Carnival of Trash Time

Welcome to the January edition of The Carnival of Trash, celebrating the new year with lots of ideas and inspiration to help you reduce your waste. Thanks to all the bloggers for their submissions. To see what's coming up next month, check out the details at the end of the post.

Recycling

Cindy presents The Green Shopping Bag posted at My Recycled Bags.com, saying, "I'm here this carnival to offer a free pattern and picture tutorial to crochet a green shopping bag. My green shopping bag is made with at least 80 recycled plastic grocery bags that I cut into strips and crocheted them into this handy reusable tote. It's real roomy and holds lots of items."

Cindy who also presents Recycled Christmas Gift Bag Ideas posted at My Recycled Bags.com, saying, "Recycle some old plastic bags into cool Christmas gift bags this year. I offer free patterns to create several alternatives to the traditional gift wrapping for your presents."


Jim presents The Five Reasons Why I Recycle posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity.

Reducing Waste

Wenchypoo presents An All-Day Sunday Peeve-a-Thon posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo's Mental Wastebasket, saying, "Why make just a 2009 waste-busting resolution when you need to do it ALL THE TIME!"


Jen presents Day 185: Happy Waste-Free New Years posted at The Clean Bin Project, saying, "We aim to start off this year by cataloging, for a week, the actual amount of trash and recycling we are still producing after 6 months of trying to slim our bins."


Mrs Green presents Happy New Year - it’s the countdown to Gloucestershire zero waste challenge week! posted at MY ZERO WASTE, saying, "We've made two trashtastic resolutions for 2009; have a read and find out what we are planning!"


Almost Mrs Average presents New Year's Resolutions in the Almost Average household posted at The Rubbish Diet, saying, "This year, I'll be digging my way out of packaging!"

Rethinking

makingthishome presents Switch to Cloth Bags posted at Making This Home, saying, "Thanks for hosting this and sharing everyone's ideas!"

That concludes this edition. The February Edition is calling for bloggers to promote local stores or services that help reduce waste. So please take time to applaud your favourite businesses. They could be shops that sell nearly new items or recycled goods. It might be a grocery store that sells unpackaged produce or a skilled tradesperson who repairs items. Please give them a huge shout-out to help spread the word and encourage people to shop wisely and locally.

Please submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of trash using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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In 100 days, drive left and then turn right to landfill

If you're the kind of person who regularly berates the amount of over-packaged, over-blinged and over-rated crap to swamp our planet, I've got a real treat for you tonight as it's time to stand up and reveal the worst offenders.

Created by John Naish, author of Enough, The Landfill Prize is inviting nominations for the most needless, wasteful uses of our planet's precious resources that you've discovered in the last year.

So, if like me you have a pet hate up your sleeve, it's now time to flaunt it. Just pop over to www.enoughness.co.uk to see how you can nominate. You'll have to be quick though as the judging panel is getting ready to name and shame the worst offenders in February.

I've got my nomination sorted, representing a whole host of novelty gadgets whose only purpose are to amuse or bemuse for all of five minutes before they end up abandoned in a drawer or even worse in landfill.

My nomination is none other than an irritating product called the Sat Nag, which at £6.99 mocks the more well know Sat Nav device, blasting its owner with 24 annoying comments featuring totally unhelpful commands.

Typical phrases include "In 100 metres, I’m going to ask you to move over to the slow lane, so I can fix my makeup" and "You have reached your destination - you may now throttle your passenger."

It's not just unnecessarily irritating, it's irritatingly unnecessary and is as funny as your mother-in-law sat in the passenger seat, poking an umbrella in your ear hole.

Well that's my rant over. It's always therapeutic to get something off my chest and huge thanks to John Naish and The Landfill Prize panel for allowing me the opportunity. So with my nomination sorted, I wonder what yours would be. Go on....have a rant and then go and nominate!

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It's time to SnaffleUp some new year goodies

Today I'm taking time-out from the garden to introduce you to Chris Toynbee, founder of SnaffleUp, a new free recycling website that's going head-to-head with Freecycle. Chris contacted me in December after having a chat with Mrs Green over at MyZeroWaste. It was a great opportunity to invite Chris to tell us more about his new site which has already reached almost 2000 members.

Of course, I couldn't let him go without telling us about his own rubbish. So here's Chris on SnaffleUp, recycling and slimming bins.



What was the inspiration behind SnaffleUp?

The inspiration came from my frustrations with another recycling site. I felt there was a need for a easy to use recycling site that could constantly improved with new features and information about recycling in the UK.


How does SnaffleUp stand out from the other sites?

Firstly it's a lot easier to use. There is a simple registration process. You can add an item with up to 3 pictures in a few seconds. You can also customise how many emails you wish to receive by setting up email alerts for items that interest you and are in your area. No need to receive emails of every item listed. You can also instantly see how far away items are from your home.


What's the most unusual item to be advertised so far?

Someone added a lobster pot to the site not long after we first launched. I'm guessing even fishermen are using the Internet to recycle!


What kind of things are you personally hoping to find on SnaffleUp?

I could definitely do with a microwave - if I find one I'll make sure I get it checked out by an electrician. We advise all SnaffleUp members to do the same with their electrical items.


Thanks Chris that's top advice...but let's start talking bins! I think it's time to reveal how much you throw away. Don't be shy now.

It's pretty small. I recycle all items possible such as glass plastic and paper. If I think something might come in handy it usually ends up in a cupboard until it comes in handy or a little later goes on SnaffleUp.


And what's the one thing you're going to do to slim your bin in 2009?

Make sure that nothing that can be used by someone else is thrown into landfill. I noticed a broken camera on SnaffleUp recently. Apparently it was snapped up by someone looking for camera parts!

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Huge thanks to Chris for taking some valuable time out for the interview. I thought I'd give SnaffleUp a work-out and have already put something up this morning. So why don't you pop over to www.snaffleup.co.uk to see if you can work out what it is. Here's a clue - they're brown and belong to Mr A.

Happy guessing!

Oh...and if you're a tweeter, twitterer or whatever...don't forget you can follow SnaffleUp on Twitter and find out the latest offers added.


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Plotting the plot

So after declaring my new year's resolution last week, Mr A has already been digging (or indeed double-digging) to incorporate all our lovely home-made compost into our brand new veg-patch.

The problem is, I've got grand plans for our garden but very little space and really will need all the help I can get. So I thought I'd put together a little (but wobbly) video-tour of our garden to reveal what we're up against.

You'll see that we're going to have to use every nook and cranny we can lay our hands on and I've got a feeling that we'll have to try our hands at vertical gardening in order to maximise our assets. And believe me... this will be tough so all ideas will be most welcome.

So while you're having a gander around the garden, my next task is to think about the veggies that my family actually likes as well as those that will be easy to grow and which will help reduce our reliance on packaging. And I mustn't forget, they'll also need protecting from the chickens. Oh my word. So much to do. Right, pen at the ready, it's time to start reading those gardening books.




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New Year's Resolutions in the Almost Average household

Good day to all you great people out there! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and have your sleeves rolled up ready to tackle 2009 because today is New Year's Day and it's time to get cracking and get prepared for the year ahead, no matter what it will bring!

I love this time of year and New Year's Day is my favourite of all. For me, it's a special day that always brings new hope, carrying a certain freshness coated with positivity and good intentions that beats Christmas Day, anniversaries and even birthdays hands down. After all, the feeling of hopefulness is one of the greatest possessions with which a person can be blessed and with hope comes new opportunities.

I never used to believe in resolutions and my track record was always appalling. Giving up wine never lasted more than a few weeks and as for ditching chocolate, after just a few days my willpower would always crack at the sight of Cadbury's creme eggs on sale in preparation for Easter, thanks to those naughty merchandisers and marketeers who push them into the shops in January.

However as I reminisce over the adventures of 2008, I realise how far my family has travelled in just 12 months, with new challenges and friendships, all of which started with just one new year's resolution this time last year - to reduce our household waste. Well it was actually one of twenty good intentions, but there'll be more on that later in the month when I celebrate the blog's first birthday and enjoy the highlights of the year.

So as I write my first blog post of 2009, it's time for the Almost Average Household to reveal our resolutions for the new year, and it will be no surprise that we have even more rubbish reducing plans.

But we won't be just sat indoors sorting out our recycling.

Nor will we be simply hanging out at the recycling centre more regularly.

What we've got planned is much dirtier indeed.

Yep, this year we're going to get digging and bring life to the garden in a way it's never seen before. If 2008 was the year of the bins, you could say 2009 will be the year of the backyard.

We've already got a lovely little snacking garden with berries, rhubarb, herbs as well as tomatoes grown in pots, which has taken very little effort but this year we're going to rev it up a bit.

We want to plant more berries, more greens and more root vegetables and we want to be able to feed ourselves as well as the birds that have begun to hang around in recent years. It'll be a great way of reducing even more packaging as well as food miles and will give us the practice we need for when we eventually get a bigger garden or hopefully an allotment in a few years time.

But it's not going to be easy because even though our plans are still small-scale, there will be many challenges along the way:

1. I'm neither green fingered or organised - so to make this work I really am going to have to change my ways.
2. Our garden is fairly small, a typical postage stamp on a new development - so we're going to have to work hard to fit a planting scheme into our current set up.
3. We've also decided to get chickens - yes, you heard correctly - chickens in our teeny tiny plot! As well as changing my routines to care for them, we're also going to have to be especially inventive to ensure those clucking hens won't destroy our hard work.
   

So the deed is done! I've revealed our plans for the new year. Oh my word, what have I gone and done?

What have I done indeed! It's rather scary actually, putting my lack of horticultural skills under the spotlight for all to see. Oh well, as they say, the world never stands still.

So as we're all set for yet another amazing adventure in the Almost Average Household, one thing's for sure...I know we won't be able to do it without your support. So please continue to chip in with your words of wisdom to help us on our way. I can be a really lazy booger when it comes to the garden and will need all the help I can get. So if you see me hanging around the blog a bit too often....please encourage me to get back outside! After all Rome would never have been built if all the Romans spent all their time blogging about it!

But what else will this year bring for The Rubbish Diet blog? As well as my cries for help and updates on our progress I will also continue to feature those amazing people who are helping us to slim our bins and reduce our reliance on landfill. So keep popping by for some fresh ideas that you can try at home, take to work or introduce into your community.

I've got a funny feeling that 2009 will be another trashtastic year when it comes to reducing waste and I'd love to know what you've got planned. If you've got some bin-busting resolutions and have blogged about it, why not share your ideas and join in this month's Carnival of Trash, which will be published here on 7th January. You can submit your post here.

So all that's left for me to do is grab my spade and get digging.

But before that, I'd like to thank you all so much for your visits, support and contributions in 2008. I couldn't keep up this blog without you and would like to wish you a very happy new year for 2009 and beyond.

Now before I get all slushy, where did I put those chocolates?..........I'm not giving up those in a hurry. Remember, that particular new year's resolution never worked for me, so I'm not even going to try....ahhh there they are...my box of Quality Street complete with their little recycling instructions to separate the foil from the plastic....That will most definitely keep me busy......................Happy new year everyone....see you soon!

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My Festive Stocking Fella

I've been wondering what to do with my old laddered hosiery, which has been piling up on top of my cupboard for months. A few scraps of material and a couple of buttons later, I came up with the perfect solution just in time for Christmas...and with it... a little festive greeting.




So Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a brilliant time and manage to keep those festive bins looking as slim as Scrooge's old dusty wallet. Thank you for a real fun year and cor blimey it was a good 'un.

Well, that's me signing off for a while but I'll see you in 2009, when I'll be pondering my new year resolutions. Why don't you join in too, and get set for another trashtastic Rubbish Dieting year!

See you soon....
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Great expectations

I've had to think carefully before writing this post. After all there are only 5 days to go until Christmas Day and I've realised that this year I have been living in a HUGE state of denial.

And it's the kind of denial that makes you want to run to the hills and live in a cave for a week and then come out when it's all over.

Yes I know, perhaps I need therapy.

Especially when you see the evidence...

• I've only written one card - and yes I know today is the last posting day before Christmas.
• I've not bought any crackers - we're going to make hats and Mr A will make up some jokes instead.
• Our presents for the boys have been pared right back to just a few things each, plus some coins and the traditional satsuma.
  
• I have not even bought a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream.

Oh my word - you can see what I mean can't you!

But therapy would only be useful if I really wanted to get back to the norm.

And the norm is - or more to the point was - filling the house with booze and food that would end up going to waste or making me fat, spending stacks of cash on Mr A and the children and expecting him to do the same and then surprising others with presents they probably don't need or even want.

I'm not really up for that this year! Not now that I've woken up to the amount of waste that our excesses used to create.

I don't think I need therapy and I'm certainly not going to run and hide in a cave because believe it or not, after months of denial I am actually looking forward to Christmas and the festive cheer actually starts today!

Not September, when the shops start selling presents, nor the middle of November when the lights are switched on. And visiting Father Christmas at the beginning of December, when we all know the big guy doesn't make an appearance until next week was most certainly not on the agenda.

Phew - at last I feel that I've broken free from the burdens of Christmas that has become as traditional as the event itself and I can tell you, with it comes a huge feeling of relief.

But I really feel like I'm breaking the rules. - the rules of social etiquette that bind us together giving us a shared understanding of how things should be.

To break away from all that is not easy. It is hard to be different and really does need strength of character to fight those feelings of automatic generosity or conformity, whilst defending any impressions of selfishness. It's not even as though I am particularly religious but I can't help wondering whether, it might be easier if I was bound to a faith.

But I do have renewed faith in Christmas and now feel brave enough to share my beliefs.

It's taken me a while but I've grown to realise I don't need gifts to know that someone cares for me. For those that do, I will respect it but memories of good times, traditions and laughter last much longer than presents.

And a card is only useful for sending Christmas wishes that I can't deliver myself. A personal hello, a telephone call or an email are much more appreciated than an automatic card from someone who has become a stranger.

But the one thing that has kept me most sane is the growing realisation of one important fact and I can't believe it's taken me so long to work it out or indeed share the knowledge.

Right....here we go, my one pearl of wisdom, for what it's worth.

"Christmas Day is a just day and not a deadline".

There, I said it and how wonderful it feels to get that off my chest!

So please forgive me if I remain calm while the rest of the world scurries around me. I shan't judge those who do, just as I hope those who enjoy or accept the excess and panic of Christmas will not judge my realisation that it no longer suits me.

Ah...Peace at last.

Now doesn't that sound festive.....so as I break into the Carols and start organising Christmas, I'll see you next week, when I will have finally sorted my Christmas greetings and caught up with replies to other posts.

.........Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la, la la la la!"

"Ho, Ho, Ho!"


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