Our final weekly weigh in?
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Little Miss Green holds a little green weigh in
Every Friday, our landfill waste steps up to the scales for a weigh in.
At the beginning of 2009, we set ourselves the goal of creating less than 100gms of waste per week. We figured this would help us meet our overall goal of only having our bin emptied once in the year.
Our dustbin is due to be collected on 13th Jan, but of course, snow may now stop play and we might get to put in one more package.
If you’ve read our recent press coverage in the Mail, Femail or Times, you’ll see that we have indeed achieved our goal and our target for 2010 is to send nothing to landfill at all!
We don’t have any food waste this week I’m pleased to say. I even managed to use up an entire red pepper this week! Little Miss green had strips of it raw with a couple of meals, and once it started to look a bit old I chopped it into pasta sauce on one occasion and mixed it with sweetcorn for another meal – yay!
Onto the landfill then. This week we have:
- 1 bread bag – the cellophane sort as people panic bought and it was all that was left (I have been making loaves of bread this week again ready for our zero waste challenge)
- 2 crisps bags
- 1 chocolate digestives wrapper found languishing in the back of the cupboard
- 1 ground rice bag
- thin piece of plastic given to us accidentally at the deli counter last time we bought cheese
- 1 felt tip pen that has run out
- sachet of silica gel
- seal from a wine bottle
All in all it weighs a New Years weight loss resolution’s worth of 31 gms. Well that’s a fine figure to end our year with!
What about you – any dustbin demons lurking in your bin this week? What about food waste – how much did you toss away? Remember, if you love to gawp in people’s fridges, then head over to Kristen’s food waste Friday post to see what other frugal bloggers and zero wasters have thrown away this week.
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Good job, Green household!
Wow, that is amazing! I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of alternative uses for any of these items but to no avail I’m afraid 🙂 (not that I think for a moment that you wouldn’t have already thought of it!)
Becky
xx
Awesome! That is great! plans on doing it again?
31g is an excellent way to finish the year’s challenge at this most waste-arising time of the season. The frost has intervened in many aspects of activity and the fast reducing grit/salt reserves are bound to worsen collections locally.
My own take on the frost was the state of the compost bin, and contents, which were solid and the inner lining covered in the white stuff. Scotland has had the longest continuous freeze-up, the worst for many years with the whole of Britain covered on the satellite view. The most galling feature of local temperatures is the forecast of temperature moderation locally which seems stuck at 2 days ahead. This is a real deja vu situation which has no end in sight.
Oh yes, we tried to empty the peely bin today and couldn’t get the lid off the compost bin as it was frozen shut.Water butt is solid too – hope it hasn’t cracked. Last year the snow killed all our worms. I can’t bear to think about what it has done to my poor winter lettuces this time, and my broad beans are definitely dead 🙁
Anyway, that’s amazing Mrs G. You are an inspiration to us all. Media coverage is fantastic too – I found you through Green Parent magazine when you had an article in there.
My dusbin demon lately is burst/deflated balloons. Nothing I can do with them as far as I know, and I have to bin them immediately as they are a serious choking hazard for my toddler and cats. I never buy them myself but we get given them frequently from parties, restaurants, shoe shops and so on.
Thanks everyone – I hope everyone is safe and braving the weather! It’s not too bad around here; 6 inches or so of the white stuff, which looks pretty in the sunlight and is great for making snowbunnies (not snowmen for some reason).
Charity, balloons are a real problem. I hate the things and it’s something we’re going to have to look out for next year. I’m compiling a list of potential downfall areas; I mean, I can’t exactly return a balloon back to manufacturer for safe disposal now can I LOL!
Further to my 2 day deja-vu weather report, yesterday, Wednesay, Friday was forecast as a mild dry day. Today, as if by magic, Friday and Saturday are now cold snow days across much of Britain. Sunday is now forecast as a mild 7 degrees but I have my doubts.
Has anyone else noticed this recurring theme in their local weather? My theory is that the Met Office is still trying to justify its mild winter forecast.
@John Costigane: It’s warmer here today – a balmy 2 1/2 degrees no less, but the thaw is starting. I’m pleased and hope it continues. I no longer listen to the forecast 😉