Get off your arse Thursday – week 7
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Here we are again. Happy as can be. it’s Thursday already, which means it’s your turn to cross something off your pending list or your procrastination list and take one more step towards reducing your waste.
What will it be this week? Stopping your junk mail perhaps, Joining Freecycle or SnaffleUp and saving something from the landfill, planting something to help reduce fruit and vegetable packaging, making a meal from leftovers or developing a successful home recycling system?
Whatever floats your boat and helps you avoid sailing amid the plastic oceans, jump in and let us know what you are doing. There’s a cyber prize for the super landfill buster of the week.
Last week you were a very busy lot with lots of you joining in the Thursday frolics. Maisie was busy saving the stamps from her son’s Birthday cards and made sure all his gifts were zero waste.
John was flexing his six pack in the garden, emptying out his compost and building raised beds. He was also planting herb seeds to reduce his plastic packaging next year.
Sarah was squeezing her nuts (soapnuts that is) to make cleaning solution to clean her home with – what a woman!
Seraphim was doing something I can’t even get my head around; but it sounds amazing! She was crocheting a washing up scrubber from all the nets her onions and other produce have arrived in over the past few months.
Peter was busy sorting out his son’s car and emptying out all the trash (well, at least I THINK he was; it might have been more a musing than a doing).
After her wonderful fridge cleaning session the week before, it was on to the rest of the house for Di. She did a charity shop run and shared some of her unwanted things with others.
Carole flexed the plastic and bought herself a bokashi bin – that will help to reduce her food waste!
Deb from Boston was busy sewing on buttons onto some charity shop finds and planting seeds ready for a summer crop.
Grandma Green was earning herself some brownie points with our local council. She bought a subsidised compost bin and kitchen caddy to transform her kitchen waste into glorious compost.
Charity; one of our newest readers, switched to washable napkins instead of kitchen towel for mealtimes. She also started saving the plastic bags that come in her veg box for reuse.
Meanwhile, in her small part of the world, Nadine was making a tidy profit with her yard sale and helping keep all manner of goods from the landfill.
Well make it an impossible decision why don’t you? After a great deal of deliberation, I’ve awarded the prize to 
Charity. Having had a personal struggle with giving up the kitchen towel, and after raising a messy eater of my own, she gets the prize for saving a few trees, a fair amount of polythene and some cardboard from its fate. Well done Charity! I hate washing the cloths I give to Little miss Green; they always seem to have a bit of porrage that escapes from them and ends up crawling along my arm. Your prize is this friendly worm. I’m assured he will keep your kids entertained, encourage them to eat all that is on their plate and if they really can’t manage it, he’ll munch his way through and poop out some of the good stuff for you.
This week I’m sorting out my kitchen cupboards and I’m going to do an inventory. I’m trying to avoid food waste at the moment, so I’ll be checking the dates on things like flour and hoping their aren’t too many casualities. No doubt my mission will involve a great deal of batch baking too.
what about you? What do you have planned for Get off your Arse Thursday this week?
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Grumble, grumble, the Bokashi bins have YET to arrive, even though I was emailed that they’d been despatched last Friday. Meanwhile I’ve got lots of bits waiting to be Bokashied (or whatever the past tense verb is) I’m giving them until the end of today to get them to me or I’m going to be contacting them… 🙁 🙁
Not that I’m the impatient sort or anything…
Carole
Ah we’re well into spring and planting here so the longer term waste reduction is growing fruit and veg in the back garden!
Remeber that even if things like flour are past their date they can still be used; so this might stop some being “thrown away”.
We have been using things up from the freezer this week.
All the little bits I have kept freezeing and we haven’t used on “leftovers night”.
Last night we had mince in gravy with mashed potatoes (all from the freezer) I just added some fresh veg from the weekly box.
Dessert was hm rhubarb and apple sponge (first rhubarb from garden and apples from freezer).
Tonight will be Bolognese or Chilli (both from freezer) over Jacket Potatoes.
Mrs Green, good to see a newcomer, like Charity, taking a necessary step in waste reduction, and winning an ace prize too. Kitchen towel is so convenient but is soon forgotten when the trend takes hold.
Great to see so many participants with good ideas to copy. Fridge cleaning is one for me this week, with my fruit/veg holders in constant use. An ongoing Spring clean meant a food processor unit scrub. I use this for everything so it gets grimy. Unfortunately, the speed scale markings were erased alongwith the rest but the various positions are easy to judge.
I have finally received my Bokashi bins, just as I was about to throw a wobbly and contact them! I spent a few minutes setting the first one up and it’s already sitting in the kitchen fermenting away.
The major job when I got back from work this afternoon was to get my basil and tomato seedlings thinned out and potted up into a weird collection of re-used pots (yoghurt, margarine, coleslaw etc). And when I was running out of those, I had the idea of cutting off the bottom 4 inches or so of two drinks cartons and using them as well!
They are now lining the lounge window sill, which doesn’t look particularly spectacular and will all need to be moved if I get any home viewers!
Carole
Thank you, he’s very cute! I don’t know why I didn’t switch before; I’ve always used cloth nappies.
This week I have discovered that my local council dump (Merton) now takes foil and all plastic with a recycling triangle on it. So I’ve started a collection box.
Quite busy today, but did tackle a few jobs that have been left on the back burner.
Several items of unwanted post were killed and RTS’d; and an out-standing Easter package was dispatched. Beds changed and all washing done. The BIGGY though was junior and I washing out the Wheelie Bin this afternoon 🙂 All signs of previous sins have now been removed.
Hi a very busy Thursday here as it’s the first day after the first night of our unexpected early arrival being home :O)
Kyle came on Tuesday 5 weeks prematurely but is doing well and is home. I’m discovering the joys of tandem feeding which saves loads of waste :O)
We’ve also finally got lots of our recycling out of the kitchen and into the appropriate places. Am sure we’ve done loads but it’s been a busy day and too much to mention.
Hope you are all well.
This is my first contribution to Get Off Your Arse Thursday. I shall make a list of everything in my freezer and base next week’s menu round the buried treasure I defrost. Given my failure to label containers we are in for some interesting meals.
OMG! Mrs J – I only just got around to reading the comments and I’m so excited! Many congratulations from us and (((HUGS))).
Welcome to the world to your baby and may you all be blessed with health, happiness and love.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your wonderful news with us; I’m truly honoured you thought to come here and tell us 🙂
Thanks poor thing has had a rough old week and we got readmitted into hospital Friday and have only just got out. We thought he was going to end up in scbu but the power of breast milk got him treated on the ward and now we’re home again :O)
Sorry to hear that, Mrs J. Hope all is well now and there are no more trips to hospital 🙁
Unfortunately not. Apparently my naturally producing zero waste milk is not good enough. He has to put on x amount of weight by Sunday or we are back in :O(
Targets, targets, targets!! We are not all the same and we do not all have the same needs. I do wonder about the pressure put on mums. How on earth did anyone ever survive without Health Visitors and Midwives?!
Hope Baby J is okay 🙂
Thanks. And we were probably a lot happier without them.
Oh for goodness sake. These targets and graphs and ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ really do my head in.
If your babe is healthy, happy, sleeping well and crapping for England, then there is nothing wrong.
I only doubled my birth weight in a year; you’re ‘supposed’ to triple it.
How did the human species survive before scales and little books to plot our weigh in??? Grrrrrrrr….