Food waste friday and weekly weigh in, Year 1, Week 6
Mrs Green holding her tiny packet of landfill waste this week!
Did you miss us?
That’s the beauty of technology. I’ve been sunning myself in Devon while the computer has been busy putting up posts for me. What an amazing personal assistant!
So you’ll forgive me for answering your comments; the technology at zero waste towers isn’t quite that advanced yet!
Our weigh in this week is on the light side, as we’ve been away for half the week, but it has some hangers-on from before I declared we had to reduce our weekly landfill waste in order to fulfil our goal of one bin full of the year.
As for food waste, there isn’t anything.
Except there was.
Alot.
You see; I’m used to my cooker. My lovely Alice who cooks everything to perfection and behaves impeccably.
My friend’s house, who we were cat sitting in, houses a gas cooker.
My understanding is that gas is much more controllable than electric.
Which it is. If you’re standing there watching it.
I, however, with my ceramic hob to which I have become accustomed, favour the ‘leave it on a low heat and come back in half an hour’ approach. I can now tell you with a few days of experience under my belt that this does not work with gas.
You come into the kitchen to the smell of burning rice, or porrage over the hob, or char grilled vegetables.
So I created loads of food waste, BUT in East Devon, which is where I was, there is a cooked food waste collection!
Yes, nestled on the work surface was a kitchen caddy, complete with corn starch bags that feel remarkably like old condoms. Outside was a lovely blue bin to discard all my burnt offerings.
So, I kinda produced food waste, kinda didn’t.
I have to be honest; If I had that sort of catastrophe at home I would chuck it out for the birds. But being by the seaside, I would have been haunted by seagulls. I didn’t feel that was neighbourly as I happened to bump into my temporary neighbour as she was shooing some seagulls off the fence.
So into the food waste it went.
I’m not sure what East Devon council do with the food waste they collect - Energy from waste I guess. Not perfect, but there you go. Probably better than the landfill.
So onto our landfill waste; we have a couple of pre ‘good intentions’ sins to declare:
- plastic tray and film from chicken
- plastic tray from vine tomatoes and film
- 2 lentils bags
- 1 crisp bag
- 1 large crisp bag - this is Little Miss Green’s new crisp regime for the week.
- 1 cheese wrapper
Tomorrow I will buy cheese from the deli counter in my own reusable container, get a fresh chicken from the butcher in my own box and I’ve just bought another large bag of crisps, which Little miss Green makes last the week and I’ll be buying fresh, lose vegetables and fruit at the farm shop.
I’m feeling hopeful for a small count next week.
All in all our landfill waste weighs 46 gms
Not bad at all - how did you get on this week?
Sunday Roundup
National butcher’s week - March 15-20
Why falling in love can create waste
Dan Norris MP shares the government’s vision for a zero waste nation
Love your leftovers
Little miss green’s Birthday present
Say hello to another Gloucestershire zero waste family!
Sunday Roundup
Hi Mrs Green,
Cooking with gas is a challenge when trying to slow cook anything. When I slow stew the liver every week there is a constant need to check the amount of boiling, adjusting gas up or down as required.
Incineration is in the news again with ROC certificates being proposed for the technology, even though it is not renewable energy in the true sense. Greenwashing anyone? You say that incineration is preferable to landfill but at what cost to downwind locations and special landfilling for toxic waste. The truth is that neither is a good, sustainable option.
Good to see the waste total down below target. If everyone was as conscientious there would be no waste problem. Zero Waste is the future but anyone can take up the challenge today: the more join in the stronger the impact.
@John Costigane: I was amazed John - the heat with gas just keeps on building! using a ceramic hob on a low setting is like using a slow cooker. I have a warming plate on there too, which is excellent for slow cooking.
Cooking w/gas is different than w/electric. I used to yearn for a gas stove, but I think if I had one now, I wouldn’t care for it.
I had to laugh about the seagulls. We just returned from a trip to the coast and my husband and I call the seagulls “Piranha’s with wings”. They are such a menace!
What a good idea to bring your own container to the store to put your deli meat & cheese. I swear, I would have never thought of it. I’m going to do this next week. Do you just have them put the price sticker on the container?
Good job this week, even though you had to throw out the cooked foods. I don’t think it’s technically waste as you were going to eat it, not just let it rot in the fridge.
My weekly landfill bag weighs about 4lb. I can’t get more accurate than that, as I use an old spring balance to weigh it. It is mostly plastic wrapping and food waste that I can’t put in an ordinary compost bin.
I cut down on food waste this week - dear spouse was away for the weekend, and teens are gone visiting relatives for the month, so just me and lthe little cherubs. We had two nights of left over feasts and they where thrilled - I put all the leftovers on the table and they served themselves before I heated them up.Only rule - if you take it you eat it. They where trilled to have pancakes, waffles and ravioli in one meal. Going to try to convince spouse that we should do this weekly - which shouldn’t be too hard since I’m not even the cook.
Challege this week - fresh veggies from the garden. Not sure we can eat as fast as I can harvest.
@Deb from Boston: I do this monthly usually depends on what we have lurking in the freezer.
@Paula: Hi Paula, great to see you. I wouldn’t have gas now and it was a great learning experience because I always thought I would like it.
Regarding the meat and cheese - yes, we get it put into the container and then the assistant prints off the barcoded price sticker and we take it to the checkout!
@DIz: Hi Diz; that’s an excellent total; far below the average for a household - well done!
@Deb from Boston: Hi Deb, sounds like your leftovers meal was a great success; LMG would have been delighted with all of that too! Enjoy the fresh veggies; what do you have?
@maisie dalziel: I’ve always been inspired bu your leftover meals; I’m planning on getting around to that. At the moment I am doing a major kitchen clean and sort out - this will include the freezer. I’ve been promising myself a defrost and sort out for ages now
I’m currently picking turnips, beets (red and golden), peas, broccoli, lettuce, parsley, cilantro, basil (and other perennial herbs). Spinach is done for now, I’ll re-seed in the fall. And will pick by end of week some yellow/summer squash, zukes and cabbage.
Looking forward to few types of tomatoes, green beans, edemame, 3 types of carrots, parsnips, onion, winter and acorn squash, sweet green peppers, eggplant, cukes, and hopeful for pumpkins.
@Deb from Boston: Gosh, you’re growing heaps of things. I’ve never heard of edemame - what is that?
oops - spelled it wrong - Edamame. They are young soybeans. We steam them still in their furrly little pods and then salt. They look a lot like peas out of the shell. They are my son’s favorite veggie.
@Deb from Boston: Oh ok; I hadn’t heard of them anyway - spelled right or wrong; so no worries! So are they soy beans as in the type you can make milk from? It would be awesome if we could grow them - I assume you let them mature and dry them and then process them. How intriguing!
We had a strange assortment of leftover cooked foods this week and I was scratching my head a bit trying to work out how to transform them into something wonderful, Mr P came up with the magic solve all answer - if in doubt, smother it in cheese sauce and bung it in the over!
It worked
@Poppy: Wonderful poppy; soups and cheese sauces are a blessing!
I have no idea if the type of edamame I grow is the same variety as the ones used to make milk - or how much yield you would need to make your own milk - I imagine it’s a lot.
@Deb from Boston: I imagine it’s loads too. It would be fun to have a go though; even if you only get a cup full I think projects like that make you more mindful of what goes in to the food we eat.