How the Bakers fared in Zero Waste Week

Last week, I promised I would catch up with the Baker family regarding the successes of their Zero Waste Week challenge, which was organised by Bath and North East Somerset Council.

Judith kindly provided me with a full summary of how the week went. It really brings home the actual issues to hand and helps put things into perspective for the average family, which is why I've sought permission from Judith to publish the full update.


SO....IT'S OVER TO JUDITH

"First the good news: the bin lorry passed my front gate at 8.30 this morning but there was no bin bag for it to collect from the Baker family. So it was indeed Zero Waste Week, for the first time ever. Should we break out the elderflower champagne?

Later perhaps - and, as always, the truth is more complicated.

Just before the screeching of brakes announced the imminent arrival of the Bath & NE Somerset Council refuse truck, I snapped on my rubber gloves and delved into the bin under the sink to see whether there was anything to put out.

There was indeed a little bit of rubbish. Not much, less than a quarter of one of our normal mini-swing bin liners. It was pretty well all plastic film of one sort or another, the sort not taken by Polyprint or Impact (at least, not according to their website). But there was nothing smelly or 'orrible, so I just weighed it (200g) and left it. And there was yet another lightbulb (150g). Hmm, what is going on here - that's three in two weeks. Low energy, short life?

Not all rubbish makes it into the main kitchen bin immediately, so one regular Monday morning task is to empty the bins in other rooms.

• Sitting room: all paper and card - no problem.

• Giant bin in my home-worker office: full to overflowing, but all paper which will go in the green crate on Thursday.

• Bedrooms: one family member has had a heavy cold so there was a mass of tissues. Someone once told me you can put used tissues on the compost, but I draw the line at putting tissues full of cold germs in with my vegetable peelings and grass clippings. Instead I wrapped up the tissues and put them in the bathroom bin, which is where the bad news breaks.

Those of a sensitive disposition should look away now:

• 2 old toothbrushes and one empty tube of toothpaste (35g); 1 empty bottle of cold remedy with an non-removable metal-and-plastic cap and two empty plastic pill packets (another 35g); Tissues and ummm ... feminine hygiene products (sorry, I did warn you) 200g The dratted contact lens pods - a rigid plastic dish and a plasticised foil lid (150g, two weeks' worth for 3 of us)

It was not a huge amount, certainly not enough to make me change my mind and run after the bin lorry, but it is clear that this is an area that needs a lot more work.

Finally, a review of the recyclables. In the cupboard under the stairs, along with the green crate for bottles, paper, tins and soft plastic containers, there is 475g of plastic wrapping destined for Polyprint.

I really do not mind sending one pack a month of very tightly screwed up magazine wrapping, frozen pea bags and bread bags to Norwich at a modest £1.52 a time.

Also awaiting action is 100g of rigid plastic. I tried hard not to acquire any at all this week, but my daughter and I would have starved on the long train journey home from York to Bath if we had not bought a prepared salad and a yogurt each.

I will send it to GHS, so it did not end up in the bin this week. But I am not going to make a habit of it, because the economist in me screams "This is madness". The pots needed washing up (warm water, eco-washing up liquid) and careful drying; they are bulky and will make an awkward parcel. And I simply do not believe it is sensible for individual households to post yogurt pots round the country.

I have heard a rumour to the effect that Bath & NE Somerset is considering collecting a wider range of plastics in the next 2 years. For me, that can't come soon enough. I would even be willing to take them to a Council depot, as I do with my Tetra-Paks, as long as it does not mean a special journey. (By the way, one of my neighbours takes his plastic back to the supermarket, on the basis that if they are confronted with it, they will mend their ways and start wrapping food in compostable or fully recyclable packaging. But garbage guerrilla action isn't my thing. Yet.)

Two lessons from this week: (1) packaging and forgetfulness are the enemy of zero waste, at least in this household, and (2) I would do a lot better if retailers reviewed their packaging policies and the Council collected plastics. "

Huge congratulations go to Judith and her family for reducing their rubbish to just under 800g in a week. The event has shown that even if a family's rubbish is still low, it is always worth signing up for a Zero Waste Challenge as it provides new opportunities to reassess the facilities that are available.

However, the news doesn't look good regarding Judith's plastics. I caught up with Sarah George, Waste Campaigns Officer for Bath & North East Somerset, one of the key organisers of the challenge, who confirmed that despite rumours there are no timescales or definite plans for extending plastics recycling at present. I guess this may change as markets are firmed up and infrastructures are developed in the future.

I also asked Sarah for some feedback on the council's Zero Waste challenge.

"We've been really pleased with the response to this year's Zero Waste Challenge Week". She told me

"Altogether 4 adjacent authorities have taken part and we've had staff teams, schools and community groups all getting involved and giving the challenge a go. We are looking forward to seeing how we can develop this challenge further in the future."

One of the adjacent authorities that Sarah mentioned was Bristol, where Just Gai has been participating her Zero Waste Week. So as we leave the Bakers with a congratulatory round of applause, do come back later this week to see how Just Gai has got on.

But before we head off to Bristol, I'd like to thank Judith for both participating in and supporting this blog. Her insight is a valuable one, as we strive to tackle this thing we love to hate...waste....! And her experience has definitely proven that once you've done a Zero Waste challenge, life can never be the same again.

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Can it get any better than this?

One week's rubbish, two year's on.

I’ve often wondered what life must be like several years after doing a Zero Waste Week. So you can imagine my excitement in discovering the Baker family from Bath who took part in a similar challenge two years ago

Judith and her partner Simon signed up to the challenge, along with their teenagers Matt and Laura, when Bath and North East Somerset council launched their first Zero Waste Week in 2006, a concept which had just been introduced to the UK from an idea that had already been spreading around New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to talk to Judith about her thoughts on waste and what initially attracted her to the original challenge.

“As a post-war baby, I had grown up with the waste-not-want-not message.” She told me, “My family were already behind the idea of leaving a smaller footprint on the earth and the Zero Waste Week supported both these ideals.”

Before their Zero Waste Week challenge, the family weighed their rubbish, two bin bags (swing bin size) which came in at 4.5 kilograms. By the end of the week they had reduced this by 80% to an amazing 900g, amounting to just half a bin bag.

Judith was already used to recycling, sorting newspapers, magazines, greetings cards and scrap paper, as well as glass bottles, jars, tins, cans for their kerbside collection. They were also lucky to have plastic bottles collected too along with batteries, textiles and shoes. Everything was sorted into plastic bags for their fortnightly collection. They generated very little food waste, so this wasn’t a problem. They also composted their peelings and whatever scraps were left would always be put out for the birds.

With excellent recycling facilities and with a garden waste service to boot, which also accepted cardboard, it might have seemed that there was nothing else to tackle. However this was not the case.

“Things like plastic fruit punnets weren’t collected by our council,” said Judith “neither were yoghurt pots or margarine tubs. We would also have had a problem with Tetra Pak cartons and polythene bags but I found out we could recycle Tetrapaks, posting them to Perry’s in Bridgewater and we could send magazine wrappings, frozen vegetable bags and bread bags to Polyprint in Norfolk”.

After all this effort I wondered what did actually end up in their Zero Waste Week bin two years ago. Judith enlightened me.

“Just some miscellaneous plastic packaging, such as crisp packets, a plastic tray from a tiramisu and a croissant wrapper as well as some scrambled eggs and baked beans that went wrong, which in retrospect could have been put on the bird table”.

Having made a massive reduction to their household waste, I was also keen to find out whether this effort was sustained after Zero Waste Week. What was the impact of the challenge and how much does the family now throw away?

Judith revealed “We now throw out one swing bin’s worth of rubbish per week. We learned a lot from the challenge and I have continued sending my polythene wrappings to Polyprint. It costs £1.52 per month to post a package weighing just under 500g. It would make things so much easier if the council collected all types of bags and wrappings. We also continue to recycle Tetra Paks, but no longer have to send them to Perry’s thanks to a recycling service set up by the council.”

This is a fantastic example of how once an individual or a family experiences such a challenge, life can never be the same again. Admittedly the amount of rubbish went up after Zero Waste Week, but the reality is that there is a regular reduction of 50% that has been constant over the last two years. It really does demonstrate the longevity of the effects of such a campaign on a family’s lifestyle.

The great news is that Judith has signed up for the Zero Waste Challenge again, the one that is currently being organised by Bath & NES, which is taking place this week. The only change in the family circumstances is that son Matt has now gone off to university. I wanted to find out what she thought might happen this time.

“I know that plastic will be my downfall,” she asserted. “I will make an effort not to acquire certain plastics but I don’t have access to a street market which would help to reduce this. I also know the bathroom bin will be a problem. We all wear contact lenses, so there will be a mass of plastic pods. There is also the problem of new types of polythene packaging, such as the bread bags introduced by the Co-op which are labelled Oxo-degradable. These can’t be recycled so will have to go to landfill.”

I managed to catch up with Judith on Wednesday evening to get an update about how things were going this week. Just like in 2006, the first task was to weigh the amount of rubbish from the week before. Quite timely for the Bakers, Day one was also Bin Day. So how big was last week's rubbish?

"We only put out one bag, which weighed a shade over 2 kilos, well under half of what we used to put out before ZWW 2006. More than half that 2 kilos was one single item - a large tub of tile grout, nearly full, which had gone off since the last time we did any DIY and was unusable. If I treat the grout as one-off or exceptional item, I was putting out just under one kilo, or roughly the same weight as I did at the end of ZWW 06. So we haven't been backsliding too badly. "

That's a great starting point, just one bag! But how were things faring by Wednesday night, Day 3 of the challenge? I asked Judith to have a quick check on their current rubbish.

As she poked about her bin, this is what she had to say.

"OH NO did I really put the eggshells in there? Shame on me. Into the compost with you, my beauties, along with the tealeaves (a moment's inattention from someone who shall be nameless). The rest is crisp packets from packed lunches and a few of those pesky semi-degradable plastic wrappers, unsuitable for Polyprint. But there are notable absences: no yogurt pots this week because I bought a brand which comes in a re-usable clear pot with a cardboard stiffener, and the chocolate mousses came in earthenware pots which are eminently re-usable."

And is there anything else?

"There is still a bit of clingfilm but a lot less than usual. I have been trying to give it up, honest. It's just that it is so very useful for covering left-overs in the fridge in such a way that I don't forget they are there ...So half-way through, I can see that even now it won't be zero waste, but I am hoping for an improvement on last time."

Well, I think that's fantastic and I am looking forward to their final weigh-in next week.

If Judith does end up with any rigid plastic containers, she will save them up until she has a decent amount to mail to GHS Plastics in Portsmouth, which I recommended to her after seeing the company featured on MyZeroWaste.com.

I’ve also got some some more news for Judith and anyone else who’s participating in a Zero Waste Challenge. As well as GHS and Polyprint, I’ve discovered that Impact Recycling in Kent will accept deliveries of a whole host of household waste items, including the plastic punnets that Judith found tricky the first time round. The great news is there’s not a minimum requirement, just a simple request to sort items into separate bags.

So that's another source that will help the Bakers slim their bin even further, even if something odd pops up like a cracked CD.

There are still a few nerve-racking days until the end of the challenge, so while we’re waiting to catch up with the Bakers next week, you might want to find out more about the resources mentioned in this post. The links are listed below:


GHS: Tel: 0808-100-1456
www.ghsrecyclingltd.co.uk

Impact Recycling: Tel: 01634 255400
www.impactrecycling.co.uk/what.htm

Perrys Recycling (office recycling): 01935 850111
www.perrys-recycling.co.uk

Polyprint Mailing Films: 01603 721807
www.polyprint.co.uk

And please remember, if you're planning on sending items through to the companies concerned, please call first to check their current arrangements.

More information about the Bath and North East Somerset's Zero Waste Challenge Week, can be found at www.bathnes.gov.uk
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