Reduce, reuse, recycling stories
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As it’s the season of sharing and love, I’m going to share some link love.
I’ve come across some great ideas this week for reducing food waste, recycling and caring for your personal space as well as the environment at large.
Now hands up who doesn’t like sprouts? All that is about to change…
Brussels Sprout pie
Over on the delightful Allotment 2 Kitchen blog, the aptly named MangoCheeks shared a delicious sounding recipe for brussels sprout pie.
Don’t knock it until you ‘ve checked out her great sounding list of ingredients and be sure to coo at her gorgeous potato and parsley Christmas trees too.
If ever there was a great vegetarian Christmas dish, this is it.
Reusing Plastic bottles
Far across the sea, Megan has been creative with reusing all sorts of materials over the Christmas season.
From a magnificent menagerie of animals fashioned from plastic milk jugs to some rather charming parfait baskets you’ll find something to inspire you.
Check out her “How we reused milk bottles for Christmas” post.
Declutter your home
I’ve been following Colleen’s insightful “365 less things” de-cluttering blog and this week she’s taking us all on a mini decluttering mission.
If your home needs a bit of TLC or you have a decluttering new Years Resolution on the go then why not join in?
Each day you get a mini mission such as finishing off a product, getting rid of books or reuniting your plastic containers with their lids.
Take the ASAP Pledge
Finally, ’tis the time for new year resolutions and what better way to do this than signing up to Baglady’s ASAP (As Sustainably As Possible) Pledge?
She’s asking you to give something up and take something up! Think about your current lifestyle and your impact on the planet then make your pledge to be a greener citizen.
For the ‘give something up’ part, I’m going to make sure I turn the router off at night. I often leave it on along with the other computer peripherals. For ‘taking something up’ I plan to make more of my garden this year and grow more food.
Mrs A has already signed up, see what she is pledging to do to stop climate chaos. Sign up yourself then get your friends to join in.
What about you? Have you read any great articles on the internet this week to help you reduce, reuse and recycle more?
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Hi Mrs Green,
Happy New Year to the first family of Zero Waste! Apologies for the late greeting but work at M&S has scuppered my usual Christmas/New Year routine. No Christmas cards sent, no home-made ginger wine but plenty of Zero Waste seasonal foodstuffs. Thanks once again to Marshall’s (turkey crown. trimmings and steak pie), to Auld’s (a superb Black Forest gateau), to Lush (home cosmetics) and to TetraPak (Zero Waste milk, and fruit juices, as ever).
There is a link between Lush and my recent work in that I attempted to improve personal hygiene by bathing more frequently, using Lush bath salt bars. Two colleagues, either sex, asked me separately about the issue and I was able to put in a plug for the company. It will be worth checking out any improvement in sales there, and whether furoshiki was another positive, at my next visit.
You shared our post. Thank you so very much. I can only hope that it does indeed inspire someone.
Happy Green Year.
@John Costigane: Hi John, Happy new year to you; it sounds like you have been really busy with work – I hope you are enjoying it.. Well done on spreading the zero waste word 😉 I think a lot of people are fans of LUSH; so you’ve done well with that.
@Megan Bayliss: Hi Megan; happy green year to you as well! Keep up the great work with your lovely site
Hi Mrs Green thanks for the link love. Every little bit helps. It is good to see another Aussie among the environmentally friendly bloggers too.
Happy new year to you all. I have already decided to try to make this year greener in my house. So far have started a declutter mission of my own, and have gone through magazines and receipts I no longer want, and clothes that I either haven’t worn or not worn for years, which I will give to a charity shop, along with the regular books I take to them.
the more I give up the gladder I get, I hope this doesn’t sound insanely self-denying but this really IS a fabulous planet in spite of our mistakes with it
here in Northern Ireland I’m hoping that all our water problems are helping people to appreciate what a privilege a working tap is….
nice to see your picture Mrs Green…. and HNY2U
@Colleen (365lessthings.com): Interesting that a lot of our media interest comes from your neck of the woods too 😉
@Julie Day: Happy new year Julie. The decluttering sounds wonderful – I’m right on the ball with that myself this year!
@shirley the baglady: Hi Shirley, lovely to see you – I appreciate what you are saying and I think many people hanker after a much simpler life…
The end of the 2nd year/3rd quarter of the 5 year challenge arrived with the New Year, Mrs Green. The total weight of waste plastic was 1.75oz at this most waste arising time of year. This left one tight-sealed commodity bag holding the various waste items, much like your own examples. One commodity bag was set aside for the 4th quarter plastic scraps which will be much less. One pleasing development was a family gift of a McVitie’s Victoria tin of chocolate biscuits which had only a sellotape seal and plastic sticker to bin.
The recent media coverage of excess binbags in some local areas with the weather, the holiday period and some working-to-rule all adding to the situation. What better argument could there be for Zero Waste?
Are you planning a year-end waste weighing yourselves to compare with the previous year’s televised event?
We put a month’s worth of food waste, plastic recycling and cardboard (cereal packet filled with all other flattened card) out this week. I expect I’ll put some other different mixed recycling out next week.
Technically we are on a weekly collection but when the snow fell I knew the collections were going to be problematic. Since it was obvious they weren’t going to be able to complete the rounds with their usual speed and on time I decided not to bother.
I’m really glad they didn’t attempt to bring their huge trucks down our bendy road – it was difficult enough for us to get out and to work. Those who left theirs out eventually got it collected. I was too busy to check the Council website to see when they thought they’d be able to collect. It is good knowing that by having reduced and separated your waste you aren’t in the position of being swamped in smelly bin bags. Putting off putting it out meant there was no worry about retrieving recycling containers when the Council caught up with the collections. We haven’t really any residual waste and what we have is stored in a metal dustbin. There are also street recycling banks we can use within walking distance if we want to reduce the amount of tins/bottles/paper recycling in the house.
The pictures in the press show what happens when people don’t make good use of their Council’s recycling facilities. My neighbours luckily do.
@John Costigane: great results John – well done you. Next year we’ll have you in the paper too! Great news about the VIctoria tin; I’ll have to look out for those.
@Jane: great result Jane and it takes off so much pressure and stress to not have overflowing bins. I do remember the days well of waking with that awful feeling of not getting to the kerbside on time. Now it’s a lie in on a Wednesday morning 😉