Celebrating the launch of The Rubbish Diet in Shropshire

Meet Ali, my new partner in grime from Shrewsbury. Well, I say 'grime' what I really mean is striving for lighter, cleaner bins throughout Shropshire.

Ali Thomas is the driving force behind the launch of the Rubbish Diet challenge in Shropshire. Organised by Ali and Katy Anderson, as a Transition Shrewsbury project, the challenge was announced on Thursday to a room full of local residents who are now set to slim their bins before Christmas.

The Shropshire project will be based on the Internet-based Rubbish Diet 2012 challenge, which I ran earlier this year and I will be working closely with Ali to develop resources and processes that can be tailored to help empower the local community.

The households, which are taking up the challenge over the next few weeks, will play a vital role in helping to gather research on local waste issues and waste-reduction opportunities, supporting the next phase of the project, which will be launched in the new year.

It really is an exciting time for the development of the Rubbish Diet into the wider community and it's great timing that this is being rolled out in Shropshire now, supporting the recent news that Shropshire council has recently launched a mixed plastics collection.  Naturally, there will be challenges for the residents, as cardboard is no longer collected from the kerbside, but Transition Shrewsbury is already prepared for that and will be re-running its successful 'Cardboard Christmas' campaign that took place last year.

The Rubbish Diet Shropshire project already has its own blog, where Ali will be posting regular advice and updates.  You can also follow the latest news on Twitter, via @RDShropshire

If you know anyone in Shrewsbury, or Shropshire, who would love to get involved with this exciting challenge, please forward these details, so they can get in touch. If you are interested in running a similar challenge in your own community, I also would love to hear from you. Email enquiries@therubbishdiet.co.uk.

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More information can be found at www.rubbishdietshropshire.blogspot.co.uk.  Ali Thomas can be contacted by email at alison.thomas08@gmail.com.

The Rubbish Diet Challenge goes on tour!

I am immensely excited to announce that the Rubbish Diet Challenge, which until now has been kept to the confines of the Internet, is, for the very first time, being launched as a community based initiative in a number of locations around the UK.

Inspired by my online challenge, which took eight households through slimming their bins at the beginning of the year, two organisations are now taking the concept into their local communities and are seeking volunteers who want to reduce their waste for an 8 week challenge, set to start in the new year.

Transition Town Shrewsbury in Shropshire is launching its Rubbish Diet Challenge next week, to an audience of community leaders and interested residents, to outline how they can be involved in creating a fabulous slimming club with a difference. I am delighted to confirm that I will be attending the launch.

Elsewhere, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust launched its Waste Watchers Rubbish Diet project last week, highlighting its own exciting plan for weekly events to support all those who take part.  Emma Croft's interview with BBC Wiltshire (fast forward to 1hr 10m) calls for 8 residents from around the county to join in.


It really is an exciting time to witness the adoption of the Rubbish Diet by independent organisations and I can't wait to see the results. I also hope that these two initiatives will be the first of many that will be held around the country over the next couple of years.  So watch this space for further news.


For more information about the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust project, please contact Emma Croft on 01380 736074 or email EmmaC@wiltshirewildlife.org.

To find out more about the Transition Town Shrewsbury project or to attend its launch on Thursday 25th October (7-8.30pm at the Hobbs Room, Shrewsbury Library), contact Ali Thomas on 07972 858313 or email Alison.thomas08@gmail.com.

Talking biogas & green heroes with Kevin McCloud at Grand Designs Live

Kevin McCloud at Grand Designs Live. (photo copyright GDL)

If there's one event that's fast becoming a highlight of my annual calendar, it's Grand Designs Live and the opportunity to a have a peek at Kevin's Green Heroes. a collection of ten designers who have been handpicked by Kevin McCloud for their commitment to both sustainability and innovative ideas.

And this year didn't disappoint. From sustainably produced wallpaper to tiles, reclaimed wood furniture to rainwater harvesting, there is something to appeal to everyone who is interested in great eco-design.

For instance I love this gorgeous wallpaper by MissPrint, an Essex based business, which uses PEFC certified materials and non-toxic inks.

And I think Hendzel and Hunt's chairs, made from reclaimed hardwood and Victorian floorboards, are just gorgeous. I'd love them for my dining room.

But when it comes to products that can have a wide impact on waste reduction, the design that stood out for me this year is the Compo food waste digester, developed by Nottingham Trent graduate Oliver Ling.

Its sleek design makes it an attractive product for any kitchen and that is crucial for opening up the marketplace to those interested in better managing their food waste.  Not everyone has a local authority food waste collection and many people are simply not interested in the idea of bokashi bins or wormeries.  However, I can see a whole host of apartment-dwellers and gadget-geeks taking a keen interest in this.

What sets the Compo apart from other systems is that as well as creating well-digested compost, its key by-product is actually biogas. Stored in small canisters, an easy collection system is central to its design, allowing its owners to earn money from the fuel generated from their domestic food waste.

Of course the message to households should always be to reduce what they can, but a solution like this helps to manage residual food waste and turn it into something useful that benefits the individual, instead of carting it off in trucks.

As I declared my particular interest in this to Kevin McCloud, he tempers my excitement with the news that the Compo is still only a prototype.

"Green Heroes usually features products that are already available for consumers to buy," he confirms. "However I thought this was such a good idea, I had to include it."

And I am glad he did because I can really see a lot of potential here.

Having caught up with the designer, Oliver Ling, it became clear that the driver behind the product was his own passion in helping to tackle the food waste problem. The prototype was created as his final year project at university, where he undertook a lot of primary research analysing the contents of domestic rubbish bins.  This is further demonstrated in that the Compo is designed to be manufactured from recycled plastic derived from food packaging.

"I wanted to design something that was sustainable," Oliver affirms.  "In fact, I believe it is so important, every product designer should get involved with sustainability".

Designer Oliver Ling, at the Green Heroes stand at Grand Designs Live

I couldn't agree more. Designers have immense power to revolutionise the future waste landscape, either through designing-out wasteful and hard-to-recycle materials from their products or in developing new processes and infrastructures that manage our wastes better.

I was interested in Kevin McCloud's view on this, especially as there is potential to develop more scaleable applications of the Compo.

And having watched his recent series of Man Made Home, which involved the construction of a cabin that enabled him to live off-grid, it was the localised production of biogas that particularly caught my attention.

Politely referring to it as "Episode 3", rather than "the one where you cooked on gas made from your own poo", the programme featured a visit to an Anaerobic Digestion plant, which incorporates the collection of dog poo and other materials to create a rich compost and biogas, capable of powering a small village.

Kevin wanted to apply this idea to his own cabin experience and in an entertaining fashion set about building an outdoor loo and biogas infrastructure to collect and process human wastes, supplemented by a good dollop of lion dung, which was retrieved from nearby Longleat.

"This isn't revolutionary," he insists. "And it's not unproven. In India, for 150 years, people have been building biogas digester systems across the country and lots of villages now have them."

Behind the obvious fun involved in building his own off-grid cabin, he was actually keen to explore what was possible, discover what could work in the UK and consider which solutions could be scaled up.

"I'd like it to go one step further and connect to the grid," he adds, "Especially as an average family can produce enough methane to cook all its food."

However, he doesn't envisage a future where households would have their own individual digesters and personally, despite my fascination for the subject, I feel a certain relief in that.

So what is the way forward?

Kevin tells me that the sensible way to do this is on a more ambitious scale, supporting several streets to divert waste from sewage systems into a local biodigester, which connects with the gas main to bring the energy source back into the home.

"Currently our infrastructure is national or regional," he says. "We could be considering all those services at a more local scale. Many sewage sites are starting to cover their tanks with methane collectors, but there is potential to create better self-sufficient communities."


"The infrastructures for collection already exist but we are very early in the process of transition and it will take philanthropists to influence and direct building self-sufficient communities."

"And where society once viewed those who once lived off-grid as green extremists, we are now considering them as true pioneers."


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Kevin McCloud is the ambassador for Grand Designs Live Birmingham and London.  For more information please visit www.granddesignslive.com

 

Trashed! An evening in London with Jeremy Irons.

Jeremy Irons and producer Candida Brady 

introducing Trashed at London's Raindance Festival

My passion for waste reduction has taken me to many places, but Saturday was the first time it's ever landed me in a movie premiere in the heart of London.

But you can forget the red carpet on this occasion, even if the leading man was Jeremy Irons. For Saturday's movie was not some glitzy affair in Leicester Square,but an independent documentary, being screened as part of an independent film festival.

Trashed, featuring Jeremy Irons and produced by Blenheim Films, takes us on a journey around the world highlighting the issues with how our waste is managed.  It begins with the sobering sight of a rubbish dump on the coastline of Lebanon, discussing the effects of the pollutants from physical trash and leachate that spill into the Mediterranean, a serious international environmental problem.

Closer to home, the portrayal of dioxins from toxic waste sites and incinerators renders the UK's experience just as harsh viewing.  In one of the few countries in the world where waste management is so tightly controlled and where we have some of the best technology available, it is shocking to hear that even a modern incinerator in Scotland has breached emissions limits 172 times.  And that's only since 2009.

Thanks to the effects of emissions and leacheate, even if they appear to be tightly controlled, there seems to be very little escape from the consequences of burying or burning our rubbish.

And sadly, the images of villagers in a developing country throwing their rubbish into the river behind their homes, drinking water from that river, washing in it and eating the fish that they had caught from it, suddenly felt like a microcosm of the wider world within which we live.

 
It's truthful to say that Trashed, with its evidence of the amount of chemicals reaching our food chain, is very depressing viewing, not to mention the shocking images of fish and mammals that are physically injured by the debris floating in the sea.

To add a few figures to this, oceanographer Charles Moore highlights that there is now six times more plastic in the ocean than zooplankton, which form the very basis of the food chain.  And it's not the physical plastic that we can see that should only concern us, but more worryingly the material that we can't, i.e. the stuff that's so small it's easily absorbed, suppressing immune systems, hormones and reproductive systems.

With examples of whales being now so heavily contaminated that many can no longer reproduce, the documentary makers refer to the analogy of the canaries in a coal mine, a worrying prediction that what currently affects these mammals, will in the course of a few generations affect us.

I don't think any of us like to face harsh news like this, especially if we don't have the scientific background to make judgments for ourselves.  We can always believe that it is someone else's problem or that it doesn't matter to us, because we don't witness it or we won't be around to experience the sorry consequences. The problem may be seen as being too great for us to handle anyway. And the result? We just go about our everyday business, pushing it into the back of our minds, continuing life as normal.

But personally, even with the hard-to-swallow science, my own ignorance and how insignificant my own contribution is in this global picture, I welcome documentaries like Trashed.

It is better to know what we are up against, so we can mobilise human intelligence to more widely monitor, reinvent, better legislate, engineer solutions and develop new economies that reverse such trends, as well as place political pressure on those who have the power to influence international development.

Trashed gives a taster of some of the efforts that are already taking place to better manage, at the very least, Western approaches towards waste, including the San Francisco Zero Waste programme, where it is a legal requirement for every resident and visitor to participate in the recycling initiatives.  The documentary also featured a new approach to modern retail such as that promoted by Catherine Conway and her shop Unpackaged in London.  Even without such frameworks and facilities, Rachelle Strauss of MyZeroWaste.com demonstrated to Jeremy Irons, how as an individual we can take better care in choosing what we buy and vote with our wallets.

So rather than hide from this harsh tale, I would much prefer we stared it straight in the eye and committed to taking some form of action, whether it's through changing our shopping choices, recycling efforts or participating in a spot of activism.

So next time you hear that it's better to burn or bury our rubbish than fight for well managed and resourceful zero waste solutions, I'd like you to think of Trashed.  But don't take my word for it, watch the trailer.


Jeremy Irons not only makes such a powerful storyteller but having witnessed the issues first-hand, he believes that with the right support and backing from consumers, industry and governments the situation is indeed curable.

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Trashed is being screened as part of London's indie film festival Raindance,and has been nominated for the Best Documentary Award.  It is being shown again, on Tuesday 2nd October at 3pm.  Another waste related film, being screened on Saturday 6th October, is the 10 minute short, Emptys.

If you are new to the idea of Zero Waste and want to know more about action that's being taken in the UK, follow www.myzerowaste.com and the Zero Waste Alliance UK (of which I am a trustee) for further news.

Beyond our bins: An inside peek at the UK's largest waste exhibition 'RWM with CIWM'

Having delivered a presentation last year at the country's largest waste management exhibition, I was keen to revisit RWM with CIWM and have a decent peek at what's really happening beyond our bins.

It looks like I wasn't the only one!.

The star attraction was not quite the latest wheelie bin that teleports your waste to the nearest recycling centre, but the rather marvellous Professor Brian Cox, who, thinking about it, could surely one day make that kind of magic happen.

He was, unsurprisingly, a teeny bit popular, so I tried another route in...

...but for want of a pair of stilts and an invisibility cloak, I failed, like a balloon that had popped too soon!

So very near to the particle recycling party, but yet so far.

And sadly very much out of earshot.

Thankfully, with the industry press fairy godmothers at the helm, I can still share the words of the prof, who not only teased the audience of waste professionals with the concept of space disposal, but on a serious note, reasserted that the Earth's resources are rare and must be protected.

But, I must confess I didn't trek all the way to Birmingham's NEC, just to see the professor.  I wanted to get a picture of how the waste industry is planning to helping householders and businesses waste less.  I soon got the impression that despite there still being many hurdles, those involved in the waste stream are ready to face these challenges, hurl themselves forward and keep improving targets.

Of course, the issue of targets is an interesting one and I was intrigued to discover what a panel of thought-leaders from the industry felt about the realities of Zero Waste.

Featuring senior representatives from APSRG, CIWM, WRAP and SLR Consulting, the message came over quite clearly that the view of panellists was that we will never quite reach 'zero waste to landfill'.

However, it was also discussed that great strides towards a zero waste economy are actually possible and regardless of never being able to hit zero, the benefits along the route are really worth the journey.

Maybe it is the optimist in me, but I would like to think that the members of the panel were all holding onto a secret hope that even though they said we'll never hit the magic zero, we will one day reach the rather cheeky figure of a 99.99% waste reduction rate. Okay, maybe I'm a tad extreme, perhaps for now I'll settle happily at 98%.

After all, this is the same panel which acknowledged that in 1980 the industry didn't even aspire to a 5% recycling rate and would have laughed at targets as high as 50%, a figure that in many areas is currently being met.

Another 32 years of innovation and rethinking will present a different picture, I am sure of it.

The industry already speaks of waste as now being a matter of logistics, with businesses such as Stobart  taking an interest.  It also acknowledges how it needs to be better at communicating the opportunities of designing out waste with designers and manufacturers, a process that really it shouldn't fear.  Better product design will bring better recyclate, which can be more easily streamed, fetching greater financial value in a properly managed circular economy. 

Elsewhere, we are also seeing stronger partnerships between recycling companies and manufacturers, such as Coca-Cola's joint venture with Eco Plastics.  From the retail perspective, Sainsbury's is seeking to work with local authorities to roll-out better recycling facilities at the company's stores, which will include mixed plastics recycling as well as banks for small electricals.  As for local authorities, those in charge of Household Waste Recycling Centres are increasingly seeking partners in the third sector to help push reuse, as illustrated by this recent example from Buckinghamshire

As for kerbside innovations it's great to see that developments in wheelie bin design, as well as collection vehicles, can now enable easy and smarter recycling opportunities, which offer better quality recyclables for the end markets.

However, for the industry to maximise its efficiency, it is also in the area of consumer education, where the waste sector needs to urgently innovate.

We can aspire to having the best recycling facilities in the world, yet if the materials needed to support that zero waste economy still end up in landfill or incinerators, the industry might as well pop on its slippers and smoking jacket and spend the next few decades staring into the flames of the comparatively unimaginative energy from waste.

The waste reduction and recycling messages must not just continue as they, they must be stronger and more innovative to capture the imaginations and support of a greater public, to inspire individuals and organisations to increase participation.

Independent businesses need to better understand the process of diverting their landfill waste to a recycling service, which many currently see only as a fincancial burden rather than the economic incentive that diversion offers.  And community leaders, should be encouraged to create zero waste plans that support their local areas, through recycling incentives and third-sector benefits.

Wherever EfW facilities exist, recycling messages need to be stronger still, and yes, I do recognise the irony.

There are so many fantastic innovations taking place that the waste sector has a huge story to tell.  Yet, the headlines which hit the mass media are normally those that knock the recycling process, leaving local authorities to work harder at the 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' message to battle the bad news stories.

It is encouraging to hear that industry journalists, such as the strong editorial team at MRW, are now forging closer links with the national media to help bring, into the public arena, news that would have once remained solely in the sector.

For it is the national media that has a key role to play in helping to change our behaviour.  As well as the "how to" advice that comes from local authorities and the Recycle Week campaigns organised by WRAP, we also need innovative features to entertain magazine & newspaper readers, TV viewers and social-media users.

Features that close in on exciting technologies, quirky recycled products, popular economics and science, or even delving into the odd celebrity bin!  It really is time for the sector to find its place in modern and popular culture.

Just imagine if someone like Clare Balding got uber-excited about waste reduction and let the cameras follow her rubbish, recycling rates would probably double by December, and if she did a double-act with Prof Brian Cox, we'd be hitting zero waste by the end of the decade.

Now there's an idea.

I rather like that.

I'll bear that in mind as I wander back to my washing-up!


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For an excellent industry overview of the highlights of the RWM with CIWM, visit Edie Waste and LetsRecycle.

I'm feeling all decluttered after National Zero Waste Week.

What a week!

I must have been absolutely out of my mind to suggest that I decluttered my kitchen for National Zero Waste Week. Nothing like pressure eh!

When I first mentioned my plans to my husband, he threw me one of his looks, accompanied by hands on hips, warning me that surely I'd got the wrong idea.  That really, I shouldn't aim to chuck so much out during a week intended to slim our bin.

Having ventured nowhere near the far corners of some of the cupboards for... er... 5 years, he had a point.  I really didn't know what I would be up against!

But look!  The overhaul of the kitchen cupboards didn't impact on our rubbish at all. 

That small bin bag, pictured above, is the sum of our landfill rubbish last week, despite getting rid of a load of stuff!

If I had attempted the declutter five years ago, it would have been a different story.  Not least because I probably wouldn't have gone to the trouble of sorting it.

These bags full of unused baking equipment and storage containers would still have probably gone to charity.

But most of this junk, now destined for the reuse\recycling skips at the Household Waste Recycling Centre would have no doubt ended up in the bin! Thankfully, these days our local facilities include containers for broken hard plastics and small electricals, which helps tremendously when you're in the midst of a blimmin' good clear out!

And as for this wonder drawer of mixed tat, my impatient hand would have dumped it all in a bag and got rid of it within minutes.

Instead, I set aside an hour to sort it properly, sending some random bits of plastic off for recycling and organising the rest of the stuff so it can be easily found and used.

Even the freezer, where our leftovers historically suffer a frozen death, received a visit from the decluttering hand, which helped to salvage a sausage casserole, a packet of mince, some fish, a dozen chipolatas and some bacon rashers,  This enabled me to happily avoid the supermarket for a week, using up what we already had.  I am such a lazy defroster and rarely plan ahead, the freezer proved to come up trumps as a right little goldmine during Zero Waste Week.  My aim now is to gradually work through the rest of the contents and relieve more space so that I can use it more efficiently.

But did I really achieve my overall aims last week?

Yes! I believe I did!  Working my way through this.

And creating much needed space in the cupboards to achieve this!

What pleases me most is that I am finally in control of the contents of my kitchen.  It took five days of sorting and clearing and no area has been left untouched. What helped me along were the wise words of a friend who reminded me that unwanted stuff left at the back of cupboards was just as wasteful as if it had been dumped into landfill. I am now confident that everything that I have kept will be put to good use. All the unused clutter has been rehomed and will no longer be wasted.

Of course my key aim was to create much longed-for space, so that I can put my creative culinary skills to good use again and be far better at avoiding food waste.

I can already see the return of the 'old me' and I have been busy cooking up the random contents found lurking in the fridge\freezer. And having rediscovered a whole cupboard of flour to use up, benefiting from that space once more has really proved to be the icing on the cake!

I now wonder which room I should tackle next!

So thank you to everyone who left supportive comments as well as all the Twitter crew who cheered me along during the week. 

As well as having my head firmly in the kitchen cupboards, I have also been busy waving the flag locally in Suffolk for National Zero Waste Week.  Huge thanks to BBC Radio Suffolk's Mark Murphy and James Hazell for giving me some much appreciated airtime.  And a major round of applause to Barry Peters, the editor of the Bury Free Press, for taking up the Rubbish Diet Challenge and doing a marvellous job for his own Zero Waste Week.

Well done to MyZeroWaste for an amazing awareness campaign for 2012. I was proud to support it.  For more information about what else was going on around the country, visit www,myzerowaste.com.

My pledge for National Zero Waste Week: decluttering my kitchen, the final frontier!

Yes, you heard it here first!

I'm going in!

Venturing deep into my kitchen, where for the first time in nine years I am going to attempt to clear out all the cupboards, banish the clutter, get organised and prepare myself for the new school term!

And that is my pledge for National Zero Waste Week, which kicks off on Monday.

The theme this year is to encourage participants to do that "one more thing" to reduce waste.

When I thought about what I could do, I knew that as we already recycle all we can, the only thing left to tackle was food waste. We still have some, not an enormous amount, but some food waste all the same.  And with the wormery still out of action, it's the main thing that gets sent to landfill, along sweet wrappers and crisp packets.

I thought if I pledged to use up what we have in the fridge during National Zero Waste Week, and try not to go shopping until we'd done that, it would be easy.

Then I thought again.

That's like putting a sticking plaster on a broken leg.

The truth of the matter is I CAN'T STAND MY KITCHEN!
 
These days, I spend as little time in there as I can get away with and yet underneath I am a bloody good cook with a sense of adventure for creating good food.

But I need space to create.

I simply don't have it.

And it's all got on top of me.

Our kitchen is tiny and as the household has become busier and busier, the space has become more and more cluttered. My previously much-loved gadgets,such as the yoghurt maker in the photo above, have become unused and gather dust, supporting bowls that can't even be squeezed into cupboards for lack of room!

All too often, when I'm at my busiest, I take one glance at the kitchen, and sigh, before scooting the family off elsewhere.  Then follows the guilt of trying to rescue perishables in the fridge before they die a certain death. And it is here that I sometimes fail.

So I've decided that this vicious circle must stop!

I need to clear out the stuff that I will never use again, rehome it or recycle it and find some space in the cupboard so that I can clear the worktop.

I must also decide how much I really need those gadgets and cookbooks.  The breadmaker, juicer and yoghurt maker all sell the idea of such a lovely lifestyle, but if they clutter up the workspace and make me feel too disorganised to use them, is there any point in keeping them?

And as for the sound effects that add to the atmosphere, my washing machine and dishwasher have both started groaning like a poor elephant with a hernia.

It really doesn't create a relaxing environment, so I'm going to see if we can get them repaired.

Then maybe, if I make it safely back from my excursion into the unexplored corners of my freezer, I will finally have the quiet, uncluttered, well-organised kitchen I dream of...

... and the creative space I need to avoid food waste!

This National Zero Waste Week pledge may be my toughest challenge yet, but I'm rolling up my sleeves and going in and hopefully I will feel better for it. Admittedly, I may need some gin first to avoid the lemons going to waste!

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To keep up with National Zero Waste Week, follow @MyZeroWaste on Twitter.  Now in its fifth year, the awareness campaign is really gathering momentum with a whole host of industry leaders, politicians and celebrities making personal pledges, and even before the week starts, over 800 people have signed up on Facebook. So it would be great if you could join in and do that "one more thing" to help tackle the world's waste. Just one more thing!  And I doubt it will be as tough as my blimmin' kitchen.