Some things never change - even on holiday

The hill was steep and the steps were plenty.

Mr A reached the top before me, a rubbish bag in one hand, balanced by a box of cardboard tucked under the other. I'm not sure how he managed the bag of plastic bottles too, but he did.

We'd already locked up the Swiss holiday house where we'd spent the week exploring the beautiful Lake Maggiore - all packed up just in time to hand the keys to the contracted cleaner.

Well I think she was the cleaner. She turned up at the exact time we'd been instructed to depart, but she didn't speak English and I hadn't mastered enough Italian to ask. But she managed to mime a sweeping action so I guessed she was the designated lady with the mop.

Dropping off our rubbish was the last duty before we left the popular resort of San Nazarro and its stunning views over the lake.

Catching our breath from the steep climb, we finally made it to the communal waste collection point. There was no luxury of a domestic kerbside collection in this part of the continent.

And in temperatures of over 30C, lugging our rubbish to the top of the hill felt more than a mere inconvenience. If truth be told, it felt like a real burden. The only relief was that after a week in the holiday home our rubbish bag was still quite small

So Mr A bunged the rubbish bag into the garbage container - in a plastic sack as instructed by the local council.

The plastic PET bottles went into a separate collection bank.

Then clutching the box of cardboard, he hunted high-and-low for the paper bank.

But there wasn't one.

Defeated by the lack of facilities, he headed back towards the rubbish bin and began to lift the lid.

"Don't you dare!" I squealed, not quite realising that it sounded like a major threat.

Well I know it was only cardboard and that it would have been used to create energy in one of Switzerland's incinerators, but I couldn't let him just drop it into the rubbish bin. Not when there were other options

"It's only a bit of rubbish" came the reply.

"Rubbish?"

Blimmin' 'eck. I thought he'd got the message. It was time to dig in my heels in order to hold my ground.


"It's not flippin' rubbish it's a very useful resource!" I maintained. "Let's just bung it in the car until we get to our next destination, where I know there is a paper bank."

Then came the stony face.

"You're having a laugh!"

"Have you seen how jam-packed it is?"

The mood was definitely getting serious and with gestures worthy of our continental location he thrusted the bundle of cardboard into my arms.

"If you're that determined, you can bloody well sit with it on your lap!"

And that's how we left the rubbish bins, with me prepared to sit with a bundle of cardboard on a car journey around the lake, through Locarno, around the twisting bends of Centovalli, entering Italy and leaving again amidst the dramatic landscape of the Swiss Alps; a 5 hour trip culminating in a visit to the cardboard bank in Leysin, our next stopover on our Swiss road-trip.

I should be relieved that Mr A hasn't divorced me for my determination.

I can picture the scene:

"She insisted on recycling the cardboard Your Honour! It was the finale of an unhealthy decline and I could take no more."

It's a good job my brother-in-law made an unexpected intervention.

As we bid our farewells - or rather arrivederci - to my sister and her family who we'd travelled all the way to Switzerland to visit, he kindly offered to take the bundle off my hands and drop it into the recycling point at the local train station.

Such a simple gesture leaving me to concentrate on managing the passports and enjoying the view from the car window.

And enjoy the view I did...

...while feeling relieved that Mr A hadn't noticed the empty sweetcorn cans I'd sneaked into the car only hours earlier.

Perhaps I need another holiday. I know Mr A certainly does to recover.


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The Big Green Blog Gathering

Today is day 4 of the Big Green Blog Gathering and I would like to thank our host Emma Cooper of Coopette.com for not just hosting the event but for inviting me to get involved.

I'd also like to thank all of you who have popped by, whether you've just happened on the virtual gathering by accident or have deliberately dropped in with a keen interest in reducing waste and to find out more about The Rubbish Diet Experience.

No matter where you are in the push for consumer zero waste I hope my personal story will help inspire you further, whether it's starting from scratch or going that extra mile to slim your bin.

So without further ado, I will begin my presentation of how I managed to slim my bin last year in our local council's Zero Waste Challenge [just click on the play button to start]

The Rubbish Diet: The 8 Week Zero Waste Challenge

View more presentations from AlmostMrsAverage.

Of course the journey to reducing waste starts now and as we're very lucky at the Big Green Blog Gathering to have excellent recycling facilities, I ask you to help us by putting your plastic bottles, cans and paper into the separate bins provided as well as separating your tea bags, fruit peelings and apple cores for the compost bin.

And don't just stop there. When you leave this virtual festival and step back out into your local town or cities, please keep your eyes peeled for local facilities that help you recycle on the go too. If local facilities aren't available and you want to be really commited, remember you can always take your empty bottles and cans back with you and pop them into your recycling bin at home to ensure they don't go to waste.

Finally if you're organising your own festival, there are a whole host of recycling organisations that can help. A few that I discovered quite recently include the very appropriately named Event Recycling and the Maker Green Team, who will endeavor to make your event as rubbish free as possible, helping your audience divert as many recycling resources from landfill as they can.

And if you want to keep up with what the best eco-festivals are doing to manage their waste, pop over to the Waste Connect site for further inspiration, or stay a while and watch this video of how the Green Festival manages its waste over in the U.S.



Well I hope you've enjoyed your visit today and if you have any questions please feel free to ask. I'll be hanging about for a while and will do my best to answer them before I have to disappear off, otherwise I will be back in touch at the end of August. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the rest of the Big Green Blog Gathering over at Coopette.com.

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A Summer Holiday Surprise

It's been a tad tricky getting to the blog this week as things have been far busier that I could have ever planned. Not only have I been enjoying the school holidays with the children, but I've been busy whizzing across the country attending a family funeral, celebrating a new pregnancy [not mine, I should add], speaking at a regional climate change conference, meeting a very important councillor, pickling beetroot for the very first time, enjoying a friend's birthday bash as well as another friend's hen night for whom I've also been busy making a gorgeous sparkly tiara.

So it is a welcome surprise to return home and find that the wonderful Baba has just entered The Rubbish Diet into the very yummy Dorset Cereal's Little Blog Awards and that a few folk have already started to vote. I feel very honoured indeed to be listed among some really wonderful blogs, so do pop over and have a gander and if you vote, you're in with a chance of winning something too.

So for just a few moments I can relax and breathe until...

I catch up with emails, with Twitter, with blogs and with friends who have left me some lovely messages, before it's time to pack for our big family holiday to Switzerland. I feel a huge multi-tasking exercise coming on, don't you.

But first things first...if you're missing the Big Green Gathering which was pulled at short notice and want to do the next best thing, then pop over to Emma Cooper's fabulous blog at coopette.com. Emma is author of the Alternative Kitchen Garden and is busy hosting the Big Green Blog Gathering, which is already brimming with lots of entertainment and thought-provoking ideas on water, energy and transport.

Tomorrow's theme is waste so it will be my turn to join the gathering and add my two penneth. And if you visit Emma's Blog on Sunday, there'll be plenty of discussion about the climate to look forward to.

Well it's all go isn't it but it's fun...and for anyone who read my last post, all I can say is thank goodness there is more to life than pants!

So I hope to see you back here tomorrow, when I will be catching up with your recent comments and doing my turn on the stage for waste.

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There's more to life than pants - or is there?

Perpetual pants on the washing line.

Now rumour may have it that I have been lost in landfill counting the number of hen party doodahs, but trust me, life's not been that exciting and I have a whole range of excuses why I've been absent for the last 10 days.

As well as celebrating my birthday and the effects of getting older, I've actually been busy catching up with my regular routine of washing more pants!

I know it's the school holidays and I should be getting out more, but summer holidays or not, between kids' activities and birthday celebrations there are always pants to sort out. And in the Almost Average Household a family of four can easily generate a washload of 28 pairs in just a week plus the extra stock to cope with emergencies. Indeed if I dared risk a survey, I'm sure I'd discover well over 100 of the blighters stuffed in drawers, washing baskets and the airing cupboard.

Big ones and little ones, not to mention the enormous Bridget Jones affairs that need tent pegs to keep them in place during the more blustery of days. Between us, we've probably got enough to last us for a whole month!

No wonder I'm beginning to feel like Widow Twankey with my perpetual washing line, both indoors and out. All weather laundry facilities for one of life's necessities.

Now it's all very well me washing my dirty laundry in public, but what about the other stuff, you know, the unspoken issue about what you do with your old pants when you've er... "done with them"... when they're all frayed or moth-eaten and couldn't possibly cope with another outing?

Bunging them in the landfill bin might be the easy choice, but is it the right option?

Well it's certainly not the done thing to donate them to charity shops, is it? Think about it. Have you ever seen undies for sale in your local store? Even if some folk actually do dump their old pants onto charity stores, they really don't want them and volunteers don't relish the task of sorting them into the rag bag along with other unwanted items.

Of course, kids' pants that are in good condition can be passed onto friends with younger children and adult ones can always be repurposed as dusters. Cotton ones or those made from bamboo fibres can even be composted.

And my hat really goes off to some creative folk in Langton Herring, Dorset, who have adopted a credit-crunch theme for their village fete, using their skills to transform villagers' briefs into bunting. If you're in the area, no doubt you'll see them flapping about this weekend.

But if using your frillies to spice up your cleaning routine is not your kind of thing and you have no need for alternative bunting, there are at least other options than simply dumping your old bloomers into landfill.

I never really considered the issue before, much preferring the more discreet option of throwing our old undies in the rubbish bin. But since the zero waste challenge I've adopted the policy of hoarding them ad infinitum.

So I can't believe it's taken me this long to realise that the answer to recycling old pants is very simple indeed.

Of course it's obvious now....

And the solution is the textiles recycling bank, which can be found at my local Household Waste Recycling Centre.

They normally accept all forms of clean clothing. All donations are then sorted for reuse or recycling. And even if there's no second-hand market for your smalls, the good news is they can be shredded for stuffing. Who knows what they could come back as.

But as you know, all council services differ. Where I may be able to get rid of a drawer full of old drawers at my recycling centre, it's always wise to check your local facilities first.

And the best person to help is your local waste and recycling officer. You can find their telephone number here.

So don't be shy. Ring today. I'm pretty sure you'll brighten up their day and they'll probably be delighted to tell you that all you need to do is bag them up separately before you drop them into the container.

And if local facilities are available - do tell your friends.

Gee - this could even be the start of a movement to save pants from landfill all around the world!

Holey Pants! Just imagine.

Yes yes, I know. There is more to life than pants. I've already acknowledged I should get out more.

And as ever, I promise there'll be an official debrief as soon as I do!

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Free Willy Anyone?

Today I am speechless with the exception of just a few words. Psychiatrists, feel free to regard my personal ad as a cry of help:

Wanted: A loving home for a reusable straw, delicately shaped in the form of a male appendage. Rescued from a hen party. Unused, but could be repurposed as a plant support, nostril cleaner or milkshake stirrer. Available free to the first person who wants it.

When my brain has recovered from working out the number of plastic willies that could be potentially buried in landfill, normal service will resume. Until then, I welcome as many of your recommendations as you dare to suggest for reusing my free gift. Just remember to keep it clean. I blush easily you know.

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A mother's lecture: A response to Prince Charles

Last night, I watched Prince Charles present the 2009 Richard Dimbleby Lecture, entitled Facing the Future, a talk which emphasised the plight of the planet and humanity and forecasting the bankruptcy of nature's resources if we don't act fast enough.

His Royal Highness didn't offer any news that I hadn't heard before. However, I was transfixed by his delivery, a confident presentation that was evidently coming from the heart and backed up with both an academic and a practical vision of the future. The risk was clear, if we continue to consume as much as we have over the last three decades, our natural resources will be out of balance with the needs of our population and our children face a future of a "living hell".

People criticise Prince Charles for what they refer to as "meddling" in politics, but from what I witnessed last night, he has my vote to meddle as much as he likes. After all, as his introduction by Jonathan Dimbleby indicated, our heir to the throne has access to people, resources and experiences that go far wider than even many of our politicians could ever dream. As a UK citizen, I hope that he is able to take a lead role and work with our government, agencies and our communities to take us into the future.

Meanwhile, I hope as many people take time to watch the video of last night's lecture and even if you have only the slightest concern - or even doubt - over climate change, I ask that you watch it and if you support the ideas, to share it with others too, either on your blog, via Twitter, Facebook or email. The iPlayer video is available online, and can be accessed by clicking the photo above or through the following link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lncxc/Richard_Dimbleby_Lecture_Facing_the_Future/

If you don't agree with what he says, that's fine, but if you do, I'd like you to start thinking about the other small changes that you can make, to help ease what he calls a time of transition.

I like to think of it as an opportunity to rewind, to revisit the knowledge of our forefathers and adopt the habits of older generations that have dwindled with their passing; appreciating what we've got now, understanding how to make things last longer and connecting back to a state of social inter-dependence in local communities instead of the culture of independence that currently thrives.

As a western society we are lucky that we have more resources on hand to feed and clothe us than every before and opportunities to make us the individuals that we are and the freedom we enjoy.

And the only way that we can hand-down the same opportunities and freedom to our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and grandchildren is to slow down our consumption, which in turn will save energy further down the line. Thinking twice about whether you really need that extra T-shirt, even if it is in a sale and whether it really a good idea to jump in the car for that emergency bar of chocolate whenever the mood takes.

That part is not a lecture by the way. It's simply my own wake-up call to continue the journey that began with reducing our waste at home and I now need time to think about what else I can do to preserve what we have and hold dear.

And if by sharing my thoughts on this today can help realise a legacy of a balanced natural world that future generations deserve, I am simply glad to be of service, even if it is only one small drop in an enormous ocean

Thank you Prince Charles for sharing your thoughts in your lecture and to everyone else, thank you for listening.

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The 8 Things Tag

Well here's a refreshing change from talking rubbish. I've been tagged by Tasha at Wahm-Bam and more recently Cartside over at Mummy Do That, to give a personal insight into my past, my plans and other random doo-dahs that occupy my thoughts.

I had planned to share some of my adventures in my garden, but that'll have to wait for another day, while the nosey one's amongst you discover what goes on in my head and what lies ahead when I'm not washing out the tin cans.

So, here's the 8 things thingymajig. Are you ready for it?


8 Things I'm looking forward to

• The school holidays - fun times and lazy days with the children.
  
• Visiting my sister and her family in Switzerland.
  
• Broody hens starting to lay eggs again.
• Making a tiara for a friend's wedding and enjoying a hen night to celebrate another friend's marriage.
  
• A night out with Mr A for my 41st birthday - only 10 days to go.
• Being taken out for lunch by two very cool dudes in London - (chaps, you know who you are and yes, you are pretty cool).
• Going to see Calendar Girls with one of my best mates in the West End.
• Being interviewed for TalkRadioEurope next week

8 Things I did yesterday

• Started a collection to buy a class present for my youngest son's teacher and assistants.
• Dropped into the BBC Radio Suffolk studio as a guest on the James Hazell show.
• Made an impromptu visit to a friend's house for a surprise play-date.
• Rang my ex-publisher in shock after discovering the release-data for cancelled book is still winging its way around Amazon and other online catalogues.
• Started working on interview for a feature in an Irish national paper.
• Met up with some friends at the Bury LETS bartering group: swapped some of our home-grown salad leaves, broccoli, basil and a couple of eggs for some magazines, home-made card, jam and digital camera advice.
• Washed pants.
• Watched Torchwood
  

8 Things I wish I could do

• Bring an end to poverty, abuse, war and global warming.
• Become fluent in Italian, Welsh, French and German.
• Move next door to me old mucker Tracey Smith.
• Live closer to my sister, which makes the above wish a really tough choice.
  
• Do the Dunwich Dynamo moonlit bike ride.
  
• Be serenaded by Take That.
  
• Go shopping with Dawn French.
• Enjoy a lie-in on a Sunday
  

8 Favourite fruits

• Strawberries - only the sweetest will do
  
• Raspberries - firm, ripe but not too squashy
  
• Blueberries - best cooked in muffins
  
• Tomatoes - best picked from the vine in your own garden
  
• Gooseberries - tart - not the cooked kind, just tart
• Nectarines - firm but sweet
  
• Satsumas - at Christmas
  
• Lemons - especially when freshly squeezed and diluted with water as a presse
  

8 Places I'd like to travel

• St Davids, Wales - to relive faint memories of childhood.
  
• Ireland - for missed opportunities.
  
• York, England - to visit Ruby.
  
• Italy - for pizza and passionate language.
  
• Scandinavia - for the fjords.
  
• Liechtenstein - because it's small and European.
  
• Strattons in Norfolk - for sheer organic luxurious indulgence, without the kids.
  
• The Moon - the most adventurous way to see the world, with the kids.
  

8 Places I've lived

• Treharris, Wales: memories of working colliery, chapels, terraced houses and pubs.
  
• Mountain Ash, Wales...furnacite, ice-cream van, baby sister and moving house in a Mini.
  
• Sutton Bonnington, Leics... sheep, quaint road signs; bistro and university campus.
  
• Nottingham...polytechnic, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem Inn, & Trent Bridge.
  
• Hemel Hempstead, Herts ... train Station, Boxmoor cricket & Dunstable Downs.
  
• Berkhamsted, Herts...Ashridge Park, canal, Home & Colonial shop and cafe.
  
• London...South Bank, visits to Chelsea, researching music data standards in Stretham.
  
• Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk... enjoying motherhood, rubbish fun and tractors.
  

8 Lovely people I'm tagging...because I'm nosey like that

• Picklesmum
• Strawberry Jam Anne
• Lunarossa
• Susanna at A Modern Mother
• Victoria at It's a small world after all
• Danda
• Layla
• Mrs Green at MyZeroWaste
  

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