Zero Waste Week 2012
August 2, 2012 in section: by Mrs Green with 16,400 views
National zero waste week 2012
Welcome to the fifth National Zero Waste Week!
National Zero Waste Week takes place week beginning 3rd September 2012.
This year’s theme is ‘One More Thing‘ which reminds us that the collective impact of taking baby steps can add up to significant change.
How can I join in?
This year we’re focusing on improving our recycling habits because if every household in the UK recycled ‘one more thing’, the total amount collected for recycling could increase by more than three quarters of a million tonnes.
So decide on your activity and leave a comment below telling us what you pledge to do, then come back during National Zero Waste Week and let us know how you are getting on.
Be sure to bookmark this page! If you have a blog or webpage, please help spread the word by writing about National Zero Waste week – you can grab one of our images below!
If you’re on twitter or facebook, encourage your friends and family to join in too.
FACEBOOK – Join our zero waste facebook page and check out the events page
TWITTER – Use the twitter hashtags #onemorething and #nzww and follow My Zero Waste.
What can I pledge to do?
As long as you end up increasing your recycling in order to reduce landfill waste in some way, you can choose anything you like. Here are some ideas:
- Find out what can be recycled at your kerbside and make full use of facilities
- Check your local bring banks to see what you can recycle locally
- Take home fruit peelings and cores to compost at home or set up a compost heap or bokashi bin at work
- Perhaps you’ve noticed battery recycling in your local shop; start using it!
- Take home your recyclables instead of using litter bins when out and about
Keep us updated in the comments section below – let us know what you are doing to improve your your recycling habits and how your actions are inspiring others!
Promote National Zero Waste Week 2012 by putting a click through image in your page
Below are two images that you can easily place in your web page Each image will have a click through to our page here where visitors can read more about the event and participate.
For the above 300x300px image, copy and paste this code into your html page
<a href="http://myzerowaste.com/zero-waste-week-2012"><img title="Click here for National Zero Waste week 2012" src="http://myzerowaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/nzww-300x300.jpg" alt="Click here for National Zero Waste week 2012" width="300" height="300" /></a>
For the above 468x60px image, copy and paste this code into your html page
<a href="http://myzerowaste.com/zero-waste-week-2012"><img title="Click here for National Zero Waste week 2012" src="http://myzerowaste.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/nzww468x60.jpg" alt="Click here for National Zero Waste week 2012" width="468" height="60" /></a>
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Success with the salty ham!
Well … recently, recycling in my area took a huge step backwards. Those of us who don’t have curbside recycling had self-serve centers where we could sort and recycle almost everything. What was really great about those centers is that people could also take items … for example, perfectly good magazines or printing paper where only one side was used. People collected egg crates and all manner of things. Because we sorted the items ourselves, the area was organized and items like newspaper, magazines, etc. were clean. Unfortunately, the city in their infinite wisdom, decided to close those centers. Our only options now are two poorly located centers with inconvenient hours for working people … and, they have stopped taking items like plastic. They also now insist that any recycling be bagged in … get this … plastic bags. Kind of defeats the purpose. So … all that is to say that I have a huge recycling opportunity here. My Zero Waste Week commitment is to find some way to recycle the things which aren’t being accepted by our city any longer. It might be more than a baby step but … I’ll take it on and see what I can stir up (I mean accomplish). I’ll also commit to continuing to see if I can avoid anything which can’t be recycled (primarily meaning plastic).
I can’t wait to join in this year! I will have moved into my new home by then, so I’m planning on investigating the recycling options available to me at the flats and then finding out what to do with everything else! I’d really like to find somewhere to recycle my tetra pack cartons and plastic bags…I don’t use many of either but it pains me to put them in the bin. I believe there may be recycling receptacles at the supermarket in town, I shall find that one out when I have to start doing my own food shopping!
Congratulations Mrs Green on year 5 of National Zero Waste Week!
We are in the process of extending Easy Green towers and we are sourcing as many recycled products as possible for the build. Our ‘one more thing’ will be to ensure that we recycle any waste, packaging, materials etc leftover from the build, either through our local recycling centre, posting on Freecycle or re-using elsewhere in the build.
Good luck with the campaign, I promoted it on my ‘Living Green, Loving Saving’ slot on BBC Radio Nottingham on Tuesday, I’ll be posting a link too.
Keep up the great work
Lyndsey
Tetra Pak is committed to working towards the aspiration of zero waste. In the UK we will facilitate this by working to increase post consumer carton recycling, by facilitating an increase in kerbside carton collections. As part of this a UK based carton recycling facility will be commissioned in 2013. Householders can help us in improving carton recycling by placing used cartons in kerbside collections or in bring banks where they are available.
I am going to be attempting a zero waste week as part of Waste less, Live more week from 17-23 September. I’ll be blogging it on my work Facebook page. I’ll actually be “pre-recording” it the week before, but no cheating apart from that! I’ll be keeping an eye on your page and Facebook to garner some tips to get me through my week.
I’m already very low waste – I have a carrier-bag-lined bin in my bedroom which gets emptied about once a month (if that), and one in the kitchen shared with my flatmates, which because it is a very small bin gets emptied weekly. Everything else goes in the recycling or compost. Mostly I’ll be working on cutting down the amount of recycling I generate and trying to avoid the little things that could trip me up, like the plastic film top of yoghurt pottles… my blog name (Knit Your Own Yoghurt) is tongue in cheek, but I think I will have to knit my own yoghurt to get through the week!
Wombling is a not-for-profit social enterprise working for people and planet. We run weekly recycling events in Norwich where we help people reuse and recycle unwanted goods.
We also provide data sheets showing people different ways to reuse ‘junk’, and will continue producing them for as many materials as possible, these sheets can be downloaded from the Resources page of our website.
I will be joining in with this and I am going to start recycling my batteries
http://wp.me/p2xFx7-3g
The idea of having a center where people can donate things they don’t want and take things they do is a very good one. The old council property in the Norwich Road park has been empty for a few years and could make an ideal site for such a center.
Much like you I find Zero Waste Week difficult because we already do so much here – so I am decluttering my study this week.
I will remove stuff (to recycling bins as required) and re arrange so I can actually use the remaining stuff properly.
Also will be emptying out the guest bedroom ready for major refurbishment ( new floor, window, dry lining etc ) so lots of stuff going to charity/ Freecycle/ and as last resort the recycling bins.
I am still trying to think of something I can do for this year’s National Zero Waste Week that I do not do already. However, on the eve of Zero Waste Week, I have had a major set back. We now have kittens in the house and this weekend we have had to give them worm tablets for the first time. Because they are young kittens, they cannot be allowed free access to the garden all the time so they need to have litter trays. As I understand it, that means we cannot compost their cat litter for a week, because otherwise we would kill the worms in the compost bunker. Therefore, I cannot see any option but to put the litter into the dustbin for a week. I thought of burning it on a bonfire, but, for various reasons, this did not seem a very practical option. Do you have any other ideas of how to dispose of it?
At our Family Festival coming up this Sunday 9th September, there will be recycling bins made available for people to use. As there are no other bins at the venue, this means that every single item of recyclable waste – which is most things! – that is disposed of during the event will be recycled! IHopefully that will also incentive visitors to see just how easy it is to reduce household waste if you set up a simple system at home for waste sorting.
I’d like to share a post with you from my friend, Ann, who lives in New Zealand. I asked if she’d like to participate in this event and she immediately got busy and prepared a post. I’m not sure if she’ll come by and formally join in but … she’s definitely spreading the word. Here’s her post:
http://annkschin.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/zero-waste-bamboo-plant.html
Thanks so much!