A little panic about our zero waste week
Add article to favourites
Being a bit of a control freak, I’m having a bit of a ‘to do’ about our zero waste week (1st week in September if you’ve just joined us).
More specifically I’m thinking about those things that happen which are beyond our control. Am I having nightmares of some saboteur coming around at midnight and filling our bin before taking a photo to send to the Daily Star? Am i now hoovering the garden lest there be a piece of stray plastic on there?
Lean closer and I’ll tell you a story.
On Sunday, Mr Green and I like to have a siesta after filling our bellies with Sunday lunch. Little Miss Green has what’s known as ‘quiet time’ after lunch each day. In other words, my desperate bid to get a bit of time to myself as she gave up daytime sleeps at the handsome age of 6 months.
‘Quiet Time’ is a bit of a euphemism actually and more wishful thinking on my part. A good ‘quiet time’ consists of Little Miss green getting her head stuck into a good book (hopefully not Horrid Henry and something with a good, Victorian moral) while I blissfully listen to music, meditate or read.
But for the most part ‘quiet time’ consists of major construction projects, lots of loud talking to her teddies and babies, things crashing into walls and peals of laughter. Headphones over my ears and pillows over my head come in handy on those days.
Anyway, this Sunday, we’d rather surpassed ourselves on the food front. It was a cold, wet and miserable July and we were comfort eating.
With rotund tummies Mr Green and I rolled into bed for a snooze.
A couple of hours later we awoke to a ‘present’ on Mr Green’s side of the bed.
While we had been sleeping, Little Miss Green had visited a neighbour. There is a gorgeous lady up the road who has an equally lovely dog. He’s one of those dogs that just can’t help smiling. Little Miss Green, who is a bit of a Little Miss Doolittle on the quiet, has befriended the dog and our neighbour. A few days a week she’ll take the dog out for a walk or call around to play with the dog in the garden.
Our neighbour is very kind, very generous and obviously had the same feeling as me this week about a great need for comfort food on that rainy, windy day. So Little Miss Green came home with some goodies.
I woke to that catch-you-at-the-back-of-the-throat aroma of prawn cocktail crisps and a smiley girl with her tummy poking out from under her t-shirt. In her hand were some treats for Dad that she had saved him.
When Almost Mrs A did her zero waste week, she ended up with one plaster.
So my thoughts are currently going along the lines of:
How am I going to deal with non recyclable packaging from crisps and biscuits from kind and well-meaning neighbours without hurting their feelings, having them call the NSPCC or thinking us ‘a bit odd’?
Do I have to ground Little Miss Green for the week?
Send her away on a PGL adventure holiday?
Should I remove the ‘please look after this bear’ sign from around her neck? Hmmm perhaps that is the giveaway.
Should I send a newsletter to the neighbours outlining our plans or put photocopies of our media coverage through their letter boxes when they’re not looking?
Shall we all take a trip to Richard Branson’s personal island for the week and forage for wild food?
I guess it comes down to one thing. It’s about retaining a good, healthy, sense of humour and just being thankful we have great neighbours who extend the true hand of friendship and generosity to one another.
You can’t get better than that 🙂
Photo credit at beginning of post: The students of Mr. Fernandes’ Grade 7/8 Class at St Sylvester Catholic School, Ontario.
Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:
Tories plan vouchers to reward people who recycle more waste Well, I was quite excited about this until I read down further to see that vouchers…
Don’t throw it away… That's rubbish, just throw it away ... How many times have you heard that or said…
Weekly weigh in number five Wow - a land(fill)slide victory this week, folks! We're celebrating true carnival style over here, but…
No rest for the wicked Geesh, you'd think the woman would give us a break, wouldn't you? I mean, look how…
How are our zero waste family doing? An update from Sian and her family and their zero waste challenge
Easy Related Posts
Tags: food packaging
LOL Mrs Green…Perhaps you should send Little Miss Green to visit us in Suffolk. ;-D
Ah, now there’s a solution – to go and live with another zero waste family.
Perfect – thank you!