Sunday round up eleven
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We have a week to go before our zero waste challenge and our pledge and win competition takes off. We already have a number of people signed up. So eager are they to save the world that they’ve started already and are sending in their experiences and feedback!
There’s still time to sign up and if you do, you can be in with a chance of winning a fabulous prize. We have heaps of stuff to give away – all of it made from recycled materials or things that will help you reduce your landfill waste.|
We also have points to give away for you to use through More Eco. So what are you waiting for?
In the run up to Christmas, we’ll all be bombarded with catalogues enticing us to buy their wares. So, there’s still time for you to win a ‘Stop Junk Mail‘ kit courtesy of Robert from the fabulous Stop Junk Mail site.
This week has been another busy one. I’m confident about the zero waste week one moment and petrified the next. I have to admit it feels a bit overwhelming at the moment, but there we go. Mr Green is already planning his meals so that we can try and foresee any problems, but best laid plans and all that……..
I’ve had the privilege to connect with some wonderful people this week. People who make you realise that you’re not alone in your vision or your mission. It’s been just what I needed, as, I’ve also read some pretty horrendous stories in the media which would indicate that recycling is a waste of our time.
At the beginning of the week, I found a digital magazine company called Zinio. It triggered an interesting discussion about people’s addiction to magazines and curling up somewhere with those glossy pages.
Lots of people like to combine frugality with saving the environment, so I brainstormed some ideas about our experiences of zero waste and whether they were helping to save us money. Come and share your thoughts on this.
We also found a story about landfills being mined for recyclable valuables! Read all about it here
For our weekly weigh in we kind of hung our heads in shame, but it was a reflective time about how we place convenience top of the list sometimes.
I had a great conversation with Clare from veg box recipes. Clare has a variety of tools to help people reduce food waste. On her site you can identify mysterious veggies with her rogues gallery, get information on seasonal produce and sign up for her new club. For just five pounds a month you’ll get access to all sorts of helpful and exclusive information. It’s well worth the money; find out more.
We finished the week on a lighter note with Mr Green’s article ‘Why Green Men are more sexy‘. It would seem that women across the nation now favour ‘cares about the environment’ over good sense of humour.
Mr Green has also put together some thoughts about incineration. Why not come along and share your views on this topical issue?
Right that’s it for me; I’m pooped, hungry and grouchy – not a good combination, but a great reason to step away from the computer!
We look forward to another week which will be focused on planning for our zero waste week. Go and tell your friends what we are up to and invite them to step up to the challenge.
Have a great Sunday.
xxx
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Hi Mrs Green,
I have been deeply impressed by the interest you have achieved in your September pledges. Looking at some of the contributor’s rapid transformation to a Zero Waste outlook, it seems that change is afoot.
Chris’s topical blog is entering the last week. I am curious to see how the month ends.
Thank you John! Your encouragement is appreciated; I’ve been feeling that perhaps it hasn’t been as popular as I would have liked, but there is still a week to go, so who knows. Word is spreading about the challenge, but it’s just getting people to actually sign up and take part.
Having said that, some of the people who have signed up and put in some wonderful feedback already and that’s more than we hoped for at this stage 🙂
I will be following Chris’s final week with interest too. I think she has done brilliantly well to bring awareness to this issue and her experiences have benefitted and inspired many who have followed her progress over the month
Dear Mrs Green,
You mustn’t feel as though your website/pledges/efforts have not been as popular as you would have liked. Even if people don’t sign up for the pledges, they might be doing them anyway. (oops, like me, so perhaps I should sign up for them officially) :-/
I want to show you some feedback from a friend to whom I emailed your website… to reassure you that the word about zero-waste certainly IS spreading! Even outside the household…!
“As for the zerowaste site, it looks really good from the pages I read. I sent it to J with whom I live. She is studying primary teaching and is studying sustainability. J is already doing some accounting on our household use. I will send it to my sister too as she is studying sustainability, but in her community development course. It’s promising how many uni courses seem to be integrating sustainability into their curriculum – that’s the way it should work. I’ll also forward it to the sustainability arm of the [company] Graduate Development Organisation (GDO) that I initiated last year and is running under the new GDO committee for this year. They are going to be running an office audit of sorts.”
Hi Mrs G – another great week and absolutely no need to hand your heads in shame about anything. Hope you have another fab few days and have every faith with the pledges…there are so many last minuters like me out there. ;-D x
I can back up SpiderMonkey’s comments there. A lecturer friend of mine is developing a sustainable marketing course for her college, so great moves are afoot in this area. Universities are also incorporating Zero Waste outside of the curriculum, integrating positive habits into student lifestyles. I’ve been working on this as a feature for my blog which is coming up soon. University Zero Waste is an area that I find incredibly exciting. I’ve been lucky enough to have been invited to a promotional event for new students at a top London University and can’t wait to report back on that. The more research I do, I most definitely find that where there’s a will there’s certainly a way for zero waste.
Thank you aspidermonkey and Mrs A – I’m just erm, having a case of the jitters at the moment. Silly really; what will be will be.
Thank you for sending a copy of that mail, aspidermonkey; patience has never been one of my virtues. I know in my heart of hearts that things are changing slowly though and thank you for passing along details of our site to people you know…..
Mrs A, your latest project sounds great – do keep us informed of progress on that.
Right, back to my regularly scheduled ‘everything’s fine’ face 🙂
Having lived several years in Death Valley California, i am aware of the need to recycle. when items are far and expensive, one tends to save everything. it became a profitable hobby for me to use found items to make crafts and other usable implements.
in the course of our hunting expeditions we “mined” the local dumps for historical salvage. i remember finding bottles and cans which had survived heat and sand.
today i find aluminum cans which, by the way, do oxidize badly and become pithy and fragile in the process. there is a need to salvage ready resources.
the bane is plastic…everywhere plastic in stages of decomposition, pelletized and cracking on the road sides, turning highways into garbage displays.
dumps are now closed to the public and kept covered by armies of bulldozers shoving dirt over refuse, it is not uncommon to catch a glimpse of perfectly good furniture and antique silverwear everywhere, everyway, everyday…
How arrogant my species!
nadine, it sounds like you have really seen some things in your time. I’m really not sure how I feel about the story this week about people realising there are valuable recyclables in the landfill and are thinking of ‘mining’ them. It seems unbelievable that we have wasted so much, polluted the environment in the process and NOW we are realising what we might have done.
Anyway, it sounds like living in Death Valley providing you with resourcefulness and many skills – the silver lining to the cloud, perhaps.