What I hate most about a zero waste lifestyle
Mrs Green's plastic mountain for recycling
Most of our zero waste lifestyle is ok. It’s a little bit inconvenient to start with; you forget your bag or your container, you have to wash things up to recycle instead of throw them in the bin and you need to keep a tight reign on what is festering in your fridge or rotting in the fruit bowl.
It’s a bit of inconvenience with massive rewards and fortunately most things soon become habit so you don’t even think about them any more.
There is one thing, however, which I hate.
It’s my procrastination job.
It’s the job that has me dreaming of a black bin liner and rubbish lorry.
It’s the job that makes me sulk, I put off until I can bear it no longer and I’ve never found a way to make it easier. It’s the one, that if I wasn’t keeping myself accountable to you on this site, I would undoubtedly shove in a plastic bag and allow to be taken ‘away’.
I’m talking about sending off plastic pots and containers for recycling.
Don’t get me wrong, we’re thrilled that we have an option to recycle our plastics through companies like GHS and Polyprint and we’re really grateful for the services they offer but truth be told, I just hate doing the job.
I have to save these darn pots up until I have enough to post. Invariably the older containers or pots have got dusty and need re cleaning, then I have to find packing material, wrestle with them until they can be contained, cart it to the Post office, get it weighed and send it off.
It’s a real hassle and one which I could do without.
So there you have it. Ask me to clean out a Tetra Pak and I’m all yours. Need to make a meal with leftovers? I’m your woman. Want a home made card? Look no further than my crap, but full-of-love efforts, but ask me to recycle my yogurt pots and Mr Green’s curry trays and that’s quite another matter.
Yes I know what you’re thinking - make yogurt and make curry, but you know what? I think that would be even more hassle than packing up my plastic sometimes.
I guess I’d better get to it then.
Which aspect of zero waste do you hate the most? What is your procrastination job and how do you make yourself get over it?
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I hear you Mrs G - especially on the procrastination
Having shouted loud and proud about Zero Waste, I always worry that people with think I’m perfect, when actually I’m not. Take last week for instance. I’d rushed into town to pick up a Christening present. Popped into the bookshop…so far so good….a zero waste gift with no packaging whatsoever. As I was paying I realised that I’d left my rucksack in my car due to being in a hurry. And when asked if I needed a bag, I looked at the rainy day outside and at to say yes….knowing fully well there were people in the store who are aware of what I do and write about. LOL…picture the scene as I tried to leg it out of the shop without being seen, complete with carrier bag in tow!
At least it was made from 100% recycled plastic and reused before it iwll be recycled.
x
Hi Mrs Green,
I must agree with your pet hate, and the recurring hassle of ‘doing the necessary’. The real reason for this problem, which I share (though am just glad that the landfill outcome is avoided), is the lack of proper household recycling for such items. As usual, we enthusiasts are well ahead of the game and looking for improvements.
Commingled recycling should be countrywide, including for TetraPaks, since it is the easiest and most realistic approach to household, and business, waste. Developments are patchy so we have to keep promoting this system on our sites until the penny drops.
You already know I think you should make your yogurt. lol
In all seriousness, I would be loathe to recycle if I had to send it away too. We’re fortunate here in that we can throw all sorts of plastics and paper all together in one bin for curbside pickup.
I’m with you on this Mrs G! I save up the plastics which my local council won’t take and when I have a bag full take them into work and give them to a v kind friend whose council will take them. I also have to save up Tetra Pak cartons until I next take a trip into town and go to the car park with the Tetra Pak recycling bin. No matter how much I shake them out after rinsing, I always end up with watered down orange juice or rice milk all over my hands!
My recycling procrastination is bags. Yes, I confess the occassional store bag makes it into the house, but those are easily returned to the market bin. Its the food packaging bags - those inner liners for crakers and cereal, chips, lentils etc. (those few grams a week that make it to the Green’s weekly weigh in)
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve found an artist who will take them, but that means I need to package them up and ship them off. Right now we have 3 boxes worth in my daughter’s bedroom. She comes home in a week on holiday, and I’m sure won’t appreciate the fact that her room is for storage when she is away. But now the boxes need to be sorted before mailed because return/recycle at the market bags are co-mingled with the ones that can’t. So I procrastinate some more.
So far… I have nothing that I hate, but I know it is coming! As my chores add up, I am sure something is going to start to get to me. I hope it does not happen for a while.
@Almost Mrs Average: Oh, the shock, Mrs A! I forget my bags and Mr G won’t let me take a carrier bag; he makes me carry it - which does work; it means I rarely forget now because of the discomfort of carrying everything in my arms LOL!
@John Costigane: Hi John, glad to hear I am not alone; although things are looking better in your area now. 1 in 5 councils now collect tetra paks, apparently, I’ll be popping up a story about that soon.
@Kristen@TheFrugalGirl: Hi Kristen; it’s amazing how facilities differ across the world and within countries; I would love to have the plastics collected!
@the green gal: Oh ewwwwwww; I’m totally with you on the dripping Tetra Paks; we take gloves now as I can’t stand the thought of old soya milk dripping down my sleeves!
@Deb from Boston: Oh dear; 3 boxes LOL! I think you need to make it a priority this week. Best of luck!
@Ben: Let us know when you find it Ben - we’ll be waiting
The thing I absolutley hate the most, is the attitude of people who won’t try ……. not even a little bit. The ‘not my job’, ‘I pay my council tax’ brigade, who steadfastly refuse to see the bigger picture, They don’t or won’t believe any of the climate change information (propaganda!) and think it’s all a great big con to get more taxes from us
At the end of the day (gee, I hate that statement too), if it’s wrong and we’ve all been on a hiding to nothing, what have we lost by being a bit more careful with the earths resources? If it’s wrong, will they say “Oh my, ever so sorry, we got it wrong. Here you are, have your money back”, of course they won’t.
Governments need to raise money to keep everything ticking over. They will tax us whatever, if they don’t say it’s because of Climate Change, they’ll just give it another name and still tax us!
well that job is one less for me, as our local recycling centre has started to take all plactic, hurrah. yogurt pots and all, muchless hassell.
tetra pack cleaning I enjoy for some reason, a very satisfactory job, sad life I lead isn’t it
I’m with Poppy….the thing I hate most is other people’s attitudes.
I’ve always recycled…it’s just what you do. So, I don’t understand (and am completely horrified) when people don’t recycle. I’ve even witnessed people put piles of paper into a bin, instead of walking ONE metre to a recycling bin!
When challenged, people are defensive about not recycling…perhaps out of guilt. This is the thing I hate most about a zero waste lifestyle - fighting against other people’s attitudes….when it should be really easy!!!
@Poppy: Oooo, steady on Pop Tarts; that was very soap boxish for a moment
No, in all seriousness I hear you on this one - apathy really gets to me. Sure I have my moments, but they don’t last long. And like you say; what harm is there in caring and doing a bit more anyway?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
@sandy: Great to hear you now have all plastics taken at your recycling centre - I think there are many people who are hoping for that. Glad you enjoy cleaning your tetra pak cartons LOL!
@Iloverecycling: Hi Iloverecycling! Thanks for your comment; it sounds like you’ve met some people who have really frustrated you. I agree when it has been made simple it seems a shame that people don’t try. but then again, I’ve seen children throw litter on the floor when they are less than a metre from a public bin
Oh how I understand you!!
Actually, I HATE cleaning yogurt pots or tetrapaks or such - ESPECIALLY as I now know they apparently aren’t recycled at all here in our area?!! (Still need to find out about other areas!)
SO I just never buy one and rant against buying them whenever I can! I even made peach juice just to not have to see a bloddy tetrapak!! (and the peaches were very poorly!) But the juice was yummy! Wish we made more!
So… yup, voting for make your own yogurt or such too! And Mr Green can make his own curry?
I hate the smell of curry but Sis absolutely adores it! She’s also the yogurt-pot and tetrapak bringer-in of the family! (I rant so much that I think now she even washes them! not sure.. Or Mum takes mercy.)
You can freeze and re-heat: make once-a-month or even once-a-year curry?
Or make curry-less curry and he just puts the curry on it when he wants to eat it? (What we do with sis. She’s the only one in the family that ever eats the yucky curry!!)
lol Sandy - GO you!!
You can come clean our tetrapaks (the very occasional one/s anytime!)
I’m anti-tetrapak otherwise, they can be at most 70% recycled, and often aren’t.
Poppy, I don’t give an F….. if climate change is real or not (in fact am a bit sceptical myself) but nano particles from incinerators are real and can cause cancer, and filters for them haven’t been invented yet!! Also, it just seems so horribly wasteful & uhm, STUPID to use up resources and ‘eat up’ mountains and pour toxics on native families in far-off lands to mine for stuff we need, and just burn it or landfill it, and thus cause more toxics in air or water or land?!!
So this is maybe something like what you can say to climate-sceptics!
With rising cancer rates all over the world it’s everybody’s business to minimize any influences (because these things add up!), climate change or not!
@Layla: Tetra Paks are simple to clean. You only have to wash out any remaining liquid, under the tap, and then tilt to the most dependent point, slanted. Finally, leave to drain dry.
The company’s sustainable aspirations are most welcome to Zero Waste enthusiasts, simply because they accept back the whole package. With recycling optimised, yet to realised, they will achieve Zero Waste for all consumers. The beauty lies in the example this sets to other companies, since we can only do so much ourselves.
I was anti- Tetra Pak once, but now they are first choice.
@Layla: Hi Layla, well you might be interested to know that for the past couple of weeks, I have in fact been making curry. I’m storing it in old yogurt pots in the freezer, funnily enough! Making yogurt, however, is something at the moment, I will not be considering again. But never say never
lol! Mrs Green, great to hear you’ve been making curry! (And re-using yogurt pots!)
John, maybe I wasn’t specific enough - I really hate cleaning empty yogurt tetrapaks, which my sister has put on the wrong side of the kitchen and they have been there for days (or forgotten in fridge & not quite empty), getting moldy or such!
I am happy that the tetrapak company has done efforts to go greener and committed to collecting and takeback of tetrapaks, I simply do not believe a totally ‘green’ and 100% recycling of them will be discovered (any time in near future) as the ‘mixed’ packagings are most difficult to separate and recycle, so efforts of zero waste enthusiasts need to go into ‘as little mixed packaging’ as possible! And into accurate labelling: there need to be separate labels for ‘100% recyclable’ and ‘70%’ or less - why not just put it on the product, so customers can decide more easily? (As it is, the labelling is greatly misleading in many countries!) And if there can be separate info in each language, why not also put the info whether they are recycled in that country (& where) on the tetrapak too?
As for the yogurt, which methods have you tried?
We finally discovered that heating the milk initially caused the final product to go funny/runny, so we’ve been making ’sour milk’ from raw milk unheated, and it was yummy! (You do need to trust the milk producer to keep adequate hygiene standards etc!)
I too find other people infuriating. Take my ILs for example - my mother in law uses bottled water for cooking, including boiling veg! And the nephew is only ever allowed to drink bottled water from child-sized bottles that of course ae never recycled. His mother does PR for said bottled water company… It drives us crazy, especially as they constantly make fun of us for our peculiar ways.
Mother in law also constantly showers us with unwanted toys and other gifts, often complete with shop gift wrap. It makes things much harder. When we complain she just tells us to throw old things out to make space for the new ones! Two teddies, a rag doll and a box of biscuits so far this week…
Aside from the in-laws, I am very cross that we can’t seem to keep our worms alive. Bad worm parents
@Layla: Oh yes, once things have mould in them, then the cleaning gets difficult. It’s all about short accounts and we’ve found ourselves getting better and better at this as our challenge has progressed. Once you know what your personal ‘can’t deal with this’ point it, you take steps to ensure you don’t find yourself in that position.
I heated the milk first; my two loved the yogurt I made; it was me that didn’t
@Charity: Hi Charity; it is difficult when people give us things we do not want and even harder when your appeals are met with such disrespect. I don’t know how to get over this one unless we all get a bit more out spoken and confrontational about our ways, which isn’t really my forte
Sorry to hear about the worms; I have no experience of them, but perhaps an email to Wiggly Wigglers could help sort things out for you? http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/