plastic film, like my bag of beansprouts and pack of crumpets. This film can now be recycled at stores that have plastic bag recycling, so I’ll have to start separating it out as it would eliminate the majority of my waste. I don’t know if this includes clingfilm though. I prefer using old margarine tubs for leftovers. Clingfilm feels like an indulgence now!

However, it’s not just about recycling it, how can I avoid it? I already have reusable bags for my loose fruit and veg, but some things aren’t really sold loose locally to me (that I’m aware of).

It’s a case of weighing up between how much do I want a product if I can’t avoid extra packaging to go with it?!

I am very keen on my stylish reusable bags, but was pleased to spot spare cardboard boxes available at the end of the tills in the supermarket the other day.

Summary of waste for the week: 1 black bag of kitchen waste

Action for the week: Find a separate point to collect plastic films. Stop using clingfilm!