The Rubbish Diet

To achieve Zero Waste, we MUST keep focusing on the target

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:44:00 +0000

The future of waste is something that's been on my mind lately, not least because tomorrow I will be attending my first board of trustees meeting of the Zero Waste Alliance UK. I've also got several exciting projects coming up over the next few weeks, which will highlight how our culture is changing.

My mind goes back to 2008, when I volunteered to take part in my first Zero Waste Week challenge. Despite my enthusiasm, I thought I must have had a screw loose for trying it. I worried that people would think I was a weirdo and as for the reducing waste so drastically, I didn't think it was possible.

But the results of the challenge showed otherwise and, at the time, shocked me.

I realise now that my pre-challenge assumptions were based on limiting judgements, lack of knowledge and embedded habits, as well as expectations that fitted well within my comfort zone. Consequently, when I first signed up for the challenge, I confessed to the council that the best I could commit to during Zero Waste Week would be a carrier bag's worth of rubbish. It was a comfortable target. With such a busy family lifestyle, it felt far more realistic than producing an empty bin. And to be honest, knowing how much rubbish we threw away before that, I knew I'd be happy and proud to declare such an achievement.

But this declaration was 8 weeks before the Zero Waste Week. I was unaware of the discoveries I would make in the coming months, including the recycling solutions that were continually improving, or how I could take control over reducing waste that could not be recycled. As my knowledge grew during those few weeks, my assumptions changed and so did the horizon of the challenge that lay ahead.

With my limiting judgements being sledge-hammered into oblivion, thanks to my new knowledge, experiences and conviction, I was able to look afresh at the Zero Waste target and the goal looked more easily attainable. That's how during that week in March 2008, we only came to throw out a plaster. And that's how those who took part in the Rubbish Diet Challenge that I set at the beginning of the year, also came out with fabulous results.

That's the power of the target, no matter whether it's zero waste or any other personal\business goal.

And this is why we must keep the focus on zero waste and underpin it with a commitment to learn, innovate and improve the processes and solutions that help us move towards that goal.

Zero waste isn't just about recycling more, it's about not creating that waste in the first place.

Whether you're a designer developing your next product or packaging, a buyer for your own business or a large retail chain, an events manager organising the smallest of events, or a householder who thinks you have nothing at all to do with the waste stream, you can make your own contribution towards a zero waste future whoever you are.

Even if all you do for now is take a proper read of your council's latest leaflet or your company's waste management policy, that is a key step to recharting the future of waste. As a resident, you may find new services that you never realised existed and begin to recycle more as well as reduce other waste. As a designer or buyer you may discover that the future of your product can only be landfill and decide to design-out that waste. Or if you're organising an event based on plastic cutlery or polystyrene, you may decide to consider alternatives that could help make your event waste free.

By setting yourself a zero waste target now, even if you don't think it is achievable, it will kickstart your interest and your inner innovation. Then once your learning curve is underway and you become satisfied with your progress, a sustainable zero waste future will become more attainable, and you'll be ready to pounce on any new technologies or services that become available or more easily respond to legislative pressures.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little imagination to want to do things differently and great results can be achieved, such as that shown in the business case study here or illustrated by community based programmes that include WasteWatch's Our Common Place, or the examples demonstrated by individual contributors to MyZeroWaste.

You just need to keep that target in mind, even if it feels like it will take you five years to get there.

So begin now, by setting yourself the target, learn, innovate accordingly, reap the benefits of interim successes and review regularly.

I strongly believe you'll get there, even if you need the genius of scientists\designers to help you or invigorated markets to drive the demand for recycled goods.

As a society, if we focus on the target, the road to zero waste and closed loop recycling will always remain open and all other diversions will become closed.

Anything else, can only be second best and is less than our future deserves.

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Useful websites to feed your inspiration:

www.wrap.org.uk
www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
www.recyclenow.com
www.wastewatch.org.uk
www.myzerowaste.com
www.feeding5k.org

My very first relationship with.... COMPOST!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 08 May 2012 17:22:00 +0000

As we're slap bang in the middle of Compost Awareness Week (6-12 May), I thought I'd delve into the archives of my memory cells and rustle up a few notes on my long standing relationship with compost.

For me, composting has been a normal part of life since my childhood in the Seventies. I have early memories of accompanying my grandmother on the trek from her kitchen to the compost heap, which was located in the chicken run.

Well it felt like a trek. I was just five years old, and it was a large garden.

My sister and I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' home and as we grew up, one of our little jobs was to take the kitchen waste to the compost heap, dodging the fearsome cockerel when we got there.

We soon realised the value of composting, not least because it was the perfect place to hide the evidence of our sneaky pea snaffling, as we entertained ourselves with many rounds of pea-pod Top Trumps.

And every so often, we would see our uncle standing in the middle of the heap, turning it and shovelling heaps of earth from the bottom, into a wheelbarrow, which he'd then dig into the kitchen garden.

Soil from all those peelings! It seemed like magic.

It is clear that my early introduction to composting as an everyday part of life stayed with me. I may have left the Welsh village where I grew up and spent the next decade hopping from student digs and shared houses, before settling down with my husband, but the minute we bought our first house in 1998, one of the first changes I made to the garden was to install a compost bin - one of those black plastic ones, which we bought through our local council.

When we relocated to our new home in Bury St Edmunds five years later, I discovered that St Edmundsbury Borough Council collected vegetable peelings & garden waste as part of its recycling service. This was 2003 and when registering for our brand spanking new wheelie bins, I suddenly got all defiant. As I rejected the opportunity of adding a brown wheelie bin to our collection I recall making my stance clear...

"There's no way the council's getting their hands on my compost!" were the words that fell from my mouth.

I can't help laughing at my over-protection position on my grass clippings and apple cores. It wasn't as though I was even being particularly frugal. We simply had an average sized garden that could easily accommodate a compost bin, and it just made more sense to compost at home and bung the finished contents under the odd shrub, instead of a bin lorry carting our peelings around the county to be managed elsewhere.

Nine years on and we now have a collection of three compost bins dotted discreetly around the garden, as well as a wormery, which is great for the odd scraps of cooked waste. Well, I say discreet. The plastic ones are tucked away, but the wooden beehive compost bin (pictured above) has become a very attractive feature of the garden and is located just outside the kitchen.

Many people feel discouraged from home composting because of the risk of vermin such as rats. Although this is a possibility in some areas, we've never had a problem. The worst we've ever experienced was a mouse that decided to take residence, but was solved with a humane mousetrap. I also had a squeamy squirmish scare with maggots on one occasion, as a result of something going in that shouldn't have, but some boiled water, covering the contents with newspaper and avoiding that compost bin for a week soon resolved the issue and it has never happened again.

As far as creating the 'right mix' is concerned, I'm no particular expert. I just bung in all our scraps and remember to add odd pieces of cardboard, paper and garden clippings now and again. If the results are sloppier than our efforts, I don't see it as a problem as the compost just gets buried into the existing earth anyway, enhancing it with all its extra nutrients.

Even though our garden is not very large, I still prefer our self-sufficient approach to managing our kitchen scraps. From a sustainability perspective, it seems far more sensible. However, we have since compromised and added the council's composting service for our garden waste, which is plentiful in the Spring and throughout the Summer.

Although not quite as exciting as my own early memories of composting, I hope my children - currently aged 7 and 10 - will develop the same responsibility and awareness when they are older. At least they already understand the process and a quick test this evening demonstrated that they know the kind of stuff that goes in the compost bin, even if they don't have that duty very often.

But they'd better look out because Compost Awareness Week has just inspired me to add compost duties to their list of jobs.

Cue evil laughter.

Mwahahahahahahahaha.

Mwahahahahahahahahaha!

Well it's about time they made more of an effort.

And I know it won't just be rotten veg we'll be discussing. I'm quite sure they will soon tell me that I'm a 'Rotten Mother' for making them do it.

I just hope that when they are my age they will come to thank me, and are just as grateful as I am to my late grandmother.

If you've never composted before and would like to find out more, visit www.homecomposting.org.uk and www.recyclenow.com/home_composting.

Swish, shwop, swap or drop, or make do and mend?

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:52:00 +0000

With a solid infrastructure of car boot sales, clothing agencies, charity shops, recycling points, give & take days, passing onto friends or a night out swishing, there are many solutions to getting rid of unwanted clothes today. You'd think our society would have this thing sorted wouldn't you?

Wrong!

According to TRAID (Textile Recycling for Aid & International Development), over 1.4 million tonnes of clothing still end up landfill each year, much of which could be worn again.

Now this makes me bloody angry!

When you consider all of the labour, the resources, the energy and the effort that's gone into making a product, which is simply discarded as rubbish when there is so much more that can be done with it, it highlights a major problem with our society. A society that is either unaware or one that doesn't care.

So it was with interest, that I've been following the huge campaign that has been launched recently by M&S and Oxfam, promoting Shwopping. Unless you're a hermit in a loincloth, tucked away in the farthest corner of a deep cavern, it's been hard to miss it, especially as it's been fronted by one of the UK's most wonderful actresses, Joanna Lumley and has hit print, broadcasting and social-media alike. The message is simple. Stop chucking so much into landfill because that's bad. M&S will make it easy for you to recycle instead, passing it onto Oxfam for reuse, resale or recycling. The idea is that next time you're shopping in-store, take in something old and drop it in the Shwop Drop box before you buy something new.

Claiming this is the start of a fashion revolution, it is unsurprising that the campaign has been met with a whole whirlwhind of controversy, with some great commentary from columnists such as the Guardian's Deborah Orr, TriplePundit's Raz Godelnik and blogger Keith Parkins, all delving a little deeper beyond the campaign gloss. M&S is really putting itself on a pedestal for what could be deemed as profiting from simply selling emperor's clothes, when the more environmental alternative is to buy less.

We will never win the battle of waste and resource issues with constant consumerism, but despite this, I think that M&S really does have a huge role to play with its current campaign and in terms of how it can be developed further.

From an educational perspective, the retail giant is able to reach an audience that may never be turned on by less sexy council leaflets, or that feels too proud to enter a charity shop, even to drop something off, or can't be arsed to take something to a recycling centre because they're simply too busy getting the buzz from the next purchase.

If you're looking for any anecdotal evidence on this, people like that really do exist. I've been there, and am just glad to have snapped myself out of it shortly after the turn of the century.

In my bubble of optimism I hope that the Shwop idea will be the start of something greater, not least because I hope it will reach out to an untapped opportunity for clothes recycling and that other stores will follow the lead in raising awareness in their own socio-demographic corner of the retail sector.

But I also hope that M&S will develop this further and use it as a platform to educate customers and kickstart discussion - and action - and look at ways in which it can work closer with the community.

I have already witnessed the perfect model for this at the campaign's Shwop Lab in Spitalfields this week, where I had the chance to chat to eco designer Gary Harvey, whilst he was busy designing a dress made from donated denim that would have otherwise been landfilled.

Passionate about good design and quality materials, his position is clear, in that fast fashion has transformed the clothing industry with merchandise that is so cheap you can pick up a pair of jeans for just four quid. He worries that as a society we have lost respect for clothing.

He is also concerned about the social injustice of a trade, which in many areas has taken people away from their communities into enforced labour with poor conditions of pay as well as health and safety. He's not on his own in this worry. Lucy Siegle, author of the book To die for, has conducted a tremendous amount of research in this area, which has highlighted some stark realities of the fashion industry. I'd recommend you watch her very short video, which provides a brief insight.

My discussion with Gary Harvey highlighted another issue, in that we have lost our creative and practical skills for making and customising our own clothing. Even altering an item of clothing can be beyond our capabilities. As a society he wants us to get up off our backsides, have a go at making something and stop making excuses. I could only nod and blush, having rejected many a blue skirt in my local charity shops this week because the hem was far too long. I was beginning to wish that I'd already had this conversation last week.

"It's not difficult," he told me. "If you make a mistake, you just fix it."

My visit to the Shwop Lab gave me access to an informed perspective, which despite being open to all of M&S customers, the majority won't see it. Yet, with a full agenda of debate and insights in conjunction with Oxfam and the Sustainable Centre of Fashion, it is a fundamental part of the campaign launch

If M&S really wants to influence its customers and start creating a deeper fashion revolution, every store in this country should host a version of the Shwop Lab, raising awareness of the issues that exist in the fashion industry and illustrating what the company is doing to address them.

It may be a little leftfield, but I would also love to see an instore Oxfam pop-up shop with good quality pieces, which can be bought there and then, to introduce shoppers into the idea of reuse.

I really hope the Shwop campaign will create a much wider debate about our relationship with clothing than has ever been tackled before. It's certainly made me look again at my own buying habits, which have had the odd moment of weakness lately. Inspired by Gary Harvey, I am also going to attempt to overcome my fears and laziness and try and work some magic with my sewing machine, which I will need to drag down from the loft.

Meanwhile, I've got one last plea to M&S. Please, I beg you to stop including those damn belts with your jeans. If I want a belt I'll buy a good quality one, and probably so will the thousands of people who also probably take them off after the first wash and never wear them again. I know I could 'shwop' it, but I don't want it in the first place.

It may be a very niche idea, but just imagine the impact it could make. To bastardise one of the most famous sayings, "That's one small belt for a woman, but one giant leap for mankind".

Two fine chaps aid my path to EV

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:52:00 +0000

I think I'm getting restless and I certainly confess to a huge element of eco envy, having recently spent time with a couple of chaps who are passionate about their electric cars....and...wait for it.....can also charge them up from energy that has been harnessed by their solar panels.

Yes, no longer satisfied with reducing my rubbish and fighting the good fight to keep our energy usage down, my mind has been wandering in the direction of other ways in which we can reduce our carbon emissions.

And with petrol prices going up and strikes being threatened, I can't help but think about the future of my car. And herein lies my quandary.

I have a six year old 1.4 VW, which only does 2,500 miles per year. It's now costing me over £60 in petrol to fill up the tank and for that I get around 300 miles. I am not a heavy user. I try to restrict my journeys, walk when I have time and use my bike much more in the summer. So this car of mine should last me for another ten years at least. However, that's a decade of higher fuel costs and constant carbon emissions.

But the cost of switching now seems too much of a barrier, so it was interesting to have the opportunity to pick the brains of broadcaster Mark Goodier, who has been driving electric cars since 2003 when he first leased a Ford Think. I caught up with him at the British Gas stand at this year's Ideal Home Show.

Mark's own switch to EV was very much prompted by the congestion charge in London and leasing the Think meant that not only did he save on the urban driving charge, but also insurance and service costs went down. With no road tax to pay and running on electric power, annual motoring costs became much cheaper still.

Mark now drives a Nissan Leaf and a year ago he also upgraded his home with Solar PV. Thanks to the feed-in tariff he can now effectively run his car from free energy sources. This is backed up by his subscription to British Gas' green Energyshare tariff, which uses alternative energy, so either way he ensures his car runs 100% free of emissions.

I have to confess, he was doing a really good job of convincing me and we soon started to estimate projected savings if I made the switch.

Without exact data it's tricky but even with estimated petrol costs at £2,500 per year, Mark calculated that the equivalent cost in terms of electricity would be around £500. So over just five years, that could mean a saving of £10,000 alone. Extrapolate that to 10 years and we're looking at £20,000.

Now, I am starting to get excited. Throw in free Road Tax, cheaper insurance and service costs and we could notch that figure up by a couple of thousand pounds. Suddenly, it does make the switch to an EV more attractive.

And then there's the thought of never having to visit a petrol station ever again.

Now that's heaven!

Seriously, if I had the cash, I'd be going on a test-drive and would be choosing the right car for me right now!

But I don't have that money and realistically I've got more pressing issues on the domestic front, such as how we can turn our 3 bedroom semi into a TARDIS to accommodate our everyday living requirements. That's where we need to spend our cash for the foreseeable future.

However, I am not going to take my sights of making the switch and if I am honest, it's trading in my husband's car that would bring us most benefits, both financially and from a carbon saving perspective. Swiftly approaching 100,000 miles on the clock, in a car that is also just six years old, it illustrates how his mileage easily exceeds mine.

So I reckon we'll sit tight for a couple of years whilst the next phase of the market settles and wait for the right car to come along. Mark Goodier predicts that we will see more accessible options by 2013/14, which really isn't that far away.

By then, he also forecasts that we will see faster charging points that achieve full charge within just 25 minutes. Private charging points, such as those provided by British Gas, will be bolstered by a wider network of public charging facilities, including supermarkets and motorway stations. Chains such as Little Chef are already committing to installing facilities for its customers.

We will also see inductive chargers being installed in parking bays, which will make charging electric vehicles even more streamlined. And as for the cars themselves, he suggests that as well as prices moving in line with petrol vehicles, there will be options that will enable the customer to purchase the car but lease the battery. Meanwhile he predicts that petrol models will become more efficient too.

It really feels that the electric vehicle market is starting to pick up pace, and for the first time I am beginning to feel that the next time we trade in one of our cars, we will be looking at an electric alternative. The only thing that isn't clear is which car that will be or whether by then, we will have become a one-car family.

So, can you see why I'm getting restless?

Having had the chance to talk to Mark Goodier, I am now convinced that EV is the way to go. But the observant ones among you will have spotted my mention of two chaps. Yes, it's true, I also had the delightful opportunity of finding out more about the actor\presenter Robert Llewellyn's experiences too, another strong advocate who I met at a campaign launch party.

But don't take my word for it. If, like me, you are keen to find out more, check out the video below, which is the first in the Fully Charged series that he has recorded as for British Gas.

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Blogger disclaimer: This is not part of the sponsored post series that I have written for British Gas. However a complimentary ticket was included to gain acess to the Ideal Home Show.

Transition Town opportunity for Bury St Edmunds

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:23:00 +0000

If you are interested in any element of sustainability, resource efficiency or community development in Bury St Edmunds, I suggest putting 15th May in your diary and heading along to the Fox Inn (pictured above), where you will find out more about how Bury can become a Transition Town.

Transition Towns have been in place since 2006, founded by Rob Hopkins, who created the first community in Totnes, Devon. Now there are over 1000 similar initiatives in 34 countries, all seeking to develop a more sustainable and resilient society, which strengthens local skills and resources in order to become less dependant on a fossil-fuel based culture.

Proposed by county councillor Mark Ereira, the Bury St Edmunds initiative will have the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the more established groups in the East of England including Suffolk's Sustainable Bungay, Greener Framlingham, Transition Lavenham,Transition Ipswich and Greener Sax. All it needs is the support of local residents, local businesses, entrepreneurs and community innovators to kickstart the action. The meeting held on 15th May will be the first step to see if this can happen.

Although I won't be able to attend during the evening (due to a prior engagement with another Suffolk transition group), I fully support the launch of a local group and I have already committed to developing ideas that will help reduce Bury St Edmunds' waste footprint both within the community and the business sector.

So whatever your background, if you'd like to know more or would like to take an active part in creating a more sustainable Bury St Edmunds, please do get involved.

The first meeting will be held at 6:45pm, on Tuesday 15th May at The Fox Inn, Eastgate St, IP33 1XX. For more information, please contact Richard Frost on 07590 515992 richard.frost3@virgin.net or Mark Ereira mark.ereira@suffolk.gov.uk 07913 818838.

Further details about Transition Towns can be found at www.transitionnetwork.org.

My fantasy landfill bin: please vote for it!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:38:00 +0000

I'm afraid I could resist no longer. Having admired the very pretty and funky designs that have been entered into Brabantia's 'Design your Bin' competition, I finally succumbed to submitting my own entry.

My urge to 'tell it like it is' in the world of pedal bin design led to a momentary lapse of 'what the hell' today and with a few flicks of the mousepad, my entry 'Off to Landfill' was live and kicking on the competition website, featuring a photo taken at Suffolk's Foxhall landfill site back in 2008.

I admit it's not the prettiest of designs. It's probably the most rubbish design you'd ever find on a bin, but then, literally that's the point. Cheeky I know, but it does tell the story of where rubbish ends up.

So, to all my waste-busting pals out there, if you've got a few minutes, I'd very much appreciate your vote. Just click here to go straight to my bin.

Although a panel of design judges get to pick the winner, the bin with the most votes gets the prize for the most popular design. So if that ever happens to this bin, I will be chuffed to bits.

Voting is open until 10 June 2012. Hopefully, you may even be inspired to enter your own waste-busting design.

Nestlé: An 'eggsample' of redesigning Easter packaging

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:45:00 +0000

It's that time of year when traditionally the confectionery industry comes under fire.

"Too much plastic," we cry, as we open those boxes that protect the chocolate egg and its other sweet contents, and despite the reduction of packaging in recent years, an article in last week's Guardian, revealed that there are manufacturers, particularly those associated with the luxury end of the market, that are still not doing enough to rid us of the plastic crud that comes with our chocolate egg,

So it was interesting when Nestlé's press team got in touch last week, to see if I fancied checking out their latest packaging. If that saves me the embarrassment of poking about with my magnifying glass amongst the supermarket aisles, how could I decline such an offer.

I've been aware of Nestlé's reduction efforts for the last four years, since my interest in waste began. However, the company has been redeveloping its packaging since 2006, with the aim of making its entire Easter egg packaging 100% recyclable. During this time, the company has made great inroads into the 3,000 tonnes of Easter packaging waste. The branded mug range represents the final set of products to be tackled, helping Nestlé achieve its goal and saving 48 tonnes of plastic in the process.

For a consumer with a geeky interest in waste reduction, Nestlé's work in this area has been a really positive step, especially when it comes to plastic, because even now, many local authorities across the UK still do not collect this material for recycling. By switching to alternative 100% recyclable materials, Nestlé states that it will save 726 tonnes of plastic waste each Easter.

So what has Nestlé done exactly? The key shift has been redesigning its products so that it doesn't have to rely on plastic to protect the egg. Designing out waste at source is one of the first goals of moving to a Zero Waste future. An example can be seen here, where FSC certified card is now used to secure the mug and confectionary inside the box.

However, the branded mug range still incorporates some plastic in its packaging, but this is compostable film, which is used for the windows.

Nestlé's latest announcement prompted me to have a browse along the supermarket aisles to see what other manufacturers are up to and it was great to see that competitor Cadbury's has also gone down the route of replacing plastic packaging with basket-shaped card. But as last week's Guardian article claimed, there is still a lot of plastic rubbish still being distributed around the country, contributing to 3,000 tonnes that ends up in landfill.

Of course, despite the positive news from Nestlé, and the other fact that the company has incorporated a 30% reduction in packaging overall, that compostable window still niggles me. Such is the risk of sending such packaging to a Zero Waste geek.

I will happily separate that fillm and see how it breaks down under the auspices of the composter in my back garden, but what concerns me is how many other consumers will follow suit? Will they notice and if so, will they be bothered? And of course not everyone has a home composter, for which this material is intended.

At least Nestlé includes clear instructions on what to do with the materials, so the lesson to us all is to keep a close eye on labelling, no matter what we buy.

If that is the lesson for us, the consumer, perhaps the lesson for Nestlé then, is to redesign its packaging even further to remove the need for compostable plastic, possibly shrinking the size of the windows in any product that currently needs such protection.

But I know I'm picking at bones here. Nestlé has taken a leading role within the industry by lightweighting its packaging and switching to recyclable materials and it's time that other manufacturers should follow suit. And while they're at it, perhaps the industry can also come up with an alternative solution for that ubiquitous plastic film which either litters landfill or is poor carolific fodder for EfW.

Ouch, I think this waste-geek needs some chocolate.

It's just a shame it's all gone.

Well that is the risk that comes with opening up the Munchies Easter egg box to assess the packaging.

And with all this talk of chocolate, I'm now regretting donating the accompanying Kit Kat and Yorkie boxes to our school's Easter Egg Bingo.

Brilliance in Blogging Awards: Please vote for this waste-busting blogger.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:56:00 +0000

I've just discovered the wonderful news that The Rubbish Diet has been shortlisted for the Brilliance in Blogging awards, which will be hosted by the BritMums Live event in June.

I'd firstly like to thank all the kind folk who nominated my blog. The news was a fabulous surprise, especially as over the last two months I've had my head firmly buried in other people's virtual bins.

Apparently there were over 12,000 nominations registered across many blogs, so I feel especially honoured to have made it to the top 20 blogs listed in the category of CHANGE.

The public vote has already commenced, and if The Rubbish Diet makes it to the final list, I will personally feel chuffed to bits, but more importantly, it will be a great opportunity to raise the profile of this blog and for bin-slimming habits to reach a wider audience and help embed the change that is needed to help reduce this country's waste footprint.

I felt too shy to ask for nominations, but today I am actually going to ask for your vote, as I would love the opportunity to raise awareness of waste reduction even wider within a blogging community that has already shown an appetite for such change.

Those who have followed the various campaigns that I have either instigated or promoted over the last four years, have done so with great enthusiasm. From the early days of the recycling carnival, to Recycle Week, Zero Waste Week, Baglady's Living ASAP, the 1000 bin challenge and finally the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012, there has been one heck of a lot of support from the parent blogging network.

I now want to capture that energy and make sure the waste-busting message amongst bloggers gathers even further momentum. Reaching the finals of the awards would most definitely help me empower other bloggers to do more and my brain is already thinking about some exciting campaigns that could capture the imagination of such a creative community, which has an amazing ability to inspire its far reaching audiences.

So if you have a moment to spare, just a few minutes is all it takes, do pop along to the Voting Page and VOTE.

You'll find The Rubbish Diet listed in the third category down, nestled amongst all the other brilliant blogs that have been nominated for the CHANGE! award. Quite rightly, it's going to be tough competition, so your vote really will count. And of course, do vote for others that have inspired you too.

I'm off there myself in a mo' to check out the other categories. Good luck to all the bloggers who have made the shortlists. And to anyone who takes the time to vote for my blog, I'd like to say a HUGE THANK YOU! Your support is very much appreciated.

To view all the categories and place your vote, please visit: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bibs_shortlist Voting closes on 30 April 2012.

Monday Meeting: The final weigh-in for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:38:00 +0000

Welcome to the last Monday Meeting for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012.

Last November I put a request on Twitter and Facebook to see if anyone fancied slimming their bins in 2012. Amazingly eight people volunteered straight-away and at the end of January, when routines had settled back to normal after the festivities of Christmas, the Rubbish Diet Challenge began, featuring weekly Monday weigh-ins and mini-challenges throughout the course of eight weeks.

Eight households slimming their bins in just eight weeks, all living in different parts of the country, including one in the US, all with different routines, contrasting priorities, variations in local recycling collections and wide-ranging household sizes.

But this was not an experiment or a test of perseverance, with me standing over them all with my beady eye. It was more a realistic timescale, that would give each household the freedom and flexibility to set their own waste reduction goals, and find out the information they needed to reduce their waste in the best way that suited their lifestyle.

For all participants, it involved finding out exactly what they could recycle at the kerbside and further afield in their locality and use the facilities to which they had access. For some it involved buying less or switching to reusable products and for others it also involved having a bash at home composting.

And everyone had a different starting point, including Ness, with her family of five, who had two full wheelie bins each fortnight (often accompanied by side bags), and Jax with her family of 6 (her baby was born in Wk 7), whose rubbish bin was always just a third to half-way full.

However, as others agreed, it didn't matter how little rubbish they thought they were throwing away, times change and services often improve, so each wanted to find out more. And it's great to see that in every household, at least a 50% reduction has been achieved, with some households achieving this in the first four weeks and others achieving much much more since.

While most participants were happily settled with their new slimmer bins, three households decided to take the finale Zero Waste challenge for Week 8 of the Rubbish Diet, with Suffolk's Kate & Terry-anna, and New York's Amy, pushing the limits to see how low they could go.

And my word, did they do brilliantly! Terry-anna's bag of landfill rubbish, pictured above, was only half the height of a sauce bottle and Kate's household only produced just two mug-sized bags. Amy over the States is also pleased with her attempt at the challenge, producing so little rubbish that there's not even enough to fill half a small carrier bag, and weighing no more than 1.4 kilogrammes.

But this challenge is not just about attempting a Zero Waste Week. It's actually the build up to that, which is more important. To quote Tim, who knew that he wouldn't be in a position to attempt a ZW week, "It's the habits I've acquired during the eight-week programme that'll make the difference". And you can see the impact of this in his last blogpost about his experience. Tim had started the challenge with a very full bin.

For many who have participated, even though the guided challenge has finished, their own discoveries towards waste reduction hasn't stopped. Just as Donna, who slimmed her household's waste by 50%, said to me only last week, "It isn't over in 8 weeks - it's just begun!"

I think Ness, who orginally started with two full wheelie bins, would agree with that. As I was leaving her house on Friday, after she'd been interviewed for BBC Radio Suffolk, she asked whether it needed to stop there and made it clear that she wants her Rubbish Diet to continue. Well there is plenty of scope for that as well as having more laughs in the process.

I suppose introducing her to the Recycling Centre for the first time, bringing in a Master Composter to help her compost and poking around her mouldy fruit, have all been interesting ways to strengthen our friendship, And it is unfortunate that she had a poorly dog, who sabotaged any attempts she had to slim that bin right down last week. But moving forward, she is now volunteering to get rid of the second bin, which she no longer has a use for. When she first embarked on the challenge, she was adamant she would keep it as a comfort blanket. So I am quite sure this won't be the last you'll hear of Ness's Rubbish Diet.

But for now, it's time for me to hang up my virtual bin-diving gloves for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012 and take the opportunity to thank everyone who has taken part, including all the households that have let me follow their waste-busting adventures, as well as those who have been inspired to join in along the way. Everyone has just been blimmin' brilliant and I'm also grateful to the Mark Murphy Show at BBC Radio Suffolk, which has followed the challenge from the very beginning.

The list below shows the starting points as well as the final week results (please note that this was not a competition and participants were able to chose their own description of monitoring, which suited them best. Also some collections are fortnightly, so for those, the list also includes their latest fortnightly results as well as a separate final week's results). I'm still waiting for some of the final results to come in and these will be updated as soon as they are ready. In the meantime, do try and listen to the great interviews that were broadcast on BBC Radio Suffolk last week, with Kate & Ness.

Kate's interview: http://bbc.in/wROWm9 FF>> 1h42: available until Wednesday

Ness's interview: http://bbc.in/w9BdF7 FF>>2h38s: available until Friday

And again, huge congratulations and thanks to all involved, with results that range from 50% reduction to what I'd reckon is as much as 95%, I think now might be time to roll out the fanfare.

1. Terry-anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk.
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): Final fortnight: 1.5 very small bags that are dumpier than an HP sauce bottle. Final Week: a small bag that is only half the height of the sauce bottle.

2. Ness. @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). Final Fortnight: 1 full bin Final Week: Just 1 bag of normal household waste, plus a rug and plastic from the family dog's unexpected illness.

3. Donna. @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly). Final Week: 1/2 30 rubbish sack, plus one-off polystyrene packing.

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City. www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) Final week: 1.4kg/3lbs

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly) Final Fortnight: 1 small swing-bin bag: Final Week: 2 very small bags, approximately the height of a coffee mug.

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). Final Fortnight: Approx 5 small bags worth of rubbish, filling only half the bottom layer of the wheelie bin. Final Week: 2 small bin bags and some bits of polystyrene.

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in: 3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly). Final Week: half a bag.

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire. www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly) Final Fortnight: 3 small bags, filling just the first layer of the bin with room to spare. Final Week:. 5 small bags.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge 2012 is all over, it doesn't mean that you can't have a go in your own time. It can start whenever you like, just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do and follow the weekly ideas. And if you want to join in the conversation on Twitter just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard. And do keep an eye on the blog over the next weeks, as I will be including an updated list of links and resources that will help you further in your waste-busting ventures.

It's reached Hong Kong: Tracking my mobile phone with O2Recycle.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:57:00 +0000

Back in January, I did something I'd never done before. I recycled my old battered mobile phone, working with O2Recycle to track it through their system.

Now, my phone was in a pretty poor condition when it left the UK. The screen was scratched, the casing was broken and it needed a rubber band to stop the battery falling out. And there was also the issue of it randomly rebooting itself. Yet, after assessment, I still received £24 for it, which illustrates how valuable these devices are.

But I wasn't just interested in the cash, I was also interested in how the mobile phone recycling process worked, as well as keen to find out where it would end up.

It's taken a while due to the Chinese New Year and staff holidays, but finally the latest update came through this week.

My phone, a Nokia N97, was initially sent to O2's appointed recycling company, Redeem, which is based in Scotland. There, it was assessed and categorised as a grade C, highlighting that it would need refurbishment to bring it up to the standard required to be sold onto a new owner.

Nokia phones are currently popular in the Far East so it was packaged up and despatched to the Hong Kong office. Pictured above is the shipment that contained my phone, arriving in Hong Kong just a couple of weeks after I had handed it in. Deliveries are made every Monday, and upon arrival the phones are unpacked, checked and sorted into model type and condition.

They are then entered onto the company's inventory and are scanned, using the unique barcodes attached to the back of the phones.

When all phones have been scanned and added to the computer system, they are then laid out in plastic crates ready for auction.

Auctions are held every Wednesday and traders arrive from Hong Kong and mainland China to look for popular models that can be easily sold straight away or refurbished. Once they've browsed the stock and tested the phones, the traders fill out their bid sheets with the price they are willing to pay. The process is very similar to a silent auction, where whey leave the sheets with the receptionist as they depart.

The bids are entered onto the computer and those who have placed the winning bid receive a SMS and return to collect their phones the following day. The process is so streamlined that phones requiring no repair or refurbishment can be placed on the market within just a few weeks of being sent to Redeem.

I have now received confirmation that my old Nokia has been bought by a trader in Hong Kong, who specialises in refurbishing old phones before selling them at a small phone shop. It will receive new housing and possibly other parts replaced before being boxed up with new accessories, such as a charger and earphones. It will then be sold onto a member of the public, which could either be a local resident or a tourist.

It still fascinates me that my useless old phone, which would have most likely ended up sitting in a drawer for years, is actually being put to good use over on the other side of the world.

I hope whoever buys it will get in touch. However I am doubtful, as the Hong Kong office doesn't get that involved with the individual traders. And although I included my contact details in an accompanying card, there's no guarantee that my message will be understood or not mislaid.

So maybe this is the end of the road as far as my curiosity is concerned.

If I ever get a random text message or email from its new owner I will let you know.

In the meantime, I am very much heartened by the tale that I read at the Little Green Blog, where Mrs Green was able to track her phone all the way to its new owner. Do pop over and have a read, it really is heart-warming.

__________________________________________________

If you're interested in recycling your old phone for cash, there are many ways in which you can do it, but it you wish to use O2's service, you can recycle by post and fill your details online, or pop into a store near you. You don't even need to be a customer. More information is available at www.o2recycle.co.uk. O2 don't make any profit from this service. All proceeds from their sales go to their charity Think Big, which supports community projects that help young people. Other gadgets such as iPods, cameras and even routers can also be recycled, although these are not processed on a cash-back basis.

Slimming your waste at work: a Suffolk case-study

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Regular visitors to this blog will be familiar with my passion for slimming down our rubbish at home, but I am also a sticky-beak when it comes to finding out what goes on behind closed doors in organisations across the country.

Inspired by my recent Smart Mums visit to British Gas, where I managed only a passing glimpse of their internal recycling activities, I was keen to find a smaller company closer to home that would allow me to have a poke about their own waste management facilities. I really don't think I could have found a finer example of corporate recycling.

Music Sales is an international company which specialises in music copyright, printed music, book publishing and digital distribution. It also has 20 music shops that fall under the MusicRoom brand as well as 125 affiliated stores around the UK.

Rob Child, who manages the company's waste stream took me on a tour of their distribution centre, which is based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

The first thing that struck me was the relevance of Rob's role within the business. Until fairly recently he was responsible for managing the procurement of packaging materials that are required for distribution. It was only 18 months ago that a newly appointed Head of Distribution had the vision to expand his responsibilities to incorporate waste management.

Waste is something that Music Sales cannot take lightly. The company distributes to the public as well as trade customers in over 100 countries and its online business provides access to over 250,000 products. From a waste management perspective, this means a heck of a lot of packaging coming through its warehouse door.

The company's trade waste service is provided by St Edmundsbury Borough Council. Until 18 months ago, much of the packaging waste was landfilled and Rob explained that when he took over the waste management role, the landfill skip was collected two or three times per week.

These days, their landfill skip is now only collected just once a fortnight and as a result, their waste management bill has dropped by two thirds.

That is a startling saving, which has been achieved simply by diverting recyclables out of landfill through easy in-house segregation.

The warehouse now separates cardboard, paper and plastic film, which are common materials that travel through its distribution facilities. These are sorted by staff into the crates that are provided before being baled ready for collection.

When you consider that last year alone, 90 tonnes of paper were handled by the distribution centre as well as 10 tonnes of plastic packing, responsible procurement and recycling processes can make a huge contribution to the company's waste footprint. Rob recognises this and since taking over the waste management role, his own procurement processes have led to a focus on packaging that contains recycled materials as well as products that can be more easily recycled.

But the company's waste reduction activities don't stop there. As well as core business recycling, Music Sales takes legal responsibility for its electronic waste. Rob also encourages staff to use desktop recycling boxes and recycle their coffee machine cups and refillable Thermos flasks were provided to staff in the warehouse, which has helped to cut down even further on waste. Dotted around the site are trade-waste equivalents of the wheelie bins that St Edmundsbury residents can find at home, which means that staff can also recycle aluminium cans and mixed plastics.

In just 18 months, the culture at Music Sales has totally changed and Rob is pleased with the fast turnaround. A waste audit conducted by an independent company a year ago revealed that they were already achieving so much, they couldn't find any other way of improving their process.

Personally I think the transformation of the company's waste stream is a real success story and it would be great if it could inspire other businesses to follow suit. Not only has the business seen a great financial saving from diverting recyclables from landfill, but Rob and his colleagues are also delighted with the contribution that the company is making regarding sustainability.

BritMums, Smarter Living & British Gas

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:39:00 +0000

Dana, from British Gas Smart Homes, demonstrating the Smart Meter handsets.

During the last couple of months I have been working with British Gas and BritMums as a Smart Mums ambassador, discussing ways to save energy in the home. A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to visit the British Gas Headquarters in Staines, for a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the products that are already appearing in homes across the UK.

Moving forward from its traditional business as an energy provider, which historically has been dependent on creating energy from fossil fuels, British Gas is now also focusing on innovations that enable its customers to benefit from renewable energy and have better control of energy usage as well as modernising other aspects of their homes.

The initial focus of the visit was to take a look at the testing lab, where the company calibrates and tests the performance of the Smart Meters that are being installed into customers' homes. Although they are not legally required until 2019, British Gas has already commenced upgrading properties and has installed over 400,000 units since 2010, offering customers more control over their energy consumption.

The mobile handsets, the latest version of which is pictured above, enable households to monitor their actual expenditure at any given time as well as forecasting the impact of their energy usage on future bills. This means that customers can visualise the real savings from efforts to reduce their usage, e.g. turning down the heating, improving insulation, or even closing the curtains at dusk. For eco-geeks, the handset also translates the savings into CO2 measurements, so if you're on a carbon diet, the system will help you monitor your goals.

Of course much of this is already achieveable with energy monitors that you can buy off the shelf, but the advantage of a system that is wired into the energy supplier is that it provides such accurate information, that once it's installed and you've had your training session, you can finally wave goodbye to the inconvenience of estimated bills as well as visits from the meter reader.

The rest of the day was filled with introductions to technologies such as those that will allow customers to control their heating remotely, simply by logging onto the Internet or a mobile app. Making good use of broadband and Wi-Fi technology, British Gas has also diversified into the home security market, with alarms that alert the customer directly if their home is experiencing a break-in or if there is threat of fire, a gas leak, a water leak or carbon monoxide risk. Customers can also configure the Safe & Secure monitoring system remotely and if there are any issues, they will be notified via a mobile update.

If there was a catchphrase that could sum up my day at the company's HQ, it would be "I didn't know British Gas did that!" And on that very subject, I guess the one thing that appealed to me the most, was the company's investment in developing the Electric Vehicle (EV) market.

One of the key issues that is met by the current EV market, is the perceived limit on mileage. And yes, it can be daunting to think you can only achieve just over 100 miles between recharging. However, while battery power is being improved and vehicle based technology becomes more efficient, British Gas is striving to develop facilities that will make charging more efficient and easier for EV customers. This also includes the introduction of a new off-peak saver tariff, which reduces the price of electricity between 8pm-4pm, so it makes it cheaper to charge your vehicle overnight.

British Gas also sells and installs domestic EV chargers for off-road charging, but more interestingly, they are increasingly working with businesses to develop the roll-out of chargers in the workplace as well as public installations in towns and cities. When combined with Solar PV technology, which can also be installed at a domestic level, it becomes a very exciting proposition indeed.

We were shown a video of Robert Llewellyn demonstrating his car and I confess I watched it with a real touch of envy.

And I must admit, having being driven back to the station in a Nissan LEAF, which was charged by the company's Solar PV unit in the HQ car park, I now want to convert. However, until the prices of cars fall (despite £5K grants being available), I know I won't be able to. A pity really, because with a car that's only done 14,000 miles in six years, I know an Electric Vehicle would do me just fine, especially with the thought of banishing the petrol station queue forever.

Of course, being a 'rubbish blogger', I couldn't visit any corporate headquarters without taking note of their waste reduction policies, and it was encouraging to see recycling bins dotted throughout the offices, for paper, plastics and cans, as well as batteries. And all credit to British Gas, the company's recycling bins are accompanied by some of the best labelling and recycling instructions I've seen in a long time!

_____________________________________________________________

I’m a British Gas Smart Mums Ambassador, working with BritMums and British Gas to highlight energy issues in the home. This is a sponsored post.

British Gas will be at this year's Ideal Home Show, which takes place 16th March to 1st April. Look out for their stand, where they will be demonstrating many of their new products in their Smarter Home display.

A much needed Food Waste Bill

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 06:30:00 +0000

Kerry McCarthy MP, pictured 3rd from right, with parliamentary supporters, including Caroline Lucas MP and Zac Goldsmith MP.

Yesterday I had the honour of being invited to Westminster, to meet Kerry McCarthy MP and to hear more about the Food Waste Bill, which she is presenting to the House of Commons today.

In a nutshell, the Bill would significantly reduce the obscene amount of food wasted by supermarkets and manufacturers by increasing the donation of good food to charities for managed redistribution to those who are living in food poverty in the UK.

Voluntary food distribution does exist in the UK, but this bill would see a much wider implementation, and Kerry McCarthy brings to government first-hand experience of how successfully a well managed operation can help the local community. She is patron of FoodCycle, a charity which has a small number of hubs and cafes across the UK, which uses donated food to cater for those in need. Kelvin Cheung, CEO of FoodCycle, shared with us his passion about the impact that a wider scheme could have on communities.

Tristram Stuart, campaigner and author of the shockingly revealing book Waste, was also in attendance to show his support and demonstrated clearly how what he referred to as an environmental liability could be so easily turned into something of value, prioritising food redistribution to people in the first instance or where appropriate, repurposing the food as animal feedstock. He asserted that sending food for waste treatment should always be the last option.

Of course under current legislation, much of what was discussed yesterday would fill many manufacturers or retailers with dread, especially over the issue of liability. It was evident that the solution is to implement models and a legal framework that overcome such problems. Jim Larson, Program Director, of US based Food Donation Connection, demonstrated how his organisation has co-ordinated food redistribution since 1992, offering a service that helps the industry to identify which food can be donated, ensure it is safely packaged and labelled and properly chilled or frozen to meet the requirements of redistribution. Donor partners, which include well known names such as KFC and Pizza Hut, consequently receive tax reductions for the surplus food that is donated.

When you hear the success of schemes such as this, which offer obvious solutions to the industry's wasteful practices, it is hard to comprehend why we've accepted this amount of waste for so long. And it is both obvious and urgent that a solution must be found for the UK.

The Food Waste Bill, which is being presented to Parliament today, will:

1. Place a legal obligation on large supermarkets and large manufacturers to donate a proportion of their surplus food for redistribution to charities, which redistribute it to individuals in food poverty. Food which is unfit for human consumption should be made available for livestock feed in preference to disposal.

2. Encourage and incentivise all other businesses and public bodies which generate food waste - from small food retailers to restaurants - to donate a great proportion of their surplus for redistribution. This would enshrine in law the waste hierarchy that will have to be implemented by all business and public bodies by 12-12-13 under the latest EU Waste Framework Directive.

3. Remove any (real or perceived) barriers to food donation. A UK version of 1996 US legislation, The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, is needed, which protects good faith donors and recipient agencies/foodbanks from civil and criminal liability, except in cases of gross negligence and/or intentional misconduct. It would apply to all potential food donors - including individuals, private companies, food retailers and manufacturers, caterers and restaurateurs

Hearing shocking statistics that 50% of edible and healthy food gets wasted across the EU, I have great hopes that today's reading will spur our own government into action and I urge you to encourage your local MP to support the bill and help change legislation.

This final week of The Rubbish Diet Challenge encourages you to look outside the home and become aware of the wider waste footprint.

And you certainly can't beat a touch of citizen-led enthusiasm to raise awareness of something so important as the food waste issue, whether it's asking your council to take the lead in analysing its own waste, contacting your local supermarket to highlight your concerns or inspiring your local school to embark on a food waste project.

And you know, this stuff is really not rocket science. It truly isn't. While the decision-makers of our country embark on life-changing legislation, those who want to, really can inspire change at a local level too, illustrated by the latest food-waste research project that is being undertaken by the Eco Club at our local primary school, where members are weighing waste daily and looking at ways in which they can reduce their impact on the food waste mountain.

As well as hoping for good things at a national level, I am also clearly excited about seeing their findings and discussing the opportunities that arise.

Encouraging action being taken by our local primary school, as illustrated in its latest newsletter.

____________________________________________________________

Kerry McCarthy is the MP for the Bristol East constituency. The Food Waste Bill has already received cross-party support and will be presented after Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons on 14 March 2012. For more information visit www.kerrymccarthymp.org.

Madam, would you like a dash of rubbish with that? No thanks!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:30:00 +0000

Thankfully, when eating out, I don't get asked that question. It would put me right off my food.

However, if you take responsibility for your waste footprint, you really have to have your wits about you, to know that the drink you're consuming isn't going to result in the bottle ending up in landfill, along with any excess plate waste going to the dump.

Over the last few years, I've become increasingly aware of the sustainability practices of my favourite eateries and yes I confess that I am much happier to frequent those that take this subject seriously, much more than those that don't, even if their motivation for reducing waste is simply financially motivated. At the end of the day, I want to ensure that wherever I spend my money, I am not leaving a waste trail behind me.

And one of my favourite haunts is the visitor restaurant at Ickworth House, a National Trust property close to Bury St Edmunds, where we often go for family walks. Being a member of the NT, I am aware that the national organisation has championed a range of sustainability projects over recent years, from energy conservation to allotmenteering. Therefore it was of no surprise when I met with the building's premises manager last week, that catering waste was also high on the property's agenda.

Ickworth House takes recycling very seriously and already uses the local council's trade recycling services, which enables them to recycle mixed plastics and aluminium as well as paper. Glass bottle recycling was introduced a couple of years ago along with separated cardboard. In the last six-seven months the kitchen has also started to compost whatever food waste it can, saving an estimated £500 per year from trade waste costs. The compost is used in the grounds, to feed the Italianate Garden and the next project on the horizon is a rocket composting system, which will also enable the property to manage any cooked food waste.

Admittedly, Ickworth House is privileged to have such facilities, but any catering business can take steps to reduce waste, whether it's buying into the local authority or private contractor recycling services, to divert cans, glass or plastic bottles or other packaging from its landfill waste bill. Many services also now include the collection of food waste. Depending on trade waste costs, these services should incur a saving and help increase profits. And if you're paying for a skip\bin collection service, a mini-compactor can help to reduce the number of collections.

Tackling catering waste is a major issue and one which brings many opportunities. The Sustainable Restaurant Association offers advice to the catering industry on how to reduce waste as well as improve other areas of sustainability, conducting audits and providing consultancy. If businesses want to find independent solutions, they might want to consider reducing packaging at source, speaking to suppliers, or switching from single servings to refillable jars etc.

For restaurants in London, signing up to the Too Good To Waste campaign and supporting customers who may want to take leftovers home with them is another way of reducing the food waste impact, as is, in some cases, reducing portion sizes. It would be great to have more of these campaigns rolled out regionally to raise awareness more locally.

Pubs and bars in the Soho area of London are also leading the way in reducing the number of plastic straws that go to waste. Straw Wars is an independent campaign that encourages the community to think twice about single use disposable plastic and supporting establishments now only offer customers a straw if they really want one. Again, this is a simple idea that could be adopted by towns and other cities across the UK.

Another idea that I've seen being introduced more locally in my own town, include cafes such as Saints in Bury St Edmunds giving away its coffee grounds for customers to take home for composting. The Coffee House, in Moreton Hall, also encourages "take-away" customers to use the Keep Cup, which they sell onsite and give a 10% discount on every top up.

So during this finale week of The Rubbish Diet challenge, do keep your eyes peeled for examples of good practice while you are out and about. Reducing waste might just begin in the home, but our waste footprint follows us wherever we are.

If you've spotted any great ideas being implemented, then do please share them in the comments box below.

Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 8, The finale

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 11:26:00 +0000

OK, down with the trumpet fanfare. It's too soon for that, but what a fine start to Week 8 of The Rubbish Diet challenge, with reports already coming in from some of our fabulous bin slimmers about how little rubbish has been created last week. Terry-Anna's rubbish bag is so small, it's dumpier than a HP sauce bottle and you can fit it into the palm of your hand. As for Tim's rubbish, there's much excitement that for the first time throughout the challenge, it's possible to see the bottom of his bin.

This is indeed the last week of the challenge, the finale week that comes with an extra mission, which should they choose to accept it, will give our volunteers the opportunity to attempt a Zero Waste Week. That's going one whole week, trying to create no rubbish at all. Of course they can recycle, reuse and compost what they can. It's what ends up in their rubbish bin that counts.

Zero waste is naturally the ideal, but for this week, it is just a goal. This week is really about just going that extra mile to see how low you can go, reinforcing all that has been learned during the previous weeks and heightening awareness of your impact on waste outside the home. For those who attempt the challenge, some will find it easier than others, due to better recycling facilities, size of household, or better control over daily routines.

So are you up for a zero waste challenge? If so, then read on.

The first thing to remember before attempting a Zero Waste challenge is not to be afraid of failure if you don't reach it. The second is that it is only a week, a week where you might choose to change your habits to experience the impact, but it doesn't mean that you are setting your expectations for a lifetime. And finally, even if a week seems too long, don't be put off. Try a Zero Waste Day if it feels less scary. Most of all, do try and make the week fun, looking for more ways where you can save money along the way.

More information about attempting a Zero Waste Week can be found in the online guide that accompanies the Rubbish Diet blog and this final week. Also, the following mini-challenges will set you off on the right foot.

1. Agree who is taking part in the Zero Waste challenge? Is it just you, or your whole household? If it's the household, write out a list of reminders about what can be recycled & composted as well as a list of things that can't.

2. Even if you can compost\recycle your foodwaste, try to keep it low. Follow advice at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com to find out more about storage, portion sizes and leftovers. If you often have fruit going to waste at the end of the week, try to buy less this week, store it in the fridge or use it up before it goes mouldy. If certain foods regularly go to waste, this could be the week that you decide to buy them less frequently.

3. Avoid rubbish whilst out and about. Even if you've got rubbish under control at home, as soon as you step outdoors, society almost throws it at you, from plastic straws in bars, to single servings of condiments. Possibly one of the biggest culprits are those disposable cups. Even some of those hot cotton handwipes, given out at the end of an Indian meal, could count as rubbish, as many restaurants buy them as cheap disposables. And don't assume that the bottle left over from your favourite tipple will get recycled by your favourite cafe, bar or restaurant. Although it's getting better it still depends very much on the establishment's attitude to recycling and the way in which it manages its waste stream. However, a few tricks up your sleeve will boost your rubbish-busting defences, such as a portable reusable cup, pre-empting rubbish by refusing it, asking the right questions and keeping your eyes peeled for on-street recycling bins that help you recycle on the go.

4. Ask for a doggy bag. We've all been there, having a great meal at a restaurant but too full to finish what's on the plate. If you''ve enjoyed it, don't look a gifthorse in the mouth! Ask for a doggy bag and take it home for finishing later. Trust me, this is a trend that is no longer frowned upon by the catering industry. I'd bet they'd even take it as a compliment. In fact, many restaurants are now positively encouraging you to repeat your enjoyment at home, in order to reduce the problem of food waste. If you don't believe me, take a look at the Too Good to Waste campaign, which has been launched by the Sustainable Restaurant Association. There are even tips to avoid food waste in the first place, by ordering smaller portions or juggling the menu options to match your appetite.

5. Don't give rubbish to others. Until now, The Rubbish Diet challenge has focused on how to reduce rubbish at home. However, this week's Zero Waste Week is also a good opportunity to think about how much rubbish we give to others, especially when buying presents. Remember, when choosing gifts, much of the plastic used in packaging still can't be recycled by many of the councils across the UK, so try to avoid it where possible. At least the great news with the forthcoming Easter celebrations is that many chocolate eggs now come without plastic packaging. Of course another tricky area when it comes to gifting is giving unwanted presents, so it is always wise to check, even if you'd prefer the idea of a surprise. And remember, if you give plastic gift cards to help the recipient choose what they'd like, these are not widely recycled either, despite their great abundance.

So, I hope that helps you kick-start the final week of The Rubbish Diet challenge. In just seven days it will soon be over. Throughout the next week, I will be updating the blog with stories about people and organisations who are doing some great things to reduce their contribution to our country's waste mountain. So do drop back for the latest update and if you've spotted something too, please do share.

In the meantime, let's catch up with some of our volunteers who have been reducing their rubbish on the home-front. Results will be updated as they come in and I can't wait to see how they get on this week.

1. Terry-Anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk.
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): WK 8: a small bag that can fit into the palm of your hand.

2. Ness. @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). WK 8: 1 bin, just over half-full.

3. Donna. @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly). WK 8: 1/2 30 rubbish sack

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City. www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) WK 8: 5.5kg /12 lbs

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly): WK 8:1 small bag

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK8

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in: 3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly). WK 8

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire. www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK8:. 3 small bags, so little you can see the bottom of the bin.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 8, the finale week, it doesn't mean that you can't join in. Just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do. There's also lots happening on Twitter too, so to join in the conversation just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.

The Rubbish Diet, Wk 7: Saturday catchup. Composting, radio & packaging protest

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 09:25:00 +0000

"Gee, I never guessed it would be as big as that!" were the words utttered by Rubbish Dieter Ness, as she collected her compost bin this week and tried to squeeze it into the boot of her car.

I did my best to reassure her that when placed in situ, it really would look considerably smaller.

Ness has never composted before, but since the start of her Rubbish Diet, she's been keen to give it a go and on hearing this news, Suffolk County Council were delighted to support the project by providing one of the 'dalek' style bins, similar to the ones I've been using for years. Earlier this week, we went to collect it from my local council in Bury St Edmunds and pictured with Ness, is Mike Culver, our borough's recycling officer.

Although I was able to give Ness advice on what she can compost at home and point her in the direction of more information on the Internet, I knew that could never beat introducing her to one of our local experts. So I arranged for Paul Turner, one of our county's master composters, to visit and share his knowledge directly. Paul is a full time fire officer, but also a keen gardener and allotment owner, and volunteers his time to the Garden Organic's master composting scheme.

Paul was able to advise on where best to site the compost bin and suggested a sunny spot, where it could rest directly on soil so that it would attract sufficient worms to help break down its contents. Also, it's fairly close to the kitchen, which means that it will be easily accessible. By the time I arrived, Ness had already started filling the bin with the 'green' kitchen waste that would otherwise have gone into the landfill bin, and Paul was explaining the need to mix in other 'brown' compostables from around the home, such as paper and card. Other top tips included adding nettles or comfrey, which act as accelerators. thus speeding up the composting process. He also suggested picking up spent coffee grounds from some of the coffee houses around town.

With the Zero Waste challenge next week, which marks Week 8, the final week of The Rubbish Diet, having a composter in place will help tremendously and I reckon Ness will see some great results.

And it's not just Ness who's been thinking about composting this week. Elsewhere, our New York bin slimmer Amy is getting ready to start using her new backyard composter and Jo, aka Rubbish Geek, who is also voluntarily embarking on the challenge, is in the process of filling her new bins, whilst trying to prevent them blowing over in the wind because there's not much in them yet.

In other news this week, whilst I've been out and about visiting local businesses to see how they reduce waste (more on that next week), Jax, one of the Rubbish Dieters from the Suffolk Coastal area, was interviewed on BBC Radio Suffolk and was a real inspiration in the way she spoke about her passion for reducing her family's waste footprint. You can catch the interview on The Mark Murphy Show, which was broadcast on Thursday, only four days after the delivery of her new baby boy. Find it here on Listen Again, where you'll need to fast forward to 2hrs 4mins. There is also more information on her blog at Live Otherwise.

Now, if that's not enough to get on with, then check this out. Blogger and Tweeter 8CW is calling upon shoppers to be brave and leave any excess packaging at the shops today, declaring 10 March 2012 Tweeps against Packaging Day. So if you're feeling a bit rebellious and want to join in, today's the day to strip off any excess unwanted material at the till. Packaging only of course. After all, you wouldn't want to get yourself arrested.

Climate Week: 12-18 March and my Twitter interview #CWCuisine

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:18:00 +0000

Climate Week on Twitter

Next week is Climate Week, Britain's biggest climate change campaign, which is raising awareness of the small changes we can make in working towards a more sustainable future. I'm proud that Week 8, the finale week of The Rubbish Diet challenge will be running alongside it.

Reducing waste is a key step to living more sustainably, bringing benefits from energy saved through recycling as well as preventing embedded resources being wasted across the whole of the production and supply chain. That especially applies to food and this will be something close to the hearts of those who are attempting the Zero Waste challenge for next week's Rubbish Diet finale.

It's great that one of the initiatives organised by this year's Climate Week campaign is Eat Low Carbon, encouraging consumers to reduce food waste, by shopping more carefully and using up leftovers, as well as other more sustainable options such as eating less meat & dairy and choosing local and season food.

I was invited by Climate Week to participate in a Twitter interview, ahead of their campaign, about my thoughts on food waste. Here's a copy of the interview from this morning. #CWCuisine is the hashtag used to help track discussions about Climate Week Cuisine.

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard How did the Rubbish Diet project begin? #CWCuisine

In 2008 I took the @stedsbc Zero Waste challenge.I was shocked how much food waste & other resources I’d junked #CWCuisine

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard I see... So what made u get interested in campaigning abt #FoodWaste? Why is it important to reduce our food waste? #CWCuisine

Firstly, reducing food waste lowers the impact of methane, a GHG released from food left rotting in landfill. #CWCuisine

Reducing food waste also reduces the embedded water & energy from farming, production, packaging & transport. #CWCuisine

For example, according to @WRAP_UK, 2,400 litres of water are needed to produce just one burger. #CWCuisine

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard Wow "2400 ltrs of water for 1 burger!" Those are some powerful stats! What easy tips do u have for reducing waste? #CWCuisine

Keep a food waste diary.Don’t buy things that regularly get thrown away & freeze unused food before use-by date #CWCuisine

Avoid plate waste by reducing portions. Let ppl help themselves & follow @toogood_towaste’s doggy bag campaign #CWCuisine

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard Those are some powerful & EASY tips. What do u think the government can do to encourage ppl to cut back on waste? #CWCuisine

Local government is doing a great job with the #lovefoodhatewaste campaign but more could be done via schools. #CWCuisine

The @schoolfoodtrust is leading a Food Waste Heroes campaign & this should be adopted by every UK school. #CWCuisine

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard So motivate & mobilise the public much as possible then. Does reducing your food waste have any economic benefits? #CWCuisine

Absolutely, the story about my accidental ornamental melons shows how I saved £300 alone. http://bit.ly/wd3WGe #CWCuisine

And on average, households could save around £50 a month by reducing food waste #CWCuisine

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard So we can all save a pretty penny then! What’s ur favourite #CWCuisine recipe from the #ClimateWeek website & why? #CWCuisine

Oooh it has to be the Turkish Roasted Veg from @itvthismorning’s Phil Vickery. Great for spicing up British veg #CWCuisine

Climate_Week: @KarenCannard @Foodcycle has given our EatLowCarbon action some great recipes for using up leftovers.Do u know of any other such rec sites?

My favourite sites are @turquoiselemons’s monthly #foodwaste challenge, @myzerowaste and http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com #CWCuisine

I hope you enjoyed the interview and the challenge of me trying to squeeze my usual verbosity into 140 character answers. It was fun.

More information about Climate Week can be found at www.climateweek.com. There are some great recipes in the Eat Low Carbon section, including a competition to register your own. Live updates about the week can also be found by following @Climate_Week.

Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 7

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 12:25:00 +0000

Well, here we are, the penultimate week of The Rubbish Diet Challenge.

Over the last six weeks, our bin-slimming volunteers have got to grips with local recycling, looked for ways of avoiding waste whilst out shopping and have focused on habits and areas around the home where certain rubbish can now be banished for good. And this is the last week before they are ready do tackle their zero waste challenge.

This week's focus is on decluttering and getting prepared for those risky moments when in the midst of a clear-out, impatience can easily take over and stuff ends up in the rubbish bin. But with a little forethought, a dose of patience and extra knowledge, that bin full of stuff for landfill can be easily avoided.

So, if you're able to invest just a few hours sorting out your stuff this week, and fancy a spot of decluttering - even if it is just one drawer - roll up your sleeves and read on.

Of course the motto when it comes to decluttering is "Be Prepared". Even if it's a small clearout, you need to have an action plan of what you're going to do with your stuff. If you don't, your patience will soon crack. Try these mini-challenges below and for more background information, check out the online guide for Week 7, The Big Declutter.

1. Think about things that are currently decluttering your home and mentally organise them into different categories, e.g. things that you are going to give to a charity shop; Items that can be given away via sites such as Freecycle; Items that you wish to sell; Consumables that should be recycled; Things you regularly use, but need to put back in place; Goodies that you can’t bear to part with and stuff that needs repairing. Now start putting an action plan in place. First allocate a time in your diary for taking to the charity shop, recycling centre, or organising selling or repairs. Make it imminent. Then, find some empty boxes or bags and start collating your unwanted clutter.

2. Don't tackle it all in one go, start with a mini-treasure hunt. Allocate just a couple of hours and immerse yourself in a clutter hotspot, guiding your actions by the categories that you've allocated.

3. Think about repair or reuse first. If something is broken or in tatty condition, think about how it can be repaired or reused before even pondering replacing it. Even if you don't want the responsibility yourself, pass it on via groups such as Freecycle instead of recycling it. Hopefully the Self-Repair Manifesto at ifixit.com will provide extra inspiration. I love their manifesto poster, which applies to all sorts of material goods and the site offers great advice for dealing with electronics in particular.

4. Decluttering lots of paper? Of course, old magazines can be distributed to other people before they end up in the recycling bin, e.g. friends, schools, community & craft groups. If you find yourself needing to recycle a lot of paper, please spare a thought for you and your bin crew and spread it out across a number of collections, as a recycling bin that's full of paper is very heavy.

5.Think about ways of reducing future clutter. There are all sorts of ways of reducing that clutter, from avoiding impulse purchases, to focusing on how to keep unwanted things out of your home. Thanks to faster broadband and digital technology, downloads and streaming facilities are replacing physical collections that are traditionally associated with multi-media, so books, music and movies are typical things that can be streamlined in the future. Also, do you find you and your friends or family are constantly swapping gifts that you don't want? There are many ways of addressing gifting that can help reduce the amount of future clutter, e.g. asking for membership, cinema tickets, or experiences instead. Reducing the amount of stuff that comes into our homes will not just help you in your mission to declutter, but it will help minimise the world's material resources and the waste associated with production. If you've got a spare 20 minutes, take a peek at the popular video The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard.

So how have the Rubbish Diet 8 been getting on recently? The great news is they've been keeping that rubbish weight down, but the big announcement this week is that Jax from Suffolk has got a different type of weigh-in on her mind today, with the arrival of her new baby boy only this morning. That's far more exciting than thinking about rubbish and I'd like to take the opportunity to wish her and her family huge congratulations on their new arrival.

As for everyone else, their regular weigh-ins are starting to come in and their WK 7 results will be updated as they are received, while they get prepared for next week's Zero Waste challenge. If you'd like to join in the challenge, take a look at the online guide to find out what you'll be letting yourself in for.

1. Terry-Anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk.
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): WK 7: less than half a small bag.

2. Ness. @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). WK 7: 1 wheelie bin

3. Donna. @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly). WK 7: 1 30L rubbish sack

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City. www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) WK 7: 2.3kg/5lbs

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly): WK 7: 1 & 3/4 small kitchen bags.

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK7: Still only a third full after 3 three weeks.

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in: 3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly). WK 7

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire. www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK7:. 7 small bags. Wheelie bin estimated 1/3 full.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 7, it doesn't mean that you can't join in. Just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do. There's also lots happening on Twitter too, so to join in the conversation just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.

The Rubbish Diet. - Saturday catchup - pondering communications

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:16:00 +0000

I've spent much of this week thinking about recycling communications. In theory it should be a simple process, but in reality it can be filled with great complexities as well as unintentional ambiguity.

Take our latest council leaflet for instance. I was delighted to discover a copy in my youngest son's book bag, which had been distributed through his primary school. Not only was this a great way of reaching local families, but it's the first time I've seen a visual representation of what can go in our kerbside recycling bin.

Personally, I think this is a much better method of communication, because there is less onus on the resident to interpret and second-guess what would otherwise be a sheet full of lengthy descriptions and instructions.

However, even when photos are used as illustrations, there is risk of ambiguity, often brought about by what's missing. For example, in our borough, like much of the UK, we can recycle detergent bottles and shampoo bottles, but the photo used in the leaflet only shows drinks bottles and a clear washing up liquid bottle. I can now imagine the conversations over the bins, with residents pondering if they can recycling their bottles of Domestos or Head & Shoulders, because they don't match the bottles in the picture.

Plastics is probably the hardest area of recycling about which to communicate to households. Only last week, someone else I know reported back on a very confusing email conversation she'd had with her council over the types of plastics she could recycle. She wanted to know which polymer numbers, she could add, but like most local authorities, the council spoke of the categories of containers they could accept.

And I empathise with both sides. For example, many councils are still restricted in their recycling by the type of packaging. They may be able to collect plastic drinks bottles (made from polymer type 1 - PET) but it doesn't mean they can also collect fruit punnets or meat trays made from the same material (due to limitations on sorting technologies that are programmed to only capture materials in a bottle shape). Consequently for such a council to tell a resident that they can accept Type 1 plastics would be wrong.

And if a council can't take yoghurt pots, there'll be no room for argument, no matter whether such a restriction is due to the polymer used or the shape of the packaging,

However many residents do hanker after more information and I think there is scope for councils to use polymer numbers in communications to reduce householder ambiguity where it helps, even if this is restricted to their website, where there is greater opportunity to outline more detailed information about their local recycling policy. After all, the packaging industry marks its goods with a polymer number, and if that information can be used in the right way, it would help many residents better understand the recycling opportunities as well as the restrictions that are in place.

At the moment, the only other information that a householder has to rely on is the On-Pack Recycling Label, which despite being a great call-to-action, doesn't respond to the amibiguity issue at all. Shoppers still have to rely on local authority communications to know what can actually be recycled in their bins and further afield at their Household Waste Recycling Centre.

It really does illiustrate that even at a local level, residents have different information requirements and the whole nature of recycling communications needs to be tackled in the same way as any other marketing campaign, through market segmentation and targeted messages to reach different levels of interest, commitment and understanding.

And on that note, wouldn't it be great if each local council could release its own online guide, to advise residents on how best to aim for Zero Waste or get as close as possible with the facilities available. But that takes communication to a whole different level, moving from information to motivation.

And developing motivation techniques is a whole different area indeed.

Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 6

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 09:53:00 +0000

Well, wash me down with some soapsuds. We've hit Week 6 of the Rubbish Diet Challenge, which means after taking time out this week for some much needed personal care, and getting ready for next week's declutter, we will soon be hitting the Zero Waste Week and it will all be over.

But before you can put your feet up and give yourselves a well-earned rest, I'm going to get you to mull over your beauty regime.

So if you've got time for spot of pampering while you ponder your waste reduction challenge, roll up your sleeves, take a deep breath and relax....preferably in the vicinity of your bathroom.

Week 6 is really amalgamating all that you've learned during the last five weeks and simply putting it into context in the bathroom. There's lots of scope for introducing ways to cut waste, whether it's through reducing disposable items, recycling more or even extending your imagination to composting.

In addition to the mini-challenges shown below, more information can be found in the online guide that accompanies The Rubbish Diet Challenge. Be warned though. This is the week where it really does get personal.

1.Don't use the toilet as a bin! Of course, I know that most people who follow the Rubbish Diet will not use their loo as an alternative to landfill, but there are some products out there that positively encourage you to do so. Take "flushable wipes" for instance. The news is, if you're a wipe flusher - even if it says so on the packet - this is the week to stop. Don't take my word for it, take a peek at Water UK's Bag it & Bin it campaign instead, which includes a long list of things that should never get flushed into our sewerage systems. My advice is not to bin it, but to find an alternative solution to creating that waste in the first place.

2.Recycle It! It's easy to forget that many of the containers found on your bathroom shelves can actually be recycled, especially if they are plastic bottles, which are now widely accepted around the UK. In fact, toiletries are increasingly packaged in bottles that are made from recycled plastic. And even if you can't put aerosols into your kerbside bin, most recycling centres will take them as part of their metal collection. If you find that you can't recycle the packaging easily, follow the advice from Week 2 and either look for packaging-free products or switch to alternatives that can be recycled in your area, if it fits your budget. For example, some toothpaste products are now sold in PET (type 1) bottles, which can be recycled easily. Also, a selection of own brand medicines, e.g. Paracetamol, can be bought in plastic tubs instead of the more common blister packs that are tricky to recycle because of mixed material. So do check your local supermarket shelves for alternatives.

3.Go naked! Not you! Your products! Of course, the great waste reduction mantra is to try and "Reduce" before you even have to think about recycling. So even if you can recycle, you may wish to cut down on the amount of plastic you use. In which case, shops such as Lush will be able to help with their wide range of package-free products including soaps, shampoo bars and even deodorant bars (Lush also has instore recycling points for customers to return their packaging). There are also many artisan soapmakers across the UK, who will tempt you away from the plastic bottle, with products that last much longer than liquid soap. Even if they are not packaging-free, the materials used are minimal. My personal favourites are Royston and Hayes and The Bellingham Soap Company, which produce soaps made from natural ingredients.

4. Consider reusables: Shhhh, don't be shy. If you're a lady who bungs lots of personal disposable items in the bin, there is a better way. From cleansing wipes to the monthlies, ditching the disposables can save you hundreds of pounds, with no particular extra inconvenience! Take make-up wipes for instance. The Body Shop sells a neat little pack of muslin wipes, which are totally washable and can be used with make-up remover time-and-time again. And as for that time of the month, there are washable pads and all sorts of finery to make sure you don't have to send disposables to landfill ever again. A good place to start is Lollipop. Of course, if you've got young babies or toddlers, you may wish to think about switching to resuables. More information on this, including links to schemes that are available can be found at Go Real. And chaps, don't think you can get off lightly. Even when it comes to shaving, a traditional razor with replacement blades is far less of a burden on landfill than the disposable plastic alternative.

5. Compost it! If you've been getting into home composting, there are all sorts of things you can do to entertain your own imagination and use as a conversation starter amongst your friends. So in your efforts to reduce waste, you may wish to switch to cotton buds (Q-Tips), with paper stems, and bung these in your compost bin when finished. Of course other natural products such as cotton wool balls can be put in your compost bin too, as can more interesting items, such as the Fairtrade condoms from Oxfam. Now there's a topic for your next dinner party - or not - depending on the nature of your company. And we haven't even ventured into the area of hair from your brush, paper tissues and toenail clippings. Well that's what my composting friends tell me. So, while I leave you to think about all things natural that could possibly be composted, here's one more nudge to weigh this week's rubbish.

And on the subject of weigh-ins, our bin slimmers are still going strong. They've been very much left to their own devices over the last few weeks and have made fantastic progress. And this week, I hope to catch up with them to find out what's left in their bins, in preparation for their Zero Waste challenge in a few weeks time. They'll be reporting their Wk 6 results over the next few days and the results will be updated as they come in

1. Terry-Anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk.
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): WK 6: 1 very small bag, the height of a HP sauce bottle! With a week to go until collection.

2. Ness. @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). WK 6: 1/2 wheelie bin - with one week to go until collection.

3. Donna. @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly). WK 6: 3/4 30L sack

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City. www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) WK 6: 5.4kg/12lbs (covering two weeks)

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly): WK 6?

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby on its way, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK6?

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in: 3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly). WK 6: 2 bags.

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire. www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK6: 3 small bags, 1 week to go until collection.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 6, it doesn't mean that you can't join in. Just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do. There's also lots happening on Twitter too, so to join in the conversation just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.

The Rubbish Diet, Wk 5: A cold, compost & Master Composters

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 16:02:00 +0000

It's a good job this week's topic was garden related, because I've spent much of the week thinking about how much compost I've been creating.

And trust me, I've been creating loads, mainly of the citrus peel variety. All because I came down with a cruddy cold on Monday and I've been busy fighting it with, amongst other things, some decent doses of vitamin C.

Citrus peel is one of the many items that you can add to a compost heap. However, unlike my lazy approach, advice is that chopping or tearing it up into smaller pieces will help it compost better. But frankly, this week, I've only had the attention span of a gnat to dedicate to my composting abilities, so I'm certainly going to need to balance out the contents with some other material soon.

Composting has been on other people's minds this week. Joanna Boardman, aka Rubbish Geek, will at last be able to use her new compost bins to help her with her Rubbish Diet and during a Skype session on Monday, Amy Marpman, one of our Rubbish Diet 8, was a lot more confident to give composting a go, and was looking forward to getting advice from a local organisation over in New York.

And that reminded me of a national scheme, which we have here in the UK, thanks to the network of Master Composters.

Master Composters are volunteers who are trained by Garden Organic to help raise awareness of composting skills in local communities. They give demonstrations at events and can also run sessions at schools, as well as publish advice in local magazines and newsletters.

If you've been inspired to try your hands at home composting this week, but are not sure how to start, a good step would be to to get in touch with your local volunteers, either via your council or through the network coordinators in your area.

Alternatively, you may already be experienced in the ways of composting and you might fancy signing up. Training is free and you can expect to spend around 30 hours a year helping your local community. More information can be found at Garden Organic's Home Composting website.

And the highlight of the composting calendar year is Compost Awareness Week, which this year takes place between 6-12 May. Do check out Garden Organic's Poster & Painted Bin competition to see how your family or school could join in.

In the meantime, here's another use for that fruit peel, before it even gets to the compost bin. It fits in very nicely with this week's theme, for anyone who's thinking of planting up some seedlings.
http://lifehacker.com/5870971/repurpose-a-citrus-peel-into-a-seed-starter-pot

Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 5

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:08:00 +0000

Welcome to Week 5 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge.

This week, the focus is on the garden and with Spring almost in the air, it's perfect timing to start thinking about how your garden can help reduce rubbish, as well as how you can reduce waste whilst gardening.

Even if like me, you're not a particular useful gardener and are more likely to fall into the category of willing but hapless, there are still things that you can do, to inspire you to keep slimming that bin.

So for those who are ready to embark on Week 5, have a think about this week's mini-challenges.

1. Stop buying those bagged salads and grow your own instead. You don't need much space. A couple of pots will do for planting a few seeds of mixed mediterranean leaves. So when you're out shopping this week, look out for a packet at the supermarket or garden centre and get planting. Then plant some more in a few weeks time and keep going throughout the summer. You'll probably never have to buy expensive salads again.

2. Think about other easy things that you can grow in the garden, such as herbs that you use for cooking. There are lots of sites that advise on how to grow, harvest and store them for use out of season. I love the online guide at Growing Spaces, which provides very simple advice. So, if you haven't started a herb garden yet, make this the year to do it, even if you've only got a window-sill. Not only will it save you money, you won't have to worry about recycling all that plastic film or even pots. If you've got a garden and love cooking, I'd also recommend planting a bay tree. The leaves are brilliant for adding flavour to sauces and soup and the branches are great for floral decorations too. Of course if you love cut flowers, and have the space, consider growing some of your favourites, for you to bring indoors.

3. If you are a fairly keen gardener, think about ways in which you can reduce waste in the garden. It's possible to reduce the number of plants you buy from the garden centre, simply by splitting a plant in two, or learning to harvest seeds as well as propogate. Of course, plant pots can always be reused, or passed on via sites such as Freegle or Freecycle, but if you find yourself with too many, it's also worth checking if your garden centre will recycle them. Some recycling centres, such as the ones throughout Suffolk, will also now accept them as part of their hard plastics collections. Other waste that can be recycled as a result of garden purchases includes compost bags etc. Often these are made from the same material as other plastic bags, so check the labels and recycle with your carrier bags if your local facilities provide such services.

4. Get composting. Many people are afraid of composting, but my own experience has shown that even with a cheap plastic bin, it's possible to create something that has nutritional value, even it it doesn't look much like compost or if the only place you can use it is under some shrubs at the back of the garden. And I am in constant awe of how difficult it is to actually fill a compost bin, thanks to the speed in which its contents break down. When it comes to composting, there are many options to consider, whether it's the traditional compost heap, a plastic bin or a wormery. Wiggly Wigglers is a great site for comparing the costs of various options. Also Get Composting works in partnership with local councils and often has offers available on many solutions.

5. Bury your food waste in your garden. I know that sounds gross, and I don't really mean that you should just go and dig a hole and bury the remains of your Sunday dinner, just like so. Of course, having waded through the challenges in Week 3, you should now be on the path to minimising food waste. However, for whatever remains, there are now plenty of solutions that can help you turn any leftovers into compost. Perhaps the simplest is a wormery, which will accept all sorts of mush except for fish or meat leftovers. BBC gardener and Guardian columnist Alys Fowler has also recently published a review of the Bokashi bin, which enables you to collect scraps, including meat, and uses a fermenting process to allow it to be added to your compost bin. Alternatively, the Green Johanna and the Hotbin use hot composting to enable you to add all sorts of food waste directly to other compostable materials. These are more expensive than your average compost bin, but if you have the space and the determination, they are worth considering.

For more information about the ideas listed above, take a look at the accompanying online guide for The Rubbish Diet Challenge.

Some of our participating households have already got stuck into composting, with others planning to try it soon. I know that Tim is already seeing a real reduction in his waste as a result of getting a compost bin for his garden. It was tricky trying to catch up with everyone during half term, but now the holidays are over, the weigh-in data is starting to come in and it's already making positive reading. The results below will be updated as and when the information is available.

1. Terry-Anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk.
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): WK 5: 3 quarters of a bag.

2. Ness. @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). WK 5: 4 bin bags (one bin)

3. Donna. @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly). WK 5:

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City. www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) WK 5: Not enough rubbish to put out during week 4 but estimating that combined with WK5, this is like to amount to 2 bags for the fortnight, weighing 4.08kg/9lbs.

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly): WK 5: 2 bags.

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby on its way, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK5:

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in: 3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly). WK 5 1 bag

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire. www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK5: 5 small bags, with a few days to go until collection. Currently looking like half-a wheelie bin.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 5, it doesn't mean that you can't join in. Just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do. There's also lots happening on Twitter too, so to join in the conversation just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.

The Rubbish Diet, Wk 4: Saturday catchup. Bins, Blogs, Zambia & Cars

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:44:00 +0000

I'm afraid I've not been around much this week, but with very good reason. It's been a very busy half-term holiday and we've been scuttling around keeping the children entertained, including visits to London and Cambridge.

Of course, always on the look out for rubbish inspiration as well as examples of urban grot, I had my camera at the ready to snap some photos, some of which were tweeted using the hashtag #RubbishHolidaySnaps. Well, one has to maintain one's reputation, don't you think, especially when it's been previously noted in the national press.

But it's great to see that more towns and cities are now providing on-street recycling facilities for shoppers and visitors. Pictured left, is an example of the bins that have been upgraded in Cambridge City Centre, enabling passers-by to recycle cans, plastic bottles and glass.

Yes, I agree, most people would be more interested in taking photos of Kings College, which has much more of a spectacular presence, but any glass or aluminium recycled in these bins could be with us as a resource for just as long as the buildings pictured behind. I just wish that council waste & street-scene departments would hook up with the local tourist information services, to proactively publicise the pride that they take in these facilities, to help raise awareness and to seek to improve capture rates.

In other news, a new website hit my attention this week, Zero Waste Events. Inspired by the Zero Waste Events Protocol for London 2012, Zero Waste Events has been created by Coca-Cola and WRAP, to develop a network of knowledge, ideas and case-studies for enabling events to be managed with the promise of zero waste to landfill. It is aimed at becoming a long-lasting legacy of the games itself, learning lessons from the knowledge of running such a major event in the UK. The network is free to join. Just visit zerowasteevents.org for more details.

Now one of the greatest surprises over the last few weeks, has been the enthusiasm amongst the Twitter community for getting on board with The Rubbish Diet Challenge. As well as the "Rubbish Diet 8" - ie, the households who have agreed for me to mentor and prompt them along with my smiles, soft reminders and other subtle techniques - other folk have volunteered themselves for the challenge too and some are also blogging about it. If you haven't caught up with them already, do make sure you have a peak at their blogs or tweets:

@Wholeself aka Kate Grifftiths: Blog - http://mumsdaword.blogspot.com/
@TurquoiseLemons aka Kate Stuart: Blog- http://www.turquoiselemons.com/
@RubbishGeek aka Joanna Boardman: Blog - http://www.letswastelessnel.blogspot.com/
@MichelleBest: Blog - http://mjbest.wordpress.com/

Twitter has proved to be as useful as ever for sharing updates and connecting up with folk who are interested in reducing waste, and one of the most inspirational links this week has been finding out about tweeter & blogger, Catharine Witheney's experience in Zambia.

The blogpost that she wrote to describe recycling in the capital city of Lusaka is very humbling indeed. It highlighted the appreciation of maximising resources and the care in choosing some packaging materials over others, as well as finding resourceful ways of generating value out of something that is peceived to have no value at all.

Naturally, Catharine's experience in Zambia is such a contrast to life in the UK and similar developed countries and whenever I hear first hand accounts like this, it always make me re-evaluate the definition of "developed" and the disconnection with the value of resources that such progress has created. Catharine's blogpost is truly inspirational and touches on a range of simple solutions that underpin what Zero Waste thinking is hoping to achieve in a wider sense. So do pop along to have a peek: http://withenay.blogspot.com/2012/02/rubbish-post.html.

And moving swiftly back to the industrialised western world, with which I am more familiar, I couldn't close this week, without sharing the news that car manufacturer Ford is switching to the use of recycled plastic bottles for the interior of its new electric car. Recycled PET is proving to be a popular material for many products and this is the latest in a long line of applications such as clothing, umbrellas, accessories and packaging.

The news announced on Edie this week reveals that Ford aims to divert two million plastic bottles from Landfill, and through this process it will help raise awareness of recycling in the U.S, where the capture rate is still only 29%.

Meet the bin slimmers from Bucks & Lincs

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Each week, since the start of The Rubbish Diet Challenge, we've had the chance to learn more about the individual challenges and the focus of each of the households that have volunteered to be taken through their waste-busting missions. We've scooted around Suffolk, dropped into London, as well as New York, and now this week, it's time to visit Buckinghamshire and Lincolnshire to catch up with two more families who are making great changes to their waste.

Meet Melanie

Melanie lives with her husband, two children and their pet dog (and a seasonal snowman), in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire.

Although life has been very busy of late and they haven't been able to embrace the steps fully, Melanie is pleased that they have been extra vigilant about what goes in their general waste bin and they now always consider whether it could be recycled rather than mindlessly throwing it away.

This has substantially reduced their general waste and she says she is now ashamed about how relatively easily it has been achieved.

However, they have found some aspects particularly challenging. Until now, their kerbside recycling hasn't been great, but she is pleased to hear about the positive changes that Aylesbury Vale will be introducing later this year, (including the collection of cardboard and food waste ), which Melanie thinks will have a great impact if people make full use of them.

They also can't easily recycle Tetra Pak cartons or plastic bags/wrapping etc and Melanie would love to have these facilities incorporated into facilities at their local Household Waste Recycling Centre. Commenting on their use of Ocado for their shopping delivery, she also confirms that although the service will take back carrier bags, drivers no longer always ask customers and she often has to prompt the driver. She now wonders whether the delivery service could extend its efforts a little, e.g. taking back other packaging that's recycled by other customers at the local store. I can't help but agree.

Meet Tim

Tim lives with his wife and three children in the Boston district of Lincolnshire.

And he did make me chuckle when he said that he is trying to wean himself off a lifetime's addiction to throwing stuff away.

He's confessed that for him, throwing stuff away has felt pretty good - addictive, spiritual and cleansing. He says he's thrown a lot of stuff away without really thinking about it. Out of sight is out of mind, after all.

Until now.

He now has that nagging feeling that he should be doing something - anything - to reduce the mountain of stuff he sends to landfill. He says this has actually struck a chord as far as his recycling credentials are concerned.

And the one thing that he's been particularly focusing on since the start of The Rubbish Diet, has been how to divert his kitchen scraps.

Tim's realised that if there's one thing more satisfying than having a clear out, it's getting something for nothing. So he's got himself a brand-new compost bin, which is now an eager recipient of potato peelings and other kitchen waste that otherwise would have filled his bin.

As Tim said, in his closing statement, when I asked how he was getting on:

"It's rubbish, Jim, but not as we know it".

I couldn't have put it better myself, even if I did suddenly feel that his mission was teetering on the edge of galactic exploration. If I didn't know better, next time we see that compost bin, I sense it will be looking more like a space rocket.

As long as he keeps his compostables in his garden and doesn't try launching them into outer space, I guess that's okay.

For further progress on how Tim's getting on with his challenge, visit his most excellent blog at Bringing up Charlie.

Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 4

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:48:00 +0000

Welcome to Week 4 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge. I can't believe that already we're almost half-way through. In one way, it feels like a hard slog, but in other ways, the time's been whizzing along, and it will be Week 8 before we know it.

Sadly I didn't get a chance to publish the regular Friday Journal during Week 3, due to battling a cold and Wi-Fi failure, but did you spot the latest news from Sainsbury's? In a bid to help reduce food waste, their new labelling will now advise customers that they can freeze products right up to the Use By date, replacing outdated advice which instructed households to freeze on day of purchase. That's great news and hopefully other supermarkets will follow and update their guidelines too.

By now, anyone taking part in The Rubbish Diet should have got to grips with their local recycling services, discovered the extra facilities that are available through local shops and have started thinking about what food waste really means to them. New habits will be starting to fall into place and while these are put into practice, participants will be wondering what else they can possibly do, to cut down their landfill waste even further.

Well in the world of waste-busting antics, there's always that little something.

So are ready for Week 4? If so, it's time to grab your Marigolds and get cracking.

Week 4 is all about domestic chores. Sorry. It's never been my highlight either. I'd much rather be creative around the house, having loads of fun rather than clearing it up. But one has to be responsible and I soon realised that cleaning and clearing up needed my creativity too, especially if I was going to commit to reducing my waste even further. Some of the things I tested a few years ago fell by the wayside, but most of the changes have remained in place, saving bags full of waste and pockets full of cash, as you'll see from some of the mini-challenges that are set for this week. More information and background material can be found in the online guide that accompanies the challenges detailed below.

1. Reduce the burden. This week it's time to go through your kitchen cupboards and sort out the bad from the good. Many cupboards will be bursting with cleaning products that have been bought as a result of impulse purchases, but end up sitting there gathering dust while households rely on a core number of products. Recognise which ones work for you and promise not to succumb to temptation again. Promise to use up the spare products soon or give them away to friends or via Freecycle. When buying cleaning products in future, look out for condensed products or consider using natural alternatives. These days, you can even buy microfibre cloths for many aspects of your household routine, which promise to scrub and buff up your surfaces without needing any chemicals at all.

2. Reuse all you can. Of course, this principle carries through the whole of The Rubbish Diet, but when it comes to cleaning and household chores, it is amazing how much waste can be reduced through replacing disposable and consumable products with reusable items. I used to spend a fortune on disposable wipes, paper towels and sponges until I switched to washable cleaning cloths and longer lasting washing up gear. Equally, having switched to Eco-balls and more lately the Eco Egg, I have also saved hundreds of pounds on laundry powder, and this has helped slim our recycling bin too. So, as you work through your household chores this week, think about changes that you could ease into your lifestyle and try giving them a go.

3.Recycle those empties. Household cleaner or detergent bottles are now classed as one of the more widely-recyclable containers in the UK, which means they are collected by most local authorities. So, even if your council does not accept the wider variety of plastics, they may still collect these. If you are not in the habit of recycling these bottles regularly and are still unsure if your local council takes them, you can check easily, by calling your local council or visiting the Recycle Now website.

4.Downsize your rubbish bin. If you've experienced a huge boon to your recycling activities since Week 1 along with a diminished amount of rubbish, it's time to celebrate by reorganising your bin bags! Not only will this provide you with a physical sense of achievement, but it also creates a physical reminder amongst your household to keep on going. If your actual kitchen recycling bin is smaller than your rubbish bin, try switching them around and make more space for your recycling. Another technique that you can try is to remove the rubbish bins from everywhere else in the house, or particular rubbish hotspots e.g. the home office, bathrooms or bedrooms to ensure that everything is brought to the kitchen for sorting to disposal. Some councils also allow you to swap your large wheelie bin for a smaller one, just like Terry-Anna, one of our bin-slimmers from Ipswich, discovered a few weeks ago.

And of course on the subject of our bin-slimmers, today's the day for catching up with how they are getting on with their individual missions. Most of them will still have another week to go until their rubbish gets collected so as the results come in throughout the day, please note that many of these will be interim figures.

1. Terry-Anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk.
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): WK 4: 1/2 bag

2. Ness. @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). WK 4:

3. Donna. @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly). WK 4:1 30L rubbish sack 2/3 full.

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City. www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) WK 4: 2 bags (including one full of polystyrene), weighing 4.08kg/9lbs.

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly): WK 4:

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby on its way, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK 4?

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in: 3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly). WK 4 1 bag

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire. www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK4: 2 small bags, with another week to go until collection.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 4, it doesn't mean that you can't join in. Just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do. There's also lots happening on Twitter too, so to join in the conversation just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.

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