Welcome to My Zero Waste first post!
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Welcome to our first blog post on My Zero Waste.
If you’ve read some of our pages, you’ll see that we are a family of four (2 adults, 1 seven year old and an elderly cat), who have set ourselves the challenge of reducing our weekly rubbish.
We’re launching this site in conjunction with the WRAP’s (Waste & Resources Action Programme) Recycle week. Recycle week is celebrating its fifth year and runs from 2nd June 2008.
Activities focus on the benefits of recycling and this is where we are taking part! WRAP use this week as an effective platform to communicate positive messages about recycling and showcase real achievements, as well as to inspire the public to recycle even more.
We were initially inspired by the wonderful Mrs Almost Average and her Rubbish diet blog.
Reducing the waste we send to the landfill each week has been one of those challenges that, for numerous reasons, we’ve found so hard.
We felt like we knew what to do on one level, but weren’t able to put it into practice.
I’ll be first to admit that much of this was down to laziness. Old habits die hard, don’t they? Particularly ones that make our lives easier and more convenient. We can throw things in the bin and they no longer seem to be our problem. No we are looking at many alternatives to achieve zerowaste that calls for imagination and ingenuity as well as using the obvious recycling facilities.
As an example of some of those old ingrained habits, here is a conversation that took place between me and my Father the other week:
Dad: (looking at a baking tray on the work surface with grease on it) “They’re impossible to keep looking clean aren’t they?”
Me: “Well I guess so, but I usually soak mine in hot water for an hour before scrubbing it and it comes out pretty clean.”
Dad: “Of course, what I tend to do is buy a couple for a pound and just throw them away after I’ve used them”.
We also grew up in households where we never gave any thought to our rubbish. There is no blame here; no one did then! It was an era of consumerism and disposable lifestyle. The council just provided a great service, came once a week in their big, noisy, exciting-looking lorry and took everything to this magical place called ‘away’.
However, our awareness of the environment is increasing all the time and we now know that ‘away’ doesn’t actually exist. It’s a big hole in the ground that is rapidly filling up and continues to poison us.
There comes a point in your life where your knowledge increases, it starts to pluck at your heart strings or conscience and you have to be prepared for a little initial discomfort in order to carry out something you believe in.
Reading around the internet, it seems we have about nine years of landfill space left in the UK. And we were pretty horrified back in November of last year when we found the UK being referred to as the “dustbin of Europe” , following research by the Local Government Association.
We believe that we CAN make the environment safer, more healthy and a better place to be once again. We believe that one person (or household) CAN make a difference.
So, now we’re about to prove it to ourselves, under the watchful eye of Almost Mrs Average – Bin Mentor extraordinaire!
You can follow our progress, our tantrums, our guilty secrets, our rants and our procrastination here as we invite you to rummage through our rubbish and haul out the landfill layabouts for a good airing.
And of course, most of all, we’re hoping you’ll share some of your experiences and jump in with your own zero waste challenge.
Follow our monthly challenge page for a gentle guide to reducing your own weekly rubbish.
Be inspired, make changes and share the love………….
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Fantastic idea, we are trying to do the same, not as successful as yourselves at the moment – but will keep trying. I also recycle fabric, old jeans etc into bags and other items. We are also in the process of de-cuttering and will be looking to dispose of unwanteds very soon.
Keep it up
Heather
Hi Heather,
Welcome to the site! Starting with a good declutter is a really good idea; it gives you more of a clean slate to build new habits on to.
Keep us updated with your progress!