Talking rubbish in the big wide world

This week has seen an interruption to my usual online witterings. I've spent most of my week away from the computer, talking rubbish elsewhere.

It's actually been a very exciting week, beginning with the opportunity on Tuesday to meet the Seven Suffolk Streets project team and the door-knockers, a team of volunteer master composters who are tasked with drumming up residents' support for the Waste Reduction Fortnight that's taking place in March. I'll be joining them soon, knocking on doors across different areas of Suffolk to talk rubbish with other folk who live in my county. So watch this space for further news.

Yesterday, I'd also been invited to speak at Inspire East's community champion event, which launched their community empowerment programme. It was a really inspiring event and as well as having the chance to promote the idea of reducing waste and the results of last year's Recycle Week challenge in Moreton Hall, I also had the opportunity to meet some fabulous people and explore the value of working with your local community to promote other sustainable ideas. If you live in the East of England and would like more support on how to empower people in your community to do more, I really recommend you visit the Inspire East website.

And on the subject of communities, tomorrow I'll be speaking at the Zero Waste Community event in Norwich about my Zero Waste challenge, as well as hosting a workshop on how to set up a Zero Waste household.

It looks like it will be a very exciting day, featuring Richard Anthony from the Zero Waste Alliance, San Diego, Jim Mclaughlin from the Community Recycling Network and Furniture Recycling Network, Maxine Narburgh, Director of the Bright Green Consultancy and member of Zero Waste Europe and Ralph Ryder from Communities Against Toxics.

The topics that will be covered include: Zero Waste Communities and Principles; An introduction to climate change Zero Waste and jobs; How to be a Zero Waste home and the Impact of Incineration in Communities. Workshops will include how to develop campaigns for zero waste within your community and how to run community reuse and recycling projects.

If you happen to live in the region and would like to attend the Norwich event, you can find the link to the original flyer here. It's an all day programme that runs from 9.30am to 4pm. The latest schedule has since been altered and my presentation has been slotted in at 12pm.

So I am afraid with all these to-ings and fro-ings, I've been far too busy gadding around the region or having my head down in preparing PowerPoint presentations that I've hardly had any time to work on my personal declutter challenge. So there's no major update on that today.

However, I did go through my jewellery box to select a whole host of things for my car boot collection. It only took me about 30 minutes and I was truly amazed at the surplus of jewellery I've been given, made or have bought over the last decade. This is only half of it and I couldn't help wondering how many other women have got collections like this, where most of their items go to waste without use.



Maybe if you've got half an hour to spare, you could go through yours too and donate the pieces that you no longer wear to charity or sell online. As well as eBay, there are other fabulous sites such as wicycle-it or even JumbleAid, which helps you support your favourite charity. Alternatively you could keep it in your local community with sites such as Freegle or Freecycle.

I knew I was a bit of a magpie but I now intend to be more careful about what I collect in future. At least with my passion for vintage jewellery, there'll be far fewer mass-manufactured adornments from wherever.

So I'll be back soon to catch up with all the lovely comments that you've kindly left, but for now, I've got to get my head back down to prepare for tomorrow.

While I'm away, if you haven't seen it yet - check out our very own Mrs Green's appearance on BBC news this week. It was excellent and very exciting. You can catch one of the broadcasts here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/gloucestershire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8482000/8482762.stm


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The Rubbish Diet Challenge: Week 3, Waste Not Want Not

Welcome to Week 3 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge, where this week I am taking you into the kitchen to find out how much food gets thrown in your bin.

Managing food waste is one of the most important areas of waste reduction. Not only has it huge potential for slimming your bin, but by reducing what you throw away can save you money and provide environmental rewards too.

According to WRAP's LoveFoodHateWaste campaign if we all stop wasting food we could have eaten, the CO2 impact is the equivalent of taking 1 in 4 cars off the road. That's a startling statistic and when I first heard it, it really made my jaw drop in surprise.

So in Week 3, I will be revealing what type of food waster I was, in the hope that even the least careful of folk will see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. And I've included tricks for using up leftovers as well as advice about portions and ways of dealing with waste if you just can't simply eat any more.

And if you're a stranger to the kitchen with the exception of visiting the microwave, I hope to inspire you to grab your apron, or lab coat and start experimenting with food. There's so much more to being a rubbish cook, than simply being rubbish in the kitchen. You never know, you may even be tempted to have a go at making pasta or bread as an alternative way to cut down on packaging.

So if you're ready to crack on with Week 3 of the Rubbish Diet Challenge, find out what you're in for at:

http://tinyurl.com/TheRubbishDietWeek3

Oh and I almost forgot, I did a spot of reminiscing today and if you didn't catch it at the time, here's one of the recordings I did for BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour a couple of years ago.



STOP PRESS

iPhone users - there's an exciting new app available from www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk, which will help you plan your meals from your phone with a recipe finder and portion planner. You can download it directly from the itunes store.

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Decluttering: A space to eat

You won't believe it but what you're witnessing at this very point in time is a rare occurrence.

No, I don't mean the messy table! Oh No! The rare occurrence is that for once I am indeed speechless!

And as I write, I am experiencing nervous bouts of laughter and moments of shame as I introduce the state of my dining room to a whole bunch of strangers on the Internet, including online friends, recycling officers and academics from all across the world. Revealing this photo feels worse than showing how much rubbish we used to throw away. The only thing I find reassuring is that I might show at least one person that there is a glimmer of hope.

I took the photograph shown above last weekend before we started to declutter, but I have to be honest and say the dining room hasn't always looked like this.

Before Christmas, it looked like this:




Haha, I bet you didn't expect to see that did you?! Talk about an immovable force, but I promise I did at least tidy up before my sister and her family arrived for Christmas.

But my nervous laughter is now reaching decibels of immense proportions, especially as not even my best friend gets to see the house in such a condition. I make sure I shut the dining room door before I open the front door to her and all other visitors. So if she's reading this blog she'll soon get the shock of her life. And she'll now know why I haven't invited her and her husband - or indeed anyone else - to dinner for a long-long time.

People may think I'm being anti-social, but the truth is I've been too embarrassed to admit that since writing this blog I've been far too busy to keep on top of all domestic functions. However, I reckon there are hundreds and thousands of houses just like this across the country, also suffering from too much stuff, too much to do and insufficient space and time to do it all in.

And the problem I've had with our dining room is that is is actually not just a dining room. It's also a hobby room, Little T's craftroom, a homework room, a filing room and a "temporary" storage room. It's also where we permanently store odds and ends like cables and replacement bulbs in various cupboards and drawers.


So it really is a room that has multiple functions and is constantly in use by a very busy multi-tasking but time-poor family, trying to juggle too many balls at once.

If this all sounds similar, you'll recognise the signs of the clutter magnet that takes effect.

For example you'll be going great guns in keeping a clear space. Then momentarily, you'll take your eye off the ball and put something down on a table. And that's your first mistake, because what follows is the law of attraction. Out of nowhere, everybody else adds "their thing" next to "your thing" and before you know it, you're all taking it in turns like a game of buckaroo by stealth as the free space gets taken over by a multitude of clutterbug sins.

And have you noticed that things appear that you've never even seen before, making you wonder whether your neighbours have heard the rumour and have sneaked in with their bits of crap too? Then if you're clearing out another room, like the kitchen for instance and have nowhere else to dump the stuff that you're collecting for a car boot sale, the dining room table is often the easiest place to put it all.

No wonder Mr A despairs and threatens to throw all sorts of stuff in the rubbish bin. A sight like this can easily drive someone to chuck it all away, which used to happen frequently before I started the Zero Waste challenge. But I can assure you that there is no-one who stresses about this more than me and I know I have to become more efficient and organised on the home front to regain more control and therefore greater mental freedom.

So, on my latest decluttering mission, the first thing I did was grab a HUGE box to create a designated spot for all the items that we are going to sell at the car boot sale in the spring. Immediately, this cleared half the amount of stuff off the dining table.



The next job was to simply tidy all the other things away into their proper homes, including the Christmas fabric that I'd bought to replace paper for wrapping family Christmas presents.



That was the easy bit!

However I think the dining room is probably going to need a lot more work than we've had time to dedicate so far, especially when sorting out the drawers full of cables and leads. We just need to work out which items are still needed and take the remainder to the Household Waste Recycling Centre for recycling with all the other Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE).

But in the meantime, our box of car booty is growing all the time and has expanded to include a plastic ugly bug, a redundant kitchen towel holder, a fabric bun holder, an over sized vodka bottle and several little ornaments. I've got a feeling that by the time I've finished, there will be a small number of old DVDs too as well as boxes of old beads that I've discovered in a cabinet drawer.

When I showed the photo of my dining room to Clare Baker of the ClutterClearing consultancy, she reassured me that I am nowhere near a clutterholic and that it would be easy to restore order. That was a real relief and it was simply a case of time and following the tips on her website to create categories for the items that we were decluttering.

With this in mind I also took the opportunity to sort the drawers of the Welsh dresser, separating things into stationery and craft items in one drawer, tableware linen in another and I've left the last drawer for personal mementos such as photos. Having done this will also be of benefit when I work on other rooms, as we now have a central storage point for transferring stuff.

I could go on, but I bet you can't wait to see the results of our efforts. I say "our" because it was indeed a team effort by me and Mr A, who is naturally more organised in this area than me. So without further ado, here it is:

Our dining room in all its glory......



And now it's all clear, I can now enjoy some of my favourite things, such as this funky plastic flower that I made at the Aldeburgh Food Festival, accompanied by one of the gorgeous felt flowers from Henry & Jayne.





But my favourite decluttered view of all is of the vintage tea-set that I picked up last summer for just £15.




I have found it's worth taking time out to appreciate these objects while I've got a good view and recognise this moment as one of the key incentives for keeping space clutter-free in future. It's almost impossible to enjoy lovely things when they're surrounded by other distractions such as a multi-pack of chopped tomatoes and a set of ice-lolly moulds that have lost their lids.

So if you want to come around for dinner, we've now got somewhere to eat, drink and be merry.

Now talking of incentives, another useful tip I picked up from Clare Baker this week was to make sure I reward myself for the efforts I've made to free up my space. So seeing as it's a Friday evening, I think it's going to have to be a nice glass of wine.

Yep, it's time to dig out the Chablis. Well, it is a special occasion of course. Not only was it my second blogaversary yesterday, but at last I can now get to the other end of the table to reach the wine glasses to celebrate and properly thank you for all the lovely comments that you sent.

And if you're a blogger sorting out your own clutter and are showing off the results on your own blog, I've added a Mr Linky to this blogpost so you can link up your efforts too.

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Two years old today and Mr A has the last word on the matter.

1 week's rubbish, circa January 2008

It's been so busy of late, the fact that this blog is two years old today almost passed me by. So do excuse me for a moment while I grab a now defunct party blower to celebrate and give it a WhoopeyTootToot!

Yes indeed. Two years old. Whoop whoop. Toot toot!

Who'd have thought it, eh!

It's no secret that when I typed up my first blog post on 21st January 2008, I only intended to write about my run-up to St Edmundsbury's zero waste challenge and document the big week itself.

Just eight weeks, that's all.

At the time I had no idea what the heck I was doing or what I'd got myself into. But when I discovered the urgency of it all, I found I had less time to dedicate to blogging about other stuff or making money from things like this...

...because of a new-found determination to reduce the burden of this:


From designing beautiful tiaras to designing out stinky old waste, now that's what I would call a tale of chalk and cheese!

But I can certainly say that despite there being more money in tiaras than there is in blogging about bin bags, I really haven't looked back...

...except for last night, when I sat down with my husband, aka Mr A. And while we reminisced I decided to ask him what he really thought about my rubbish blog and our personal measures to reduce our family's waste. For new readers who aren't familiar with my husband's reputation, perhaps I should say now that he is rather masterful in the sport of filling bin bags with whatever crap that gets in his way.

"Just like that!"

So it's fair to say that he took some warming up on the issue and when I asked if the reputation I've given him on this blog was appropriate, he just smiled and said that it was for me to judge because all he did was "follow my draconian rules".

Now now Mr A. More enthusiasm please! I'm the gentle love-of-your-life not some haughty Miss Whiplash! Although this paragraph is beginning to make me sound like the latter.

So with a little more patience, this is what I managed to tease out of the man who's had to put up with my rubbish reducing antics for two whole years. This is what he really thinks about life in the Almost Average Household...

"I suppose it hasn't been that difficult to deal with the waste we create and it has made me think about what I buy. These days I hardly ever go shopping to the supermarket because I can't pick up anything without the thought police reminding me about packaging waste."

"And it's great to see how well things are working, whether it means me refusing new bags at the shops or seeing the success of home-composting."

Well so far so good! But with my hands almost over my ears, I thought I'd enquire about his key frustrations too....

"Well, I find it really annoying that things destined for the black bin are snaffled away and relocated to a corner of the house in a way that resembles a mini waste-transfer-station, and that they are then left to hang around on a long-term promise of being taken off to a charity shop".

Ouch! I suppose I really do need to get myself more organised.

"AND there are certain rules of the recycling industry that are hard to understand, e.g. why Weetabix wrappers end up in the black bin when other plastic film can be recycled at the Bury St Edmunds recycling centre."

I agree and well spotted. I'd forgotten about those - and indeed Weetabix will be getting back to me later to tell me what they're made of...........So is that all?

"No, there's having to put up with that plastic bag hanger on the wall, which I think is ugly and PLEASE don't get me started on having to wash up butter wrappers."

Oh dear, slightly going a bit pear-shaped there. Perhaps I have gone a step too far, but you've seen those bulging bags of plastic film that we had beforehand. So that bin has been a huge help.

But surely it's not all hassle on the domestic front?

"I have to admit the wooden toothbrushes were great and so are the washing balls that have replaced the constant need for laundry powder."

Phew, that's music to my ears and a surprise too. So anything else to say on the matter Mr A?

"Well all I can say is, who would have known that a blog could become a full-time occupation eh! And I would NEVER have guessed that family holidays would feature sightseeing visits to recycling centres!"

Now I could swear there was a smile when he mentioned the bit about the holidays. Could it be sarcasm? I suppose I'll ask him later.

But seriously, if it wasn't for the support of my husband, I could never have kept this blog going for so long. And he has had to put up with my determination in rescuing all sorts of things from the bin, such as old wooden toilet seats, unwanted slippers and cans of shaving foam. And the times I've stamped my foot crying "It's not rubbish it's a resource" is really nobody's business.

However, don't ever think that it's me who wears the trousers around here. Having given up tiara-making for writing about waste, I am now under very strict instructions to finally sort out my old bead-kit and I have also been told to buck up my ideas about rehoming my clutter too before it is too late.

So Mr A really does have the last word around this neck of the woods, honestly.

Well, that is until I remind him of the small matter, that since I took over the management of our waste, he's never had to put the rubbish bin out in all that time! Not once, in two whole years - it's me who's had to wheel it out, but then half-a-dozen times is hardly a hardship.

That's blimmin' good service is it not and surely it's worth the odd hassle? I ask him and he most definitely agrees.

So all's well that ends well and here's a toast to many more rubbish reducing adventures to come. Thank you to everyone who has been following the blog, to old friends and new. Even if you feel that the rest of your household isn't quite on your wavelength, I hope this reassures you that they can come round in time.

So to celebrate, I'm turning my attention back to decluttering. If you can, please come back tomorrow to see how I've got on!

What's that Mr A...? I'd better take it all off to the charity shop before you get back from work, or you might just chuck it in the bin?

Oh...dear!

At least you get to see what I'm up against! Actually, I'm saving it up for a boot sale!

Well there's no time for arguing about it now - I've got to get on and it's time for a sing-song as I go.

"Happy birthday dear blog, Happy birthday dear blog, Happy birthday dear blo-og, Happy birthday dear blog!"

Hoorah.

WhoopeyTootToot!

Whoop whoop. Toot toot!

Oh and I nearly forgot....here's a photo of our latest week's rubbish, all dressed for the occasion.



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Bags of bags in bags and even more bags!

Geez, being a trolley pulling reusable bag carrying veteran, I'd forgotten how many plastic bags could potentially come with a weekly shop.

But look! Here's my latest shopping that arrived home today from the supermarket! And just look at those bags. There are blimmin' lots of them!

But as you can probably guess, it wasn't me doing the shopping today. This isn't how my shopping looks when I normally bring it through the door. For the first time in absolutely yonks I'd ordered my groceries online, thanks to my car being immobile and needing an urgent mega top-up of stuff. I would have normally gone on the bus, but I've also been too busy of late to make regular trips into town.

Ordering online may have been convenient but it meant there was no escape from the plazzie bag and its many friends, which is utterly ironic because only ten minutes before the delivery van arrived, I'd got a call from BBC Three Counties Radio to appear on the JVS show later to discuss the topic of carrier bags. Timing is everything, wouldn't you say!

A few years ago I wouldn't have given this picture a second thought, but these days I look at the amount of plastic and think, what a potential waste! And there were even more bags than you see here, but I'd quickly unpacked them and gave them back to the driver along with a bag full of plastic packaging I'd been collecting for recycling.

At least these bags are in good hands. It's not quite the end of their life just yet. Many people would just throw them in the bin, where they would take decades to break down in landfill, not to mention those that get blown away and harm wildlife. However these will be reused as bin bags for all the plastic film packaging that I'll collect over the year and each month will be recycled together with the contents. I guess they'll probably come back as plastic lumber or something similar!

But plastic bags aren't the only problem when it comes to the amount of rubbish that gets generated by shopping. There's so much other rubbish that a trip to the supermarket can create too. So if you'd like to find out more about what else you can do to reduce waste, be sure to check out my latest guide for Week 2 of The Rubbish Diet challenge, which was published online just yesterday.

And if you really need some extra help with remembering to take your reusable bags to the shops, take a look at the YouTube video below featuring Dave Chameides from 365 Days of Trash. Email subscribers can find the link directly to the video here.



More advice is also available in Dave's article, that accompanies his video, entitled Plastic Bags: Stop being part of the problem.

And the good news is, after this tiny blip in usual proceedings, I will be back to the shops next week with more reusable bags than you can shake a stick at!
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Thanks to Stephanie of @Facing_South on Twitter for sharing the link to Dave Chameides' article. And if you're interested in further discussons on plastic bags, listen into BBC Three Counties Radio today (19th Jan) between 1-2pm where JVS will be discussing this very topic on his show.
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The Rubbish Diet Challenge: Week 2, Retail Therapy

My favourite fruit & veg stall at Bury St Edmunds Market.
I can't believe I never used to shop there before.

Welcome back to the Rubbish Diet Challenge, where this week it's time to hit the shops with a good dose of retail therapy.

However, this is a retail experience with a difference, introducing a range of steps that will help you find ways to reduce rubbish before it gets anywhere near your kitchen bins.

So having worked out your local recycling options in Week 1, the tasks in Week 2 will challenge you to become more familiar with the choices you have in the shops and make you aware of the pitfalls of packaging.

You'll learn the key principles to shopping with waste in mind, find out what those recycling symbols on packaging really mean and discover how to avoid tempting offers that will just end up in your bin.

So if you are ready to find out why you should ignore this symbol and discover which ones you should look out for instead, then it's time to see what challenges are instore for you at Week 2 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge, which you can find at http://tinyurl.com/TheRubbishDietWeek2


And if you want to know what else to expect in the forthcoming weeks, check out the sidebar, which has a list of everything that's coming up.

As usual, it would be great to hear about any progress you're making, so please don't hesitate to let me know how you're getting on and if you've got any questions, please feel free to drop me an email, or leave a comment below.

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Bloggers for Haiti

I interrupt my usual ramblings to raise awareness of the Bloggers for Haiti fundraising page, which is responding to the Haiti earthquake by raising money to send Shelterboxes to help those affected by the disaster.

The fundraiser was started by blogger EnglishMum and several of her blogging friends. You can find more about the fundraising initiative at her latest post here: http://englishmum.com/2010/01/16/bloggers-for-haiti/

You might have already seen the shelterboxes highlighted on the news last week. They are distributed by UK based clarity Shelterbox, which responds very quickly to international disasters. And as I am sat in my very comfortable house, I can't help but be moved to tears when I think how much these boxes can help those who have lost their homes and who are not only fighting for survival but also overcoming the loss of loved ones. If you've ever been a student of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, there's no time like the present to realise how shelter is a luxury in itself.

So thank you for reading. If you are able to donate, it would be great if you could pop over to the justgiving page and if you have a blog and would like to do something to support those affected by Haiti, please consider blogging about it too.

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