Weekly weigh in 33

Filed in Blog by on January 14, 2009 11 Comments
FavoriteLoadingAdd article to favourites

weigh in 33All smiles this week. We have certainly salvaged our conscience and can look you all in the eye with this week’s weigh in.

If you remember, the first weigh in of the year was slightly disastrous. After declaring we would not put our bin out for a year, we had over 200 grams of rubbish which included two recently received (and consequently broken) Christmas presents.

Little Miss Green has been eating for England this week after being ill over Christmas and we’ve managed to get through this relatively unscathed on the packaging front. We’re also acutely aware that in two weeks time we have our very own Gloucestershire zero waste week (if you’re taking part then please pop over to our dedicated page to share your thoughts, ask questions and get support) to get through, so a little more planning will be required if we are to produce nothing at all.

Mr Green, on the other hand, has been eating less because he’s had man flu πŸ™ But I guess the main difference from that this week is lack of recyclable beer cans πŸ˜€

Back to this week’s weigh in then. Tottering up to the scales in her 4 inch Manolo Blahnik’s our bin is carrying:

2 crisp packets
plastic party bag and non recyclable contents
non recyclable cereal packet
lentils bag.

C’est tout!

All in all it weighs just 20 gms!

Yipee!

Tags:

About the Author ()

I am a long time supporter of the Green and Sustainable lifestyle. After being caught in the Boscastle floods in 2004, our family begun a journey to respect and promote the importance of Earth's fragile ecosystem, that focussed on reducing waste. Inspired by the beauty and resourcefulness of this wonderful planet, I have published numerous magazine articles on green issues and the author of four books.

Comments (11)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Poppy says:

    Hi Mrs G!

    20gms! Amazing! One question however, could the party bag not have gone in with the polythene/carrier bags? Not that it would have made a lot of difference to your weight, if any!! I also wondered about that when you mentioned bubblewrap in a previous posting.

    Poppy (who is getting decidedly fed up with icy slippy footpaths!)

  2. Hi Mrs Green,

    20g is a fine total after the festive overloads we all faced. A bit of RTS is also good for the soul to lighten the load.

    Young Dee from Lush, Barrhead, was a great help in soap selection today. Citrus seemed to be scent of choice. Bohemian Lemon and Sexy Peel were purchased along with free samples of mint and another citrus type. This is a culture shock for me but Lush’s products have proved superior to standard options elsewhere.

    We discussed plastic packaging (PET was suggested) and I enquired about tooth paste/powder alternatives to the plastic tube.

  3. Judy Kershsw says:

    I’m still bothered about buying foods such as cream, margarine, yoghurt which come in non recyclable plastic. Then there’s toothpaste tubes. Can I really survive without these items OR can you tell me of alternatives?? I put out half a peddlebin of waste each week but want to do better. J.

  4. Mrs Green says:

    Hi Poppy,
    You know, I think you might be right about the party bag – thank you! I didn’t even think about it. Must remember next time. Same for the bubble wrap. I actually had some the other day that had the symbol 4 written on it in big letters πŸ™‚

    John, Bohemian Lemon and Sexy Peel – I say; you’ll have all the zero waste ladies after you :D. I like citrus scents too, so perhaps I should peruse their site and see what I can find.
    Keep us posted on any toothpaste news.

    Hi Judy, welcome to the site. Half a peddlebin per week is wonderful – well done you! For cream, I know of no alternative and there is no life without cream imo. Instead of margarine you can buy butter in paper wrapping. Usually the cheaper brands come like this; foil wrapping seems to come with the more expensive brands for some reason. Yougurt can be made at home. There are a couple of posts about it – one has a lot of useful comments here:
    http://mzw.wpengine.com/2008/06/making-yogurt/

    And if you find you really cannot live without these things, then there is always GHS for recycling: (I assume from the use of the word peddlebin that you are in the UK?)
    http://mzw.wpengine.com/2008/08/recycle-plastics-thanks-to-ghs/

    Other people donate these empty cartons to playgroups who are reported to be very grateful for junk modelling and the like.

    As for toothpaste, we’re still working on that one, but Mrs A over on her Rubbish Diet blog (http://therubbishdiet.blogspot.com) mentioned something about this recently. She has been using Aquafresh toothpaste in a can which goes in with the aerosol recycling…….

  5. Hi again Mrs Green,

    I have joined the Lush forum and posted about Zero Waste and the overlap with their products. Hopefully, there will be some developments. At least we can feedback our viewpoint when a toothpaste/powder product arrives. They had a mint/salt type previously but packaging was a problem. That might be the hardest issue to resolve.

  6. Layla says:

    I tried to post yesterday, but apparently the server was too busy πŸ™‚ Everyone waiting for ‘the news’! :))

    YAY for 20 grams!!

    & surely the pretty party bag can be reused..? (to keep ‘treasures’ in etc?)

    my Dad kept his salt (& previously burnt eggplant/salt powder) for brushing teeth in a small glass with plastic cap (ex-yoghurt-making glass), I keep some salt in a tiny glass with metal cap that was used for honey (in a gift package) Maybe they could even be brought back to the company and washed well & reused, maybe for other products (that don’t go into mouth)..?
    OR people could come with own containers and have them refilled? while the original big store container would be reusable, and a clean ‘spoon’ would be used for putting it into people’s boxes and weighing/measuring it (I’d certainly appreciate that!)
    Also, it would be good if their measuring scales could subtract the weight of your own glass/jar/container, this would make it muuch easier for people to use own containers! (especially if a discount were offered with this!)

    I still have no idea if recyclable toothbrushes exist!! What about tooth floss??

  7. Mrs Green says:

    Hi John, I didn’t realise LUSH had a forum; I’ll have to have a look over there and see what is going on.

    Hi Layla, oooo, fancy not being able to get on because the server is too busy LOL! I have heard of the burnt aubergine toothpowder; a long time ago; now you are bringing back memories. It was in a book I had about natural skincare and it has recipes from all over the world.
    Mrs A get a wooden toothbrush with natural bristles, and I’ve been looking at the ones where you replace just the heads. It’s not the full answer, but it’s something. I have no idea about tooth floss!

  8. Kris says:

    It’s true – Lush’s Bohemian soap does smell gorgeous!

  9. Mrs Green says:

    Hmmm, another vote – I’ll look into it as I love the smell of lemon πŸ™‚

  10. Diz says:

    I have put my toothpaste cylinders out with other plastic bottles, etc with my kerbside collection for years, and have never hears them not being ok

  11. Mrs Green says:

    Thanks for that Diz. Our plastic bottles collections over here are limited and we can only put in milk bottles and soft drinks bottles. Good to know you can deal with your plastics in a different way!

Leave a Reply