Sunday roundup 40
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‘Tis the end of another glorious week. One which provided a beautiful day of sunshine and kept us in the garden and away from the computer all day. We’ve dug 4 out of 6 of our beds, so I’m feeling very productive!
At the beginning of the week I was honoured to host the Carnival of the Green. In its fourth year, the Carnival of the Green is one of the most popular weekly green roundups. We had some amazing posts from all across the globe and I hope you enjoy reading them.
On Tuesday I shared a way in which you can get your mitts on £250 through the great site, Ooffoo. For some of our readers, it will be a doddle to enter this competition as you are already full of great ideas. Read up on how to enter this competition and win yourself a £250 shopping spree at Natural Collection
On Wednesday we had an astonishing result on our weekly weigh in. Find out how much rubbish we created for landfill this week.
On Thursday I set myself up for a steep learning curve; to do with organisation and schedules. Find out why I nearly dumped a few kilos of stuff in the landfill and said ‘bah humbug’ to it all.
At the end of the week I shared a story about a good idea of ours which backfired somewhat. Find out what happened and come and share your ‘good ideas gone bad’ too.
Discussions are still hot on the incineration post, so come along and voice your opinion. Next week we’ll be doing things a bit differently. Apologies in advance if it will bore the pants off some of our seasoned zero wasters; but for a week we’ll be cataloguing ALL the ‘rubbish’ we create on a daily basis. We’ll be force feeding our bin by throwing everything away and finding out just how much rubbish we can create.
Or will we?
Stay tuned and find out just what we’re up to and why.
We’ll also be celebrating one of the most special days of the year here at Chez Green; let’s hope we can achieve that zero waste style.
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Hi Mrs Green,
The weather has been fine here too. My first task is to cut down the hypericum bush, but digging will be done late March at the earliest, for the compost.
Boring! Your site is never boring. Plastic packaging waste is boring. We all have to remember that encouraging newcomers is a vital task for our trend.
Hi Again,
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead are introducing Reward Points For Recycling. This is a very good method of encouraging recyling among the indifferent majority as well as rewarding all our fine efforts. It was on MSN Environment page today.
Oh this all sounds very intriguing – can’t wait for next week.
Yes it’s definitely Spring – we planted 2 fruit trees in place of a very overgrown buddlia (don’t think that’s spelt correctly).
Our recycling is all going to change too but I’m not sure that it will be any better as it doesn’t really address the food waste issue but we’ll wait and see…ooh and thanks for the help with the marmalade – I just reboiled it and it set perfectly…so I made another batch yesterday!
Dispatches is doing a contraversal piece between residents and collectors tomorrow [Monday] 9.00pm on CH4. It will not be pretty.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/revenge-of-the-bin-men
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/revenge-of-the-bin-men/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1
Obviously its intended to stir contraversy, and will have bias, but worth a view in terms of awareness of the large cultural and ingrained barriers against acheiving mass Zero Waste (the resistant reality of certain neighbourhoods/residents) and their utter belief in their right/ freedom to waste, and a quality regular residual service to cater for this wasting.
When one see’s this one will know the pressures for a Javellin Park incineration and the big cultural picture of mindless wasting one is up against/trying to win over.
Mrs Greens fantastic 1g acheivement, my 90% recycling [I try]. Zero Waste relies on the vast majority of folks to lives that are mindful of consumption, waste considerably less and respect waste as resource for others. Many residents are doing fantastically well by cutting down and recycling; but many others are digging their heels in and don’t wish to engage.
After watching Dispatches one has to consider the speed at which a Zero Waste alternative culture to incineration kick in, the real core resistance from many, if indeed most people will take it up and how realistic ZW sits in the minds of most people. Today, Tomorrow. I think it will take 10-20 years at least.
My disposal per week is 1-2Kg [Norfolk’s ave = 9kg/week or 472Kg/head/pa]
Gloucesthire’s average is 10Kg per week/head [520kg/head/pa]
Dispatches interviewee’s are up at 20Kg+ per week/head (1Tonne+ /head/pa) including side waste collections expectation.
It amazes me how anyone fills a 240l wheely bin in a fortnight, let alone in a week. We should not live in our own ZW bubble against this reality and backlash going on. We know righteously about Transition Towns, Resilient Communities, Peak Oil, ZW, MMGW; but there are significant % of the public who deny these as tosh, not their reality or language; where we know these as happening, sustainable solutions.
Its a real challenge that myself and others have pondered for a while. Worth watching and worth a post on, as this is the core challenge for us all, in the same boat. Can ZW resistant folk change and are softer awareness approaches more effective. As Prof. Paul Connett states, “the battles for recycling and composting has been won, along with minimisation; the core battle over residual has just begun”
@John Costigane:
John
@John Costigane I think Reward Points for recycling [remember Green Shield stamps] are a fantastic way forward, IMO could anyone put forward what might be meaningful trades for these points might be?
@Rob Whittle,Nail2:
Rob,
further to the earlier comments, the proposal is to have green waste recycling bins weighed at pick-up and points added to the household total. This is in May. Comingled recyclables will be similarly done as a follow-up.
As this is a council based thing, with some Waste mnangement participation, the chances are that vouchers for local shops will be supplied. Councils already do this for the elderly at certain times of the year.
One downside I see is for experienced Zero Wasters, who as well as recycle, also aim to reduce/reuse. This lowers the recyclate for us so our vouchers will be less valuable. However, this is really for the indifferent majority who barely recycle at all. Maybe they should weigh the waste bins as well, haha.
I’m jealous of all of you who are able to get out into the garden. We have a fresh blanket of snow here in Boston – and they expect 14 inches by the time it stops sometime this afternoon. Schools out (again) so kids are happy (I’m sure the dear spouse is not actually working from home today) -but the kids will be going school until the end of June at this rate. Thank goodness for public transportation – I’m happily at work where it is nice and quiet!
@John Costigane: What fabulous news on the reward points for recycling – incentives lead the way as shown in our own zero waste pledge and win competition last September. I’ll have a look for the story.
@Dormouse: Great news on the marmalade Doormouse and I’m glad you’ve been able to enjoy some good weather. What will be changing with your recycling?
@Rob Whittle,Nail2: Hi Rob, i’ll be watching that this evening (hopefully) on catch up. I’m looking forward to it – I think!
@Deb from Boston: if it makes you feel any better; it’s raining today, Deb!
An online friend said in Denmark, the fees for NOT recycling are so bad that landlords instructs their tennants how to recycle first thing they do!!
A neighbour of his lived in Denmark for a while and told him that..
I thought it was really interesting, as many people here are kinda indifferent too..
Though if it could be done like in St Arvans in Wales, just by door-to-door neighbourly encouragement and support, that would be great too.. 🙂
@Layla:
Interesting comment Layla. The same could become true here as the landfil taxes paid by councils and ultimately us, keep going up and up. Sadly that is not generally understood and for the most part, councils are blamed and no thought is given to the fact that by encouraging recycling, councils are in effect reducing the financial burden on the tax payer.
@Layla: What a brilliant sounding scheme in Denmark! I agree the friendly approach is much better, but if that fails then more heavy-handed tactics are needed. I’ll have to find out more about Denmark’s recycling policy. As Poppy says, people ARE penalised in their council tax, but I agree with you Poppy; many people don’t make the connection. But then many people don’t really care; they would rather pay than change their ways and moan about it afterwards.