What a waste!

I was out jogging just now and picked up this from the verge!

I couldn't believe that someone is not willing to share their teabags, yet they are prepared to let them rot on the roadside. A sad waste.

There seems to be more and more rubbish on our roadsides these days and the problem is getting worse not better, I feel.  It is not just packaging that has gone crazy, but our whole attitude that we can just throw something away and not worry about it any more. More than ever this year, I want to do my bit to minimise waste, encourage others to do the same and to be really strict with supporting companies who are making the change to a circular economy.

That's my wish for 2019.

To help me maximise this target I've signed up to Rachelle Strauss' Waste Warriors course as although much of the content is what I cover in my books, I know there are steps further into the course that even I've not dabbled with yet.

Without wanting to give away too much of what's in the course the first two days are all about motivation and what makes you want to reduce your waste. What's your big why and what will keep you sticking to your new principles when you get short on time and tempted to waver.  I've been on a zero waste journey for such a long time now, I realised as I was listening to the course (it is a daily 5 minute audio accompanying a simple call to action), that I have forgotten my own 'big why'! What made me start to radically reduce my waste in the first place?

I really, honestly can't remember any single incident that made me decide to reduce my rubbish. For me it is just that I don't like waste! So I had a little look back at the pictures on my phone and found this one.

For now this is my big why! This really shouldn't be necessary these days. We have the technology and the understanding to be able to preserve resources. Manufacturers and suppliers just need that little push in the right direction, to use that technology and understanding. We, the consumers can give them that push.  Let's make 2019 the year we do things differently - the year we make that shift to valuing our resources rather than throwing rubbish away.

Time for a cup of tea?

The Best Food Waste Bin Ever

Yesterday I spent the day talking rubbish!  I do a lot of that.

I was at the RWM Exhibition - which is all about Resource Efficiency and Waste Management Solutions.  My Dustbin Diet mantra is 're-thinking rubbish as resources' and at RWM more than anywhere, that mantra is very apt.

I was researching a topic very important to me and that's recycling the stuff that many people think can't be recycled and in my explorations around the vast exhibition hall I was able to add to my list of things that get recycled or reused in and around the UK. Look out for the book next year!

One thing that caught my attention towards the end of the day was this fabulous food waste bin.

500L Food Waste Bin by Storm Environmental Ltd at RWM 2013

I'd love a mini one of these as my kitchen food waste caddy, wouldn't you?

Earlier in the day, I'd attended a session about behaviour and habit in relation to waste reduction, and we heard about a project looking into reasons why people still put their food waste into their landfill bin rather than using the food waste caddies their council provide.  One of the reasons given was that the food waste containers are ugly and spoilt the look of their lovely kitchen.

This brought to mind one of the outcomes of my first Dustbin Diet course at The Marlborough School in Woodstock.  The students suggested that instead of ugly recycling containers hidden away in dark corners of the room or school site, recycling collection points should be bright and colourful and a pleasure to use.

Wouldn't you agree?

Recycling your mascara

I don't do landfill.

But even in West Oxfordshire, where there is a fantastic kerbside collection for most packaging, there are still sometimes things that can't be collected by the local council for recycling.

So, what to do with them?

I have a policy that, unless I really feel I need something, I will avoid it if I don't know how I can recycle or reuse it at the end of its life.

But, I have a family and I have friends, and thats' not a rule that is always at the forefront of the mind of everybody who has cause to dispose of something while in my house.

So, I have a little collection in my 'recycling cupboard' of things I don't know what to do with.

One of those things, until recently was cosmetics packaging.  The problem with cosmetics packaging is that it is often made of mixed materials, and often made in part of hard plastic, two things that make it hard to recycle.


So I was excited to find out that the cosmetics company Origins have set up a recycling scheme at their cosmetics counters.  The great thing about their scheme is that you can recycle any cosmetics packaging through them, not just their own packaging.

So, I used the locator on their website to find out where their nearest collection point was and then planned to go there yesterday after a meeting I had nearby.  I had a fairly large bag of various packages - my own, Senior Daughter's, Junior Daughter's and JD's best friend.  So I felt the extra mile to pop in to the town centre was well worth it, and I was rewarded with a free sample of Origins products, Recyclebank rewards (and a warm, smug feeling from doing my bit for the planet).  I'd recommend it!