Mrs Green’s six stories
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A recycled gift tag - One of Claire's creations on 'Blah to Tada!'
It that time of the week to share the link love.
The stories featured on my zero waste are to do with reducing, reusing, recycling and composting.
Food Waste
Now there is no excuse to add to the mountain of food we waste in the UK every day.
The Love Food Hate Waste campaign tell us we throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food every year; much of it edible.
Over on Planet Green you can find “50 ways to never waste food again“. In her extensive article, Colleen covers all you want to know about using up fruit, vegetables, meat and grains!
Reduce food packaging
Youngs is a well known and popular manufacturer of fish and seafood products. They have recently cut the packaging used for its fish pies and on its chilled salmon.
They have reduced the amount of cardboard used by around 242 tonnes a year and plastic by 57 tonnes a year.
Read the full story with “Young’s seafood cuts packaging for fish pie and salmon ranges.”
Recycling used underwear
Here’s one to get Mrs A interested: We’ve all had a few holey pants or elastic-free undies in our time. Some of us (Mr Green) continue to wear elastic free, holey pants because we’re too tight to buy new.
Maybe I should be hailing the state of Mr Green’s under garments as sustainable…
Over on Re-Nest, one reader asked about recycling used underwear and lots of readers came to the rescue with their suggestions!
Read “Suggestions for recycling unmentionables” for ideas.
Zero waste product swaps
Sometimes it’s easy being green. Sooz demonstrates this on her blog with her post about swapping products.
She chose to make a couple of lifestyle changes by swapping her shop bought pizza for home made, her face wash for soap and her paper tissues for cotton handkerchiefs.
Go and take a look at what else she has been swapping to decrease the amount of waste she sends to landfill:
Creative Recycling
Thanks To Layla, I came across a fantastic blog recently. With the wonderful name of ‘Blah to TADA!‘, Claire, who lives in the US shows us how she recycles.
From turning every day blah objects (you’ll find everything from stale bread to old ribbons) into something useful or beautiful (and often both), she makes ‘Tada!’ objects.
As Claire says, she likes the challenge of creating something new out of stuff that screams, “I”m off to the garbage can”.
Pop over to her site and be inspired!.
Alternatives to Freecycle
There is quite a lot of bad feeling about Freecycle at the moment, and many UK groups have split off from the main Freecycle clutches.
If you still want to give and get stuff for free while keeping things out of the landfill, there are plenty more options.
The Guardian with its ‘Fed up with Freecycle?‘ post list 10 alternatives, while the King of Reuse himself, Peter from Junkk has come up with a huge list of reuse exchange sites.
Over at myzerowaste, we’ve reviewed a couple of site in the past; Swop2shop for clothing, Listia, and SnaffleUp for a grown up version of Freecycle where we managed to get a rather yummy printer.
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Hey, thanks for the links! This week I need to stop wasting food so your first link is very good for me this week.
Hi Ben – ahhhh, food waste is my thing! Good luck with your challenge. SOme of our most popular posts are to do with food waste. Check out this for starters; some tips on food waste:
http://mzw.wpengine.com/articles/food/how-to-reduce-food-waste/
And if you want to hold yourself accountable, Kristen over on the Frugal Girl, holds a FOod Waste Friday post where you can declare all your food waste to her readers! It’s fun to join in and when you think people are going to be seeing what you have wasted, it keeps you mindful throughout the week!
http://thefrugalgirl.com
Hi, Thanks for linking to my blog 😀
lol!! LOVE the recycle underwear ideas!! (Maybe we can all try to get cute pics – or uhm, get our cute friends or Sooz to take cute pics and sell on eBay??!! ha ha)
I try to only get cotton these days (haven’t found elastic-free yet though) and yup I wear some holey stuff cause it’s COMFY!! lol!! Them new tiny ones may uhm, cause body discomfort (or worse!!:)
That link to recycled (?) stuffed animals from those comments is really sad!! 🙁
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pintuck/2065145660/in/photostream/
That’s why I don’t want plush toys either.. (even if Mum has been addicted on getting and giving them for a while, yes, even when I was a grown up already! weird!)
I wonder if there aren’t too many alternatives for Freecycle in UK these days though?
Great to hear you enjoy Blah to TaDa and Sooz’s blog!
/Just be careful with some of the more inspired Blah To TaDa entries that may require a bit too much glue or plastics, LOTS of them are totally FAB though!! Or may inspire more eco-friendly and recyclable/ZW versions!)
And GO Sooz!! More people definitely need to read this blog!! 🙂
@Sooz: Hi Sooz, you are welcome; I love what you are doing over there.
@Layla: I’m not sure elastic free underwear would stay up well Layla LOL! I agree about the Freecycle thing; it can be overwhelming. I’m still with Freecycle and Snaffle Up personally.
lol elastic-free underwear: well, what did they use in the old days? 😉
I’ve been inspired to make old-style undies! (Still in ‘idea’ and ‘maybe later’ stage though!)
Of course you can just put in a ribbon – but how comfy would they be? That’s the question!! 🙂
@Layla: What are ‘older style’ undies?? Is that another term for ‘big pants’? I guess in ‘the old days’ they used boned corsets; I’d like to see you get around in one of those LOL!