Recycling Champion of the Year Finalist

Now I was going to have an early night and blog about this in the morning, but the news was far too exciting to keep to myself.

This afternoon I received a surprise phone call from Suffolk County Council, to let me know that they had nominated me for this year's CIWM Awards for the category Recycling Champion of the Year.

Of course I was chuffed to bits with the news, but my smile got much wider when Anna, the Waste Communications Manager, continued to tell me that I've also been shortlisted and will be put forward as a finalist to the judging panel, who will announce their decision at the Awards event on 11th November.

Now this is where I take a break and run around the sofa in wild excitement for the 10th time today before I adopt a more professional manner more in keeping with the event itself.

And with my serious hat on, I am really grateful for Suffolk County Council's nomination as well as the enthusiasm of all those I have worked with on various campaigns and projects, including waste professionals, local schools, refuse collectors, local councillors, blog supporters, bloggers and tweeters as well as all my friends and family who have turned over to the lighter side when it comes to rubbish.

But do you know the best bit about the awards ceremony?

It's not that it's at a posh hotel in London, or that it's being hosted by Dragons' Den investor Deborah Meaden, or even that the awards are made from recycled glass...

Well, okay I admit that's all impressive in itself, as is the opportunity to rub shoulders with waste professionals who are really making a difference to the environmental landscape.

However what I am getting very excited about is the chance to meet someone very special, who I've discovered today is also listed in the same category and will be attending the awards too. It's Sarah Blenkinsop, aka Compostwoman, our very busy blogging friend who can normally be found in The Compost Bin in Herefordshire.

So with me in my recycling bin and Sarah in her composter, I am sure we'll make an entertaining double-act on the day and should we accidentally drop anything on the floor no doubt Tipton Litter Watch, the other finalist in our category, will help us clean up our act.

So huge thanks again to Suffolk County Council. It was a wonderful surprise, which has made one particular member of the community very happy indeed.


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The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), is the professional body which represents over 6,000 waste management professionals in the UK as well as overseas. The CIWM Awards for Environment Excellence are now in their third year and will be held at the Dorchester Hotel, London, on 11th November. The Recycling Champion of the Year award is intended to recognise the contribution of people or groups outside of the waste and resource management industry in encouraging public participation in managing resources and reducing or recycling waste.
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Naked deliveries make my day

I feel I must apologise for my absence over the last few days. I'd been so looking forward to tucking into some tasty British food and blogging about my discoveries, but by Tuesday I was all struck down with a nasty cold. Then my appetite skedaddled and my tastebuds followed suit, all disappearing into a big black hole.

Hardly being able to speak today I was home alone feeling sorry for myself, coughing with one breath and then sneezing with the other, when suddenly I heard a rat-tat-tat at the door.

And what a surprise!

It was my lovely friendly postman making a naked delivery.

Now, stop your rude thoughts.

Granted, the Royal Mail might make a few extra bob if they did strip-o-grams, but then again....

I can reassure you that our friendly postie was most definitely suitably dressed in all the right clobber, but he was holding before him a naked flower.

Of course, I had to to grab my camera to snap it before saying thank you and closing the door.

The felt flower, which was all pink and fuzzy, had been sent to me by Henry and Jayne, home of a beautiful range of hand made gifts. It was part of an experiment to see what would happen to flowers sent in the post without any packaging whatsoever, focusing on ways to reduce unecessary packaging. You can read more about their experiment here.

Well the great news is, the flower has arrived in one piece, completely intact with no damage at all.

Just perfect.

It even had an address tag made from a recycled Christmas card.

So thank you to Liz at Henry and Jayne for letting me take part in this wonderful experiment. I am now a joyful owner of a beautiful flower that's taking pride of place in my dining room.

And as for the postie, well he says, it's the most beautiful naked delivery he has ever made.



I promise to be back soon with further news of my local gastronomic adventures, as well as some other exciting news that has made my day even more exciting. For now though, I'm afraid I have to go and sneeze.

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British Food Fortnight: Time to tuck into local fayre

As British Food Fortnight commences, it's time to get your tastebuds at the ready and celebrate the best of our country's home-grown produce and culinary talents.

And on a personal level, I am really looking forward to the opportunity to explore the regional fayre of the East of England, in particular in my local county of Suffolk.

It's only recently that my interest in British food has come to the fore. With the exception of supporting Welsh lamb - representing my affinity to my home country - I used to zip around the supermarket without a care in the world about where my food came from. And my taste in more continental and exotic foods fuelled this. By comparison British food seemed boring, unadventurous and downright plain.

But something's changed over the last few years. There is something about British food that now excites me. No longer do I buy cheap cuts of meat that have been flown half way round the world just to be disguised in a hot spicy sauce. Indeed the opposite is now true, with regionally sourced meat being bought from our local butchers, it is the perfect opportunity to discover how best to cook it for maximum flavour, without necessarily adding any fancy accompaniments.

Added to this is the magic of seasonality and the opportunity to enjoy buying fresh food at its best, when it is supposed to be eaten or at least preserved for the winter months.

So for the next two weeks I am going to ditch the lazy habits that have crept in over the summer relying on pasta, cous-cous and rice and get back to enjoying good old British grub.

I am going to take every opportunity I can to put local food on the table, while experimenting with regional recipes from around the country.

And living in Suffolk, this shouldn't be too much of a challenge. We are blessed with shops that delight in local produce, including Barwells in Bury St Edmunds (recently featured on the Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain and now famous for its St Edmundsbury Purse), which takes animal welfare seriously and sources its meat from approved Suffolk and Norfolk farms and game from the local Denham Estate.

As well as a fabulous twice-weekly market, we also have a farmers' market at Wyken Vineyards, where even local wine is available. Now Suffolk may not be necessarily known for its expertise in this area, but Wyken and the nearby Ickworth Vineyards offer a range of excellent British wines that are a real match to the more traditional wine producing regions of the continent.

Further afield, there are opportunities to explore the delights of the Suffolk and Norfolk coast with locally caught fish. And talking of the coast, one of the highlights on this year's calendar has to be the Aldeburgh Food & Drink Festival, which kicks off on the 26th September, playing host to over 70 local growers and manufacturers of Suffolk produce.

So over the next couple of weeks, I plan to do very little except enjoy some tasty delights and I will be revealing some of my favourite discoveries around our local area. Of course, I will be commenting on the packaging too. Let's not forget, this is The Rubbish Diet after all.

But before I venture off around the county in search of local fayre, I'm thinking the best place to start is to dig up the rest of the potatoes from our garden and gather the remainder of the runner beans that are hanging from their beanstalks.

And of course I shouldn't overlook our eggs. Collecting the daily eggs from our chooks in the garden is one of the best pleasures ever and when it comes to local, you can't get better than that.

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To find out how you can get involved in British Food Fortnight, which runs from 19th Sept to 4th October, visit www.lovebritishfood.co.uk

National Zero Waste Week: Grand Finale or Anti-climax?

What a funny old week it's been. And unless you've been walking around with your head in a bucket and your ears full of sand, you'll have been aware I've been taking part in MyZeroWaste's National Zero Waste Week, along with many other bloggers and Twitter users across the UK and indeed around the globe.

Now the first time I tackled a Zero Waste Week - in March last year - I was very well prepared. I had a plan and I was constantly on the ball, keeping my eyes peeled for any piece of rubbish to bite me on the bum at the least expected opportunity.

But this time around I've had a sprained wrist as well as such a busy social calendar that it could make your eyes pop with the velocity at which I've had to fit it all in.

So apart from the odd little lie to the kids "Sorry they had no crisps, have a packet of foil & paper wrapped Rolos instead" and the odd little fib to Mr A "Sorry they had no Minstrels, have a packet of foil & paper wrapped Rolos instead" as well as collecting a handful of disposable cotton handwipes from a bunch of folk I've never met before at a Twestival visit to an Indian restaurant, I haven't really given it a great deal of attention.

Yes as far as my personal Zero Waste Week contribution has gone, it's simply muddled along with the rest of my life.

Now this means it could have been an absolute disaster but the great news is my resident foodie fusspots have done an amazing disappearing act this week. With a husband travelling around the East of England living off buffets at every turn and kids now back at school returning home with a ravenous appetites, the bin has been in pretty good health.

It's been so good, we've had absolutely nothing for the Bokashi bin and as for the chickens, they've been looking so blimmin' disappointed at the lack of any spare scraps, that by the end of the week I was feeling emotionally blackmailed into cooking extra portions of pasta just for them.

Geez, it comes to something when you spend the best part of your forties trying to REDUCE food waste then suddenly find that you need to CREATE some, to ensure the whole menagerie are blimmin' fed.

So with no unrecyclable\reusable packaging during the last week and no cooked food waste to hit the Bokashi bin, I was feeling on top form, thinking I would have a completely empty bin...

... until our pair of black and white moggies got all sniffy and refused to eat the last scraps of their Whiskas cat food left in their bowl from Saturday.

So the amount of rubbish created this week has been just a few bits of the cats leftovers.

Not bad eh....especially when our usual weekly rubbish is normally about a quarter of a bin bag..

...and I am chuffed to bits I can fit it into the brand new wheelie bin that I dug out especially for National Zero Waste Week!

It's the one on the far right of the picture above....that's right...the one at the very end of the row!

Here's the photo again to save you scrolling back up.




And here it is being picked up by the friendly bin man ...



But don't get excited yet because amongst all this good news and celebration over our week's worth of waste, I am left with a HUGE dilemma because when we returned from a trip to the seaside yesterday, my King of Declutter, the beloved Mr A, shifted everything around in the dining room, so he could find room for a huge painting of Southwold that he commissioned for his 40th birthday.

It involved shifting out a load of crap from what's been a much under-used room in the last few months.

And in doing so uncovered this...


Yep, it's a bag of miscellaneous "rubbish" according to Mr A, which he sorted out about a month ago, but forgot to "throw out" - i.e. surreptitiously take to the tip while I was busy elsewhere.

Of course being the offical head of the household, he tells me that this doesn't actually count to National Zero Waste Week, because it is a bag of "old rubbish" and as it happens, I've not had chance to sort it yet and I am sure it will be smaller by the time I've finished with it.

But forget Mr A's excuses. I think I should leave it for you to decide what should account for our official weigh in?

My small bag of cat food or Mr A's unexpected bag of household crap?

Who gets your vote?

I know it could be tricky, so while you make your mind up, I'm going to enjoy a cup of tea in our nicely restyled dining room, where I will be getting ready to join in the Jonathan Vernon-Smith show on BBC Three Counties Radio this afternoon.

Today's debate is the issue of new wheelie bins for managing food waste.

Yep I'm talking rubbish again - for a change.

Hmm, I wonder if he'll show me his, if I show him mine. Question is, which bag should I show him?



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Surviving a Zero Waste Week: Rethinking Rubbish

Damn, blast, splidgery flip flops...I've got some blimmin' rubbish!

Look at it. An annoying piece of desperate-to-pop bubblewrap, discovered last night in an empty strawberry carton, which my husband had bought at the weekend.

And there I was, thinking I was all prepared for Zero Waste Week, but I'd forgotten about these pieces of cushioned plastic that are now pretty ubiquitous in the soft fruit packaging department. It just goes to show even old hands at this zero waste business can get caught out.

Now as you are probably aware bubblewrap is pretty tricky to recycle and it'll be a top notch council that allows you to put it in your recycling bin. Ours is good, but it doesn't take bubblewrap. So if I'm going to survive a Zero Waste Week, especially a National Zero Waste Week it's time to think like a crafty old weasel.

I'm going to have to think of this bubblewrap as a valuable resource and not let it become a piece of rubbish.

Well rubbish is so last century isn't it? These days, if you're throwing stuff in your bin, you're also throwing away resources, wasting an opportunity to save money, energy and virgin resources. It really is the equivalent of throwing your small change into landfill. And who in their right mind would do that, especially if they need all the pennies they can get?

So where does that leave me with my tiny piece of bubblewrap?

On the edge of finishing that bottle of gin, with the kind of week I've had!

But seriously. If you're faced with the same problem during your Zero Waste Week, be assured there are a range of solutions out there.


Option No 1: Reuse It!

Yes I know, there aren't too many applications that call for a 8x13cm piece of bubblewrap but if you put your thinking cap on and pray for inspiration, you might be able to find other uses around the home.

For example, if you are blessed with a small child who owns a dolls-house, you might be able to get away with a few make-shift duvets for the dollies to keep warm at night. You could even unleash your inner seamstress and throw in a range of duvet covers while you're at it.

Keen gardeners amongst you can use them to insulate mini seedling pots (especially those made from old newspapers and toilet rolls).

Also, if you ever send very small and delicate items in the post you can use them as protection. And if you're making plans for the festive season, one of my fellow Tweeter @henryandjayne came up with the suggestion of craftily using them to create Christmas decorations. So you see, there are lots of ideas out there if you scratch your top-knot hard enough.


Option No 2: Recycle It!

Regardless of whether you find a reuse for these darn things, there'll come a time, where you'll be shouting "No more", depending where you are in the divorce proceedings. So you could consider recycling them.

Recycle them?!

Yes, I know I said that it would be a rare super-duper council that would take such a thing off your hands. But just because your council can't recycle it, it doesn't mean that your fruity bubblewrap has to be lost to landfill.

Because if you need a helping hand on your road to Zero Waste, there is a mailing film company that will happily take them off your hands. Based in Norfolk, Polyprint is the only film company that accepts waste polythene from the general public for recycling. And the great news is, this includes bubblewrap, even the small pieces that come in the bottom of fruit punnets. You can find their full list of acceptable items here.

So even though this is one of the few items that I've been bunging in my bin since I did my last Zero Waste Week, 18 months ago, I can now confirm that my zero waste fruitaholic lifestyle is now pretty much future-proofed.

However on this particular occasion, I'm not going to recycle this piece of bubblewrap. I've got other ideas and I've decided to upcycle it instead, to highlight a process that adds value to a material that is at the end of its original life cycle.

So as a memento of National Zero Waste Week, I've created a miniature work of art entitled: 21st century savings. Titter ye not, I bet even with a "face value" of just 39p it's the most valuable piece of 8x13cm bubblewrap in the whole wide world.

21st century savings

Hmm. I wonder if that could be true? The most valuable piece of fruity bubblewrap ever? If it is, what are the chances of getting my money back on eBay?

I am almost tempted to go and investigate.

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Almost Mrs Average seeks Zero Heroes and Slim Jims

Help! Help!

Arthur are you there? Hilda, can you hear me? Henry? What about you?

Please come forward because in the words of Bonnie Tyler, I NEED A HERO, lots of heroes in fact but unlike my Welsh sister, for this mission I am happy to hold out longer than the end of the night.

To celebrate National Zero Waste Week I am on the lookout for the unsung heroes of the UK and I am officially starting my search for our fellow countrymen and women who almost never need to use their bin because they create so little waste, people like Tony Sanders from Leicestershire who was featured in his local paper earlier this year.

The idea of zero waste or indeed minimal waste living can often sound daunting, but there are so many people like Mr Sanders who have been living like this for years as well as folk who have only just started. They're probably the type who don't normally shout about it, who don't think they're doing anything special, but in truth they are, because by living almost waste-free, they are minimising the contribution their rubbish makes to their carbon emissions.

I've been lucky to meet people who have already made significant steps to reduce their rubbish footprint who are active on the old Interweb and are spreading the word in everything they do.

However, I'd also like to find out about the folk who are hardly present on the internet, including people who wouldn't naturally describe themselves as local heroes but who indeed are. I'd like to talk to them, in confidence, and find out more about what they think about our country's waste and see if we can create a national picture our Zero Heroes. If you have links to anyone special, please get in touch through the usual process, email me at karen[at]therubbishdiet[dot]co[dot]uk, or via my Twitter profile at www.twitter.com\therubbishdiet.

But don't rush off yet. As well as celebrating National Zero Waste Week, I have some other exciting news.

Yesterday I signed up to 10:10, a national challenge created by the team behind Age of Stupid, encouraging individuals, government leaders and organisations to cut their emissions by 10% by the end of 2010. I would encourage you to join too because the challenge of tackling climate change looks like it needs you even more than ever. To find out more visit www.1010uk.org for details.

As the pressure hots up for our country to reduce its carbon footprint, taking effort to reduce our waste is most definitely up there in the list of eco-strategies along with wasting less energy, reducing car use and saving water. At the end of the day whatever we put in our bins, whether it's for landfill or recycling, it's a reflection of not just our personal consumption to satisfy our needs and wants but also reflects the energy used to create and transport those goods to meet our demands.

So, I'd like to put waste minimisation on the map!

Literally!

Whether you're an accomplished bin slimmer or whether you are just starting out, I would love you to join me by adding your details to the map at the side of the blog. As it grows it will give a wonderful picture of all folk who are working hard towards slimming their bins and I hope it will inspire others who want to join in too. Visually, it will help us get in touch with those who are in our local communities as well as discover who are the Zero Heroes and Slim Jims around the rest of the world.

Joining is so simple, you just click on the pin, where you will be asked to add your location. This can be your city or the first part of your postcode. Then enter your name or nickname and select whether you're a "Zero Hero", a "Slim Jim" or "Slimming Down". You can even add a comment or your photo if you like. It only takes a few minutes. I've just added my own details and as I throw out about a carrier bag's worth of rubbish per month, I see myself as a Slim Jim unlike Mr Sanders mentioned above who is most definitely a Zero Hero.

I may have created the map, but it's not mine to call my own. I would be happiest if it could be shared as widely as possible. So if you have a blog, it would be great if you could add it to your sidebar, so that your readers can join the map too.

I'm quite excited about who we will find out there in the big wide world and would like to thank you for your help in making it happen.

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Surviving a Zero Waste Week: Get a smaller bin

So it's the beginning of National Zero Waste Week, which has been officially launched over at myzerowaste.com.

And what's my top tip for anyone taking part this week?

Get a smaller rubbish bin of course!

At least that's what I discovered when I did my first Zero Waste challenge eighteen months ago. Switching from my 50 litre Brabantia to a very small dustbin helped tremendously.

So for National Zero Waste Week, there's a new bin on the scene. The one you see above.

Of course, the challenge will be to keep it empty and the good news is that at the end of Day One it still is.

Which is a blimmin' good job because when the bin man came to collect today's waste I noticed his refuse truck had shrunk too!

It's amazing what can happen when you have a vision for Zero Waste. Let's hope the rest of the week goes just as swimmingly.



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