Meet the bin slimmers from Bucks & Lincs

Each week, since the start of The Rubbish Diet Challenge, we've had the chance to learn more about the individual challenges and the focus of each of the households that have volunteered to be taken through their waste-busting missions. We've scooted around Suffolk, dropped into London, as well as New York, and now this week, it's time to visit Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire to catch up with two more families who are making great changes to their waste.

Meet Melanie


Melanie lives with her husband, two children and their pet dog (and a seasonal snowman), in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire.

Although life has been very busy of late and they haven't been able to embrace the steps fully, Melanie is pleased that they have been extra vigilant about what goes in their general waste bin and they now always consider whether it could be recycled rather than mindlessly throwing it away.

This has substantially reduced their general waste and she says she is now ashamed about how relatively easily it has been achieved.

However, they have found some aspects particularly challenging.  Until now, their kerbside recycling hasn't been great, but she is pleased to hear about the positive changes that Aylesbury Vale will be introducing later this year, (including the collection of cardboard and food waste ), which Melanie thinks will have a great impact if people make full use of them.

They also can't easily recycle Tetra Pak cartons or plastic bags/wrapping etc and Melanie would love to have these facilities incorporated into facilities at their local Household Waste Recycling Centre.  Commenting on their use of Ocado for their shopping delivery, she also confirms that although the service will take back carrier bags, drivers no longer always ask customers and she often has to prompt the driver.  She now wonders whether the delivery service could extend its efforts a little, e.g. taking back other packaging that's recycled by other customers at the local store.  I can't help but agree.


Meet Tim

Tim lives with his wife and three children in the Boston district of Lincolnshire.

And he did make me chuckle when he said that he is trying to wean himself off a lifetime's addiction to throwing stuff away.

He's confessed that for him, throwing stuff away has felt pretty good - addictive, spiritual and cleansing. He says he's thrown a lot of stuff away without really thinking about it. Out of sight is out of mind, after all.


Until now.

He now has that nagging feeling that he should be doing something - anything - to reduce the mountain of stuff he sends to landfill. He says this has actually struck a chord as far as his recycling credentials are concerned.

And the one thing that he's been particularly focusing on since the start of The Rubbish Diet, has been how to divert his kitchen scraps.

Tim's realised that if there's one thing more satisfying than having a clear out, it's getting something for nothing. So he's got himself a brand-new compost bin, which is now an eager recipient of potato peelings and other kitchen waste that otherwise would have filled his bin.

As Tim said, in his closing statement, when I asked how he was getting on:

 "It's rubbish, Jim, but not as we know it".

I couldn't have put it better myself, even if I did suddenly feel that his mission was teetering on the edge of galactic exploration. If I didn't know better, next time we see that compost bin, I sense it will be looking more like a space rocket.

As long as he keeps his compostables in his garden and doesn't try launching them into outer space, I guess that's okay.

For further progress on how Tim's getting on with his challenge, visit his most excellent blog at Bringing up Charlie.

Meet the bin slimmers from Suffolk

Every week, I like to find out more about the households that have taken on the Rubbish Diet Challenge and who have allowed me to have a physical or virtual rummage through their bins.  And this week, we're back in my own county of Suffolk to catch up with a couple of bin slimmers, Kate who lives in one of Mid Suffolk's pretty villages and Jax who lives over on the coast.

Meet Kate

Kate lives with her husband in Mid Suffolk, just a few miles away from Ness, who was featured on the blog a couple of weeks ago.  I had the pleasure of visiting her quite recently, where she was brave enough for me to rescue a few things from her kitchen bin.

Kate has been making great progress on slimming her bin over the last few weeks (just two and a half bags this fortnight), and I wanted to find out what were and still are her key challenges. She admits, like anyone trying to reduce their household waste, that it's in changing her habits.

Never having given great thought previously to what she threw where, her Rubbish Diet has prompted Kate to look at the new recycling facilities that are available locally. Having realised she can recycle a lot more than she'd thought, she is now focusing on trying to introduce new habits.

It is interesting what comes up during such discussions and Kate has revealed that parking issues at her usual recycling site have, in the past, made her lose patience to the point that she's previously bunged stuff in the landfill bin rather than face driving there. However, she's now keen to try out the Bury St Edmunds site, which is about the same distance away, as well as local supermarket recycling areas, which she knows are much more than just bottle banks these days.

Kate also recognises that since most of her household waste comes from ordinary domestic groceries, she's going to try to stop and think before she buys, to reduce packaging in absolute terms, and to ensure what she buys can be recycled.  And thanks to the wide range of plastics recycling available in Suffolk, that means she will be able to recycle a heck of a lot.

More information about Kate's progress can be found on her blog www.businessplumber.co.uk and via Twitter where she tweets as BusinessPlumber and SaffronKate.


Meet Jax

Jax lives with her partner and their growing family in one of Suffolk's large towns in the Suffolk Coastal district.  For a household with three children, aged 12, 8, and 2, and another baby due in March, her rubbish (filling half a wheelie-bin every fortnight) isn't really excessive, but she knows there are other ways to reduce it down. 

For Jax, the hitlist mainly includes recycling Tetra Paks, (for which she's currently hunting down her local recycling point), reducing packaging where possible, and replacing her daughter's night-time disposable nappy with washable alternatives.

With the news that most film packaging and hard plastics can be recycled at our county's Household Waste Recycling Centres, Jax's bin should be well on the way to slimming down over the coming weeks.  She's also planning to test out the Bambino MioSolo nappy so hopefully that will make a difference too.  And with a supply of other regular reusable nappies to hand, when the new baby arrives sometime around Mid March, this shouldn't have a major impact on the household bin.

It will be interesting to see whether the new arrival will decide to make an appearance during the challenge's Zero Waste Week in week 8. If so, we might all have to down tools and celebrate.

Follow Jax over on her blog at LiveOtherwise and she can also be reached at Twitter under the same name @LiveOtherwise.

Meet the bin slimmers in London & New York

It's been great catching up with the volunteers who have taken The Rubbish Diet challenge, and finding out more about the specific issues that they are facing, as well as the new opportunities that they are discovering to help them reduce their household waste.  So, having introduced you to a couple of households in Suffolk last week, this week we're heading for the city, or rather two cities, and saying hello to Donna in London and Amy over in New York.


Meet Donna

Living in London, with a challenging job that involves spending a lot of time away from home, means that with most aspects of her personal time, Donna has the "balance challenge".  Taking on The Rubbish Diet is no exception to that rule!

For things to work for Donna and her husband (who also has has a time-consuming job) they really need efficient systems.  Efficiency and ease are highly important to them.  They don't have a car so for "bin slimming" habits to stick, their efforts need to be practical for the true urban dweller!

Donna tells me that their local council Tower Hamlets has really embraced recycling and makes it very easy for residents, and they also have a kerbside food waste collection programme.  Since starting The Rubbish Diet, she has also discovered that a green garden waste collection is available for homes in her area, and was able to request for her street to be included, which will now be effective from next week.

She's found that local shops have been extremely helpful too, with facilities to recycle plastic bags, batteries and Brita water filters.  A visit to her mobile phone provider prompted her to look into the Electrical Waste recycling that companies are obliged to provide and following a search on Google, she also learned about Sky's programme to take back older electrical satellite decoding boxes via a Freepost address.

Although Donna didn't tell her husband about this project at first, he was supportive from the moment he read her initial blog post.  He has had some great ideas, including better labelling for their bins at home, and ensuring they verify with the council what should be included in each bin.  For Donna, it will be interesting to see his reaction to changes as the weeks progress - and to figure out together how they can keep things simple, straightforward, and a part of their routines once the eight weeks are over.

Read more about Donna's progress on her blog: www.beatinglimitations.com/blog


Meet Amy

Amy lives with her husband in New York City and they already recycle a lot, so for them waste reduction is going to be the key challenge, and in particular food waste.

 

As well as having a regular waste collecton service, the couple also installed a garbage disposal unit in their kitchen, when it was remodelled last year. These used to be outlawed in NYC, but regulations have allowed them in recent years.  

 

However, Amy tells me that although it has decreased the amount of food waste going into their rubbish bin, it doesn't address their actual food waste issue and this is something she would like to work on.  She's also considering starting home composting by week 8 of The Rubbish Diet, which at the moment seems like a huge step.

This week, she's decided to take measures and ditch the disposables too, including tackling her coffee machine and switching to the reusable k-cup filter and buying coffee in bulk. She's also making the switch from disposable paper towels.

Amy tells me that her fellow rubbish dieters have inspired her to look further into the plastic bag recycling over in New York and she's now found that she can also take other types of plastic bags to participating retailers! 

 

You can find out more about Amy's progress on her blog: www.beyondthebluebin.com