The Green’s zero waste week pledges
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Little Miss Green announces her personal zero waste week pledge
The other night Little Miss Green asked me what my personal zero waste week pledge was.
I hadn’t really given it that much thought if I’m honest.
I’ve been so busy organising the week and liaising with fantastic people who want to join in and spread the word that I hadn’t given time to my own.
LMG knew hers straight away. She’s pledged not to buy anything that comes in non-recyclable packaging.
When we discussed the implications of this further we deduced it’s going to be pretty much a no-spend week for her! Her pocket money is generally spent on make up (plastic packaging), magazines (usually has some hideous piece of plastic tat on the front), stationery (I guess she might find the odd ‘loose’ pen or pencil somewhere, but she likes fancy erasers that come in just as fancy packaging) and confectionery…
Despite knowing this, she’s up for a challenge and is taking this one on the chin… (although she has inherited the Green Mama gene for spotting a bargain in a charity shop and of course, most of their products are packaging free!)
I do have a bad habit that’s slipped back into place. For the past few months my kitchen habits have changed and it’s not for the better. I’m ending up with food waste and feel terribly bad about it, not to mention the amount of money it wastes when food has to be thrown away. This week I’ve tossed some mouldy blackcurrants, some ham that got pushed to the back of the ‘fridge and some pizza that got left in the oven rather than refrigerated overnight…
So my zero waste week pledge is to say no to food waste. It will entail a good fridge inventory, getting my whiteboard back in operation, military style meal planning and some serious “Use it up!” meals!
Mr Green has been unsure about zero waste week as his focus is elsewhere… We owe our electricity company £153. We pay a monthly amount which we agreed on a year ago, but we’ve obviously used more. Something happened to our immersion tank thermostat and water was coming out of the tap virtually boiling. When I mentioned this to Mr G he put it onto his ‘one day’ list, but you know how it is; best laid plans and all that… A couple of months of boiling water later I run myself a bath only to discover the water is cold. Yep, you’ve guessed it, the heating element finally gave up for good.
We’ve replaced it now and I’ve even taken to giving up my baths for showers in order to reduce electricity usage further.
But Mr Green would not be pulled into the zero waste week idea any further, claiming he felt there was nothing for him to do in terms of landfill waste. (He’s having a bit of a grump about the whole thing at the moment).
Instead he’s on mission electricity consumption, and has vowed to remember to turn the kitchen lights off, turn his computer off instead of putting it on standby and this Sunday he stopped me putting a saucepan on the hob and insisted the vegetables should go in a dish at the bottom of the oven instead. I have to admit this worked a treat – the oven was on anyway for roast potatoes and he ended up with perfectly cooked carrots and peas – the guy’s a genius I’m telling you! So he’s joining in with zero waste electricity instead of zero waste landfill.
It’s going to be an interesting week, I’m looking forward to our respective challenges and it will be nice to save some money AND salvage my conscience a little!
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