ZERO WASTE WEEK: The FINAL Weigh-In

Today is Monday 17th March, which marks not just the end of St Edmundsbury's Zero Waste Week, but the end of my personal 8 week challenge to reduce the amount of waste that my family sends to landfill.

So after eight weeks of buying less, learning new habits, double-checking recycling opportunities and being ever mindful of what I'm throwing away, here's the moment I've been waiting for........


CUE DRUM-ROLL FOR THE FINAL WEIGH-IN......


So without further ado .... the contents of this week's black bin are.....


1. One Plaster (from my finger injury on day 1)


And that's it....Just one itty bitty first-aid plaster (band-aid), from when I cut my finger last Monday! If you look carefully at the photo, you can see it sitting on wheel of the bin!



...and that really is the total amount of landfill rubbish that our family has created in one whole week!

BUT PHEW....IT WAS CLOSE!

There was almost my tube of toothpaste, which Mr A tried to bung in the bin, but I rescued it, rolled it up and gave it some extra squeezes and I reckon I've got another day before its contents are exhausted.

But there have been some other candidates too. When I looked in the bin yesterday afternoon there were:

1. Two Butter Wrappers (teetering on the edge, awaiting their fate)

2. A small length of scrunched-up sellotape (thanks to my renegade 3 year old)

3. Some used cotton buds (thanks to Mr A. I suppose he's not done badly, but I knew there would be something to contend with)

As it's Zero Waste Week and I possess the tenacity of a dog with a bone, I was determined that nothing else was going to be thrown away. I have already declared the plaster, despite a couple of suggestions to burn it or run it down to the local hospital, but with my sense of fairness its only fate is landfill.

However, I needed to do something with the rest of the stuff, which called for extreme measures.

I discovered I could tear off the plastic film that coated the inside of the butter wrapper, but I was still unsure whether either of these components are recyclable. As for the cotton buds, I thought the best bet for those would be to stuff them in an old sock and bung them in with the next load of washing. They came out clean and I tore off the cotton wool and put it in the compost bin, which only left the thin plastic tubes.

Hmmmm, not bad, but I said I was tenacious!

I knew I needed some back-up and my secret weapon came to mind...

...a-Ha...

No, not the 1980s Norwegian pop-group with the dulcit tones of Morton Harket, but my three year old who constantly begs for opportunities to make things.

"Mess to Impress" is his tagline!

So, I called him to my rescue and gave him some paper, glue and the little bits of rubbish that I'd rescued from the bin.

He couldn't believe his luck and got to work on some junk art, combining the plastic tubes, sellotape and butter wrappers with other bits that he's collected, all following the principles of "Reuse". It's a bit abstract, which could be appropriate when I think back to my challenges with recycling.

He couldn't think of an appropriate name for it, but I'm going to call it "Unburied Treasures". One thing's for certain, I daren't ever throw it away but I suppose I could always put it on eBay and hope for a fiver.

And that's where the story of my own Rubbish Diet challenge ends....at the end of Zero Waste Week, with our black bin containing just one plaster!

Personally, I am amazed at the results.

Even though it set out as a challenge to reduce my rubbish, the effects on other areas of my lifestyle have been incredible. I now spend less on food and am more thrifty. I am more organised with shopping activities and have got into a routine of using a range of outlets, which provide more eco-friendly options.

What has been great is the immense enthusiasm and support from the Internet Community. The comments have been fantastic and inspirational and it is the advice from our "unsung heroes" from across the globe that has led to the success of my own personal challenge. I would like to thank all contributors who have made suggestions, sent comments of motivation, shared their stories and have helped to promote the wider issues. Big thanks also go to Woman's Hour, Radio Suffolk, Ireland's Newstalk, Sustained Magazine and East Anglian Daily Times for promoting the blog and the challenge. I never expected it to get such attention, but it's been great and I owe a big thank you to Cybele at Freecycle for that. Thanks also to Wiggly Wigglers for helping with my composting queries and inviting me onto their podcast, which is coming up this week.

I would also like to extend special thanks to Melanie Rimmer at Beansprouts for her great tips at the beginning of the challenge as well as Kate McFarland at Edmundsbury Council Council for her advice along the way. As well as to all my friends, thanks also go to Tracey Smith at International Downshifting Week for being a fabulous mentor and to my good friend Christina Surdhar of About Bury for sticking by me, allowing me to extend my deadlines and letting me bore her with my talks of rubbish! I'm sorry if I've omitted a mention, but it's beginning to sound like an Oscar speech!

However, I would like to make one last thank you. The biggest thanks go to Mr A and the Junior Posse, for putting up with my ideas and my nagging over the last few months. Thank you guys for the big effort you've made and long may it continue. You know it's worth it.

So what's next? Well, Mr A has been so bowled over by the results of The Rubbish Diet, that he now wants me to move onto tackling our Clutter, Energy use and Spending, but first things first Mr A. We've got to make sure the rubbish is kept down before we go onto the next challenge, which means The Rubbish Diet is here to stay for a little while longer. I know I said it would be just eight weeks, but there's so much that's been left unexplored and I am now officially hooked!

So what can you expect from here-on in?

Well there's going to be less about me and more about others, much to the relief of some. Here are just some of the things I'm planning to take a look at:

• Waste Management in Switzerland, a country which has the reputation of being one of the top recyclers in the world.
  
• How restaurants cope with food waste?
• Getting the low-down from packaging companies, how do they see the future?
• What happens at a materials recycling facility?
• More solutions for recycling some of the tricky little things.
  
• Some fabulous products made from recycled materials.
• Indeed profiling anyone in the production/waste stream that is making interesting progress in the right direction.
• I might even ask Gordon Brown about his own rubbish! Strange, but I'm now finding the idea of rummaging through the trash at No. 10 quite appealing.
  

I am also going to include a series on our "unsung heroes", profiling stories from people who are already making the effort, no matter how long they've been doing it or why. Whether it's down to a generational difference, lack of money or concern for the environment, it's other people's experiences that are truly motivating, so please send me your stories as it would be great to promote case studies that illustrate best practice and which help to inspire others.

The site will also feature the progress of other people who decide to take up The Rubbish Diet and attempt Zero Waste for themselves. So, if you would like to rise to the challenge, get some help and feature your story here, then please get in touch. All enquiries and information should be sent to enquiries@therubbishidet.co.uk.

And now I'm off to celebrate...but not with champagne .... oh no!

Today is Bin Day and I am going to celebrate by NOT PUTTING THE BIN OUT...

because for the first time in my life as a responsible adult...there's no need to.....HOORAY! Indeed, if I keep this up, I won't have to put it out for weeks or months!

So I'm now going to take a few days off and enjoy the celebrations, but please come back in a couple of days time for the next update, or sign up for the RSS Feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheRubbishDiet

In the meantime, I am going to leave you with a final message in the form of an illustration that I commissioned from the brilliant artist Ray Smith of www.thegreenpen.co.uk. For best effect, click on the picture to enlarge it and enjoy!

(The Rubbish Diet, copyright Ray Smith. Please do not copy without permission)

There are more great cartoons at Ray's website, so if you're in need of a distraction, I recommend that you go and have a look.

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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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THE SECOND WEIGH-IN

Check out my rubbish!

Look...it's only one bag, which is not even completely full.

It can hold 50litres of waste but there is still room for lots more. I guess that's about 45 cubic litres of residual waste that our family has collected over the last two weeks.

"I thought this was about ZERO Waste", I can hear some people say.

Well yes it is and in four weeks time I am hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Brosnan family from Bath, who managed to achieve Zero Waste, with the exception of only a couple of things that had to be thrown away. However, if you look at the results of the last weigh-in, which was two weeks ago, it is really encouraging to see that progress is already being made:



I am pleased to see that the efforts made over the last month have made a real difference, where as a family we had been responsible previously for generating around two to three bags of rubbish every two weeks. Huge thanks go to everyone who has sent in their top tips. They have really worked. Having made some small changes to our choices, we've already managed to reduce our rubbish by at least 50%.

With only three weeks to go until the start of St Edmundsbury Borough Council's Zero Waste Week, the challenge is to reduce things even further.

Following the success of the wormery and having changed some of my shopping, cooking and cleaning habits, it's probably time to get a little more personal.

I think I now need to delve a little into the uncomfortable area of personal hygiene as well as reveal how I intend to become our milkman's favourite customer.

And on that cliff-hanger, I shall leave you poised until the next series of posts.
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THE FIRST "WEIGH-IN"

Just look at my bin!

Check it out...it's looking good!

Okay, I know I'm bigging it up as it's just a dirty old black bin, which could do with a really good wash, but I am pretty pleased with its contents, especially as it's Bin Day tomorrow and I know there is nothing going in it except these (and a cheeky little blue bag):


On the right is a 50 litre bag, which isn't even full. Due to the unpleasant fragrance of its contents, it got binned before it was done with. The bag to the left is less than half full and was photographed for the council's publicity campaign a couple of weeks ago.

As a rough estimate, I guess this accounts for about 70 litres of residual waste in the last fortnight, which for a family of four with a bin capacity of 240 litres is not a bad result. This is the least amount of residual waste we have sent to landfill since we moved into our house four years ago, which is great news.

If you're new to this site and are wondering how we've managed to get down from two/three bin bags to less than one and a half over two weeks, just click on the links on the right to see the story so far.

Thanks to some great advice that's been flooding in, I've now got something up my sleeve to make an even greater impact, which will even help with the contents of the little blue bag that I sneaked in. I'm not going to discuss that blue bag now. It's too gross to reveal and I am still trying to get over the experience.

Anyway, as far as Zero Waste Week is concerned, by the time it comes round it might just be achievable. Please keep sending in your suggestions as it all helps.

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