Announcing the winners of our September Pledge and Win competition.

Add article to favourites

Ok folks, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting before. I have to say, this has been one of the most difficult things I have had to do – I wanted to give EVERYONE a prize for all their efforts.

Responses were overwhelming and by the end of the competition we had over 180 feedbacks from people. The sense of participation and people really getting something from their challenges was wonderful. We loved how it was such a positive and uplifting competition. Yes, we asked you to do something, but do something you did and 160 of you joined in and helped to make the world a better place.

Feedback would suggest that many of you intend to continue with your pledges or add further ones, which was one of the aims of the competition.

The other aim was for you all to feel good about what you could do, rather than dwell on what you couldn’t. It would appear from the comments and emails we received that you all managed this admirably.

So, here goes with the list of winners:

Bobelle jewellery: Kris Ayres.

Kris spent a lot of time sorting out a good recycling system so that she and her family could recycle more. In addition, the challenge got her thinking about shopping locally and cooking more meals rather than resorting to ready meals that come with excessive packaging. Kris also bought a trolley bag and reusable bottle during the challenge  and made a decision on which system to get for recycling food waste. She took a trip to the deli with her reusable containers and is all set for making her own Christmas cards this year.

Carole Atkinson Slippers: Denise.

Denise got really stuck into her challenges and blogged about them on her own site. I know she bought lots of traffic our way too. Denise was already doing many of the pledges but took on board many others such as speaking to friends and family about recycling and Freecycle, stopping junk mail, switching to recycled toilet paper, using washable cloths instead of kitchen towel, making her own cleaning products and buying rechargeable batteries. She also had a ‘no shop’ week.

We also loved Denise’s support and encouragement for all the other participants.

Carry-a-bag: Another Mrs Green.

Another Mrs Green did lots of pledges too, she signed up for a veg box, sent ecards, cancelled her yellow pages and did a lot of pledges around food waste such as packing zero waste lunches for her children and making meals from leftovers. In addition she told her friends and clients about zero waste week. Spreading the word is vital to get the message out!

Eco Kitchens: sunshine_mel

What we liked most about Sunshine_mel’s pledges was that she bought a wormery for work which really helps to spread the message. In addition she spread the word about freecycle, set up a morsbag pod and got her friends to have a go with the mooncup.

Ecocentric recycled bathroom accessories: Flippa

Flippa set up a recycling system and started taking tetrapaks for recycling after realising they had been put in the wrong receptacle. In addition Flippa spread the word about recycling, switched to recycled products, stopped junk mail and cancelled a newspaper subscription.

We loved that she was so inspired throughout the competition week to keep adding new ideas to her own pledges.

Ecover Cleaning kit: John Costigane.

What we enjoyed about John’s pledge was that he joined in even though he has been virtually zero waste since the start. John’s been producing less waste than us for a long time, but he showed that there is always room for improvement and jumped on board with his own pledge of trying to find zero waste alternatives to some of the things he had been regularly buying.

During the challenge he switched to an all metal razor, found LUSH toiletries and bought coffee in paper bags. John was supportive of other’s pledges and always jumped on board with helpful suggestions and comments.

Ecoutlet – three Copies of ‘Rubbish’ by Richard Girling: Karen Cannard, Louise Larder and Primavera.

Karen Cannard, also a zero waster long before us showed again that even though you’re practically zero waste there is always room to improve things. So she gave up one of her favourite treats for two weeks – Quavers crisps. As most of us are aware, there is no recyclable packaging yet available for crisps. Karen was even ill during the zero waste week and was craving her treat, but didn’t give in.

Louise Larder provided some lovely inspiration with her idea about a friend’s wedding present. She and her daughter made a wedding card and baked home made honey cakes for their ‘honeymoon’. We loved this idea and it shows that sometimes the simple ideas are the most wonderful.

Primavera shared her experiences with 5 friends and family and had a good clear out of her things. This resulted in charity shops benefiting from her offcasts and an orphanage in South Africa benefiting from some of her daughter’s outgrown washable nappies. We loved that this challenge was an eye opener for Primavera; as she said “we thought we were pretty good at reducing our waste, but when we really sat back and had a good look, it was shocking how much more we could do, with just a little effort. However it was really enjoyable Thanks!”

Ethical Superstore vinyl Clock: Tam

Tam plucked up the courage to take her reusable container to the butchers, but the winning vote went to her for inspiring others with her idea about kitchen towel. Tam suggested we cut up an old tea towel, then stuff it in an old tissue box to take out and use the bits as needed. From our feedback, this inspired three people to have a go!

Ethical superstore coasters: Jenny’s pledge

Jenny arrived at the site, in her own words “only slightly conscious of what waste I produce” But she said that this site had kick started her into being much more aware.

Since reading the site and taking the pledge, Jenny became more conscious about sorting her waste for recycling and found that her council also collect textiles and helped her neighbours by taking things to the recycling centre with her. She spread the word at work and with her family members about what they could recycle and offered to help out by dropping things off for them.

Ethics trading paper potter and soapnuts: Nikki Groom

Nikki sorted out a challenge that many of us have – actually remembering to take reusable bags into the shops! During zero waste week she organised herself to keep them in the car. In addition she got back on track with recycling. Having her recycling boxes stolen had put an end to her efforts, but zero waste week spurred her on to organising some new boxes. She also supported her local milkman by signing up for juice and milk to be delivered in glass bottles.
By the end of zero waste week, nikki had put some great habits in place and was inspired to keep up her good work.

Gossypium duvet cover: Maisie

Well between them, Maisie and John could probably run My Zero Waste website in our absence!

Maisie joined us in a bin slimming venture and put out an amazing 309g during zero waste week. A year ago, Maisie and her family were putting out 2 or 3 black bin bags out to landfill every 2 weeks. She recorded in depth details of her zero waste week challenge on her own blog as well.

To help achieve this brilliant result, Maisie started sending plastic packaging to GHS, and was writing letters to supermarkets and manufacturers.

She has been making all her meals from scratch for years and her family enjoy a ‘leftovers night’ every few weeks where containers of assorted goodies get defrosted and served up like a buffet.

Grolsch goblets: Ray Smith

Ray’s pledge was short and sweet, but we loved it. He pledged to start a neighbourhood rota for taking plastic bottles to the civic amenity site. We like how Ray is  taking recycling to the next step by looking at the bigger picture – how can I lower my own car emissions and how can I serve my community? The upside for Ray is that he now only needs to take a trip once a month and his neighbours share the rest of the month between them.

Natural Store recycled Doy Tray: Sunstarr

Sunstarrr discovered some new things that she could recycle such as aluminium foil and polythene bags. She took active steps to stop junk mail  and provided useful information for the rest of the entrants about how to stop yellow pages, BT directory and Thompsons. She also shared links for people who want to get rid of old computers.

Neals Yard relaxation kit: Sally Sisson

Thanks to Sunstarrr’s links, Sally stopped her phone books and junk mail too. In addition, Sally gave an old mobile phone to a friend and dug out her stainless steel water bottles. She has been actively promoting recycling amongst her students with suggestions that they can recycle the paper rolls used on couches or better still use sarongs rather than heavy towels when doing beauty treatments to reduce washing costs. She also promoted the refilling of bottles.

Ninny Noodle Noo voucher: Alabama

Alabama took active steps to reduce her waste. She ordered bokashi bins and started clearing part of her garden for next years planting. She created things for her child from old shelving and cardboard boxes with the statement “These pledges have really got me thinking about how to re-use things instead of just getting rid of them.”
She did a lot of decluttering, finding new homes for the things she no longer wanted and shared a link with us all for envelope reuse labels from Ecover.
By the end of the week her example had led her partner to making changes too.

Revinyl Box: Liz Fawcett

Liz has a ruthless declutter of her loft to make way for insulation.
She shared her experiences with work colleagues and ate leftovers instead of throwing them away. She has pledged to make her own Christmas cards and to give away any money she would spend to charity. An important point Liz shared was that we don’t NEED to upgrade things like mobile phones. If ours work, we can just keep the ones we have! This challenge made Liz think more about what she could do, even with 2 babies to look after.

Recycling CDs clock: Poppy

Poppy bought a yogurt maker and got stuck into reducing her consumption of plastic pots. Her increased awareness meant she refused to buy things in the shops that had too much packaging and even took food out of her brother’s bin to eat for tea LOL! She was sharing her recycling knowledge with her family throughout the competition week, so that they could be empowered to make better choices too. In addition, Poppy spoke to work colleagues and people at her son’s school to increase their awareness of recycling too.

Totseat: Ben

Ben really made an effort with his shopping habits by buying loose veg and fruit wherever he could. He shows us that you can use a deli with your own containers and shopping bags and even thought had a mishap with his reusable drinking bottle, he took a mug to work instead to keep up with his pledge. Ben supports his local milkman and uses a vegetable box scheme to cut down on waste.

We Want Tap bottles and stickers: Soly and Susan Jones.

Soly set a target to be consistent with taking zero waste lunches to work and remembering her water bottles.
She spent the night in with friends educating themselves about the different types of plastics. We wish we had been there as I’m sure there was a lot to learn. She gave up crisps and reminded us of a brilliant way to ensure soft fruits get home safely – by taking her old fruit punnets and trays to buy loose fruit.
By now, Soly should have harvested her pear trees and have made fruit crumbles and other delights!

Susan Jones gets our stalwart award!
Despite a husband who wasn’t in the least bit interested in recycling when the pledge started, Susan sighed up for the competition and gave it her best shot. She retrieved things that were suitable for recycling from the bin after her husband had put things in there and to solve her kitchen food waste she bought a bokashi.

By the end of the week her husband was remembering to take his own bags to the shops and beginning to leave recyclable items out of the bin.  Yay!

It remains for us to give a huge thanks to all the wonderful companies who donated prizes. We’ve decided that due to the success of this event, the first week in September will officially be ‘National Zero Waste Week’.

Thank you to all of you for participating, all the companies for supporting us and to everyone who gave us publicity for this amazing event.

It was exhausting to organise it, but we learned a lot and the rewards of seeing you all out there doing your bit was worth it. Thank you so much for being a part of our first Zero waste week and for making it the huge success it was!

We’ll be in touch during this week to get your details for sending your prizes.

Easy Related Posts

3 Small Lifestyle Swaps You Can Make Today to Improve Your Personal Carbon Footprint

Back in 2019, the theme of Zero Waste Week was climate change. It was a ...read more

How to Overcome Recycling Challenges When Living in an Apartment

Many blogs about reducing waste, centre around larger family homes. It’s something I’ve spoken openly ...read more

Four Ways Your Home Can Go Greener This Summer

Everyone is looking for ways that they can work on their carbon footprint. It always ...read more

Feeling Guilty About how Little you Recycle?

Next week is the 15th annual Zero Waste Week campaign, and businesses, organisations and householders ...read more

4 Reasons why you Should Buy Loose Fruit and Vegetables!

When anyone contacts me about starting their own Zero Waste journey, one of the first ...read more

Four Ways to Declutter Your Home - the Sustainable Way

There's no getting away from the fact that the last 18 months have been bizarre. ...read more