The Third Weigh-In

It's a proud moment when you can see the efforts bringing rewards. Excuse me for a moment, while I just let out a huge shout of "weh-hey".

Can you see that small bag, which is just a little bit taller than the wheels? That's my rubbish!

And considering it's a fortnight's worth, there's not much of it. At a guess, I would say there's probably 25 cubic litres at the most!

There's only one week to go until the beginning of Zero Waste Week, so you can probably guess that I am now feeling quite confident, especially when you compare the results of the first weigh-in from 4 weeks ago.

Now that the food waste and cleaning fall-out have been dealt with, I just need to tackle the remaining nasties that are being sent off to landfill this week. Due to a very busy fortnight as well as the onset of a minor back injury, I'm afraid it wasn't my top priority over the last few days.

Besides, I would also hate to peak too soon.

In a week's time I have to start officially tracking the contents of my bin for St Edmundsbury's Zero Waste Week, so I need to think about what else has gone into the bin today to ensure such items can be avoided.

Apart from the unusual incident of having to dispose of some dog mess (thanks to an irresponsible owner who let their dog leave a "number 2" on my path), the main contents were plastic film that can't be sent for recycling. This kind of thing comes from grape packaging, dry cleaning covers and packaging from inside cereal cartons. There's also the odd butter wrapper, which is not yet manufactured to meet recycling standards, which is pants! However, I am pretty confident that I can crack most of these inconveniences this week.

So to aid the motivation this week, I have downsized the kitchen bin that we normally use for black bin waste. From now on, our lovely, shiny 50 litre brabantia beauty will be used for recycling.


The tiny green bin that you see next to it, will be used for our landfill waste!

Now here's the difference. Before starting The Rubbish Diet, I used to dispose of 2 or 3 bin-loads from the big shiny Brabantia every two weeks.

Even before the official start of Zero Waste Week, I am amazed at the prospect of not even filling this small green bin to its brim.

Isn't that incredible!

So, if you're motivated to have a go yourself. Just look at the links on the right where you can follow the story so far. It's only taken me 6 weeks, but in that time I've had to find out the knowledge myself. The resources on the right will give you all you need for a head start.

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