Do you want to be a Waste Warrior?

I was at the opening of an exhibition in our local village history archive, and someone said to me:

"How does it feel now that the rest of the world is catching up with you?"

He had interviewed me for a Food and Drink programme on local television. That's how he knew about my "one bin a year" waste habit and like many people, he always takes the opportunity to tell me what he's managed to change to reduce his waste.

It does really feel like we are nearing the tipping point, thanks probably to the brilliant effect of the BBC's Blue Planet 2, but perhaps also the growing number of Waste Warriors like me who are talking, blogging and chatting to people about how they've reduced their waste. I really do feel that soon my one bin a year lifestyle could become  the "new Normal"!

While I was busy making some films about how to reduce food waste over Christmas, and writing a new Zero Waste campaign guide for schools, my partner in grime Rachelle Strauss was downloading her own zero waste expertise into a fantastic new Waste Warriors course - a series of podcasts that help you take action to gradually get from where you are to where we are in a month (well, that's if you do the 5 minutes a day, every day). Of course, the FOMO kicked in and I had to do the course myself to experience it and to check that I was doing everything I could to be the best waste warrior I can be.

Did I learn anything? Have I made any changes as a result? Given that the course is based on the many discussions that Rachelle and I have had over the 5 years we've worked together, I knew that I'd be doing most of the things she would be suggesting. And of course I was. You can't live on one bin a year without doing most of them.

But yes, I did make some changes.

Firstly, the course raised the issue of plastic in tea bags.  In 2015, when my family did our year without single use plastic packaging, we swapped the tea bags for loose leaf tea that we bought straight into our own containers. The shop I bought from at the time has sadly closed down, but I can now buy loose-leaf tea in Whittards. Back then my reason for changing to loose-leaf tea was because so many tea brands wrapped their cardboard boxes in film plastic - or even more annoying to me, put their tea bags inside a non recyclable silver bag (made of mixed materials - hence too hard to recycle). But I had no idea back then that tea bags themselves were sealed using plastic.  In fact it was only last year that Garden Organics changed their advice from saying that you can compost tea bags, to suggesting that you don't compost them at home, because of this plastic content.

Anyway, thanks to the waste warriors course I've gone back to drinking loose leaf tea - and, do you know what? It is soooo much nicer!

Another thing that the course pushed me to do is to tackle my growing mountain of things that could be given away and therefore put back into use instead of lurking in "Harry Potter's Bedroom" (everyone has one of those, right?).  My Dad had two discarded fleeces that he gave me to dispose of as I saw fit. I washed them, but they still came out covered in those sticky things from the garden and the silky strands that cobwebs turn into when you wash them.

I got out the ironing board and clothes brush and while I was listening to an audio book, I painstakingly went over every inch of the fleece to remove these sticky bits and now it is ready for the charity shop. I still have the other one to do, but I'm starting tonight.

Change number 3, is the decision to pick up more litter. I go running. Never as often I would like, but I do manage to get out there occasionally. My new habit is to run past my house for a certain distance and then walk back picking up the litter I see on the way.

This is today's haul. I'll wash and recycle all of this in the various schemes I use. Better than it staying in the hedge and finding its way to the ocean one day.


So, if you feel like you're ready to be a waste warrior, or you're already one like me but just want to take it to the next level, I do recommend the course. Here's the link.

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 7

Well, with a week of sorting out and de-cluttering my house should be looking lean and green, but that's not really the case!  This has served to highlight that we have way too much stuff in our house, because just like last year, you would barely notice that anything has gone.

Of course, my de-clutter was on nothing like the scale of last year's exercise, but I have still managed to re-home a fair amount.  This year was much easier than my last year's attempt - and that was largely a psychological thing as I felt there were lots of people doing it with me, throughout the Zero Waste Week community and the helpful ideas and the encouragement were a great inspiration.

The most noticeable improvement in the Pitt household is without a doubt the tool shed.  Take a look!

In the sort out we managed to Freegle a few things we no longer need and best of all I found the paint I needed to repaint the wooden supports of the barn, which took up most of yesterday but what a pleasure that was in the sunshine!

I still have a few items from the tool shed awaiting re-homing via Freegle, but I think these will be collected later today and I have a few bags in my hallway awaiting a trip to the charity shop and to various specialist bring banks, such as the one for CDs and video tapes.  These will go over the next few days.

But the crux of my Zero Waste Week pledge was to GET MENDING!

What have I actually repaired? Feeling my report card might say 'must try harder' I thought I'd do a quick check.

I repaired the boxes of a few games and puzzles so they could go to the charity shop. I patched a pair of jeans, which I'm really pleased with so I'll definitely patch my other pair one evening this week.I washed the clothes of some porcelain dolls, so they were smart enough to give to the charity shop, but one lovely lady remained behind with a broken foot.

Just a couple of stitches needed now

I've glued her foot, but while I was doing that the ribbon detached from the shoe, so when it is good and fast I'll have to try to put a couple of stitches in to attach the ribbon again and then I'm going to pop her on Freegle to see if I can find her a new home.

So actually, I'm thinking all in all not too bad.  I said I would mend and mend I did.

I've also found myself inspired to try to go for a few more reusables rather than recyclables or things that would end up in my wood burner.  I found these lovely refillable Christmas crackers which I'll be buying this year and refilling with lovely reusable things such as makeup wipes from Made by Gituce.

Re-fillable Christmas Crackers from Keep This

Another highlight of the week was the various attempts at crisp making.  Yesterday, inspired by this tweet from the Rubbish Diet I made the potato peelings from the Sunday roast into delicious crisps, using up a bit of sunflower oil left in a pan along with some fresh rosemary from the garden.  Yummy. Whilst sharing the crisps with family, it was nice to hear Junior Daughter reporting the crisp making attempts from earlier in the week.  She loved the butternut squash crisps and they have the added advantage of being made with no oil, so a totally fat-free and highly nutritious snack with ZERO packaging.

Butternut squash crisps ready to go in the oven

We managed to save a few for another day!

One green habit that I'll be resurrecting is to use Freegle more.  I hadn't used it for a while and it has become a lot easier recently, so now I know how easy it is to use, I'm going to make sure I use it more often and make sure I don't keep things I don't need.

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 6

Looks like today's Zero Waste Week email was written specifically for me! (Or are you thinking that too?)

I was feeling very pleased with myself yesterday after cleaning out my fridge and de-cluttering my kitchen.  But that was before I looked behind the curtain. (What else are curtains for but to hide the clutter behind them?)  This is what awaited me this morning on my kitchen table.

I will have to find a home for this lot today but last last night I couldn't be …

Yep… procrastination!!

So, where's it all going to go?

Well, the stamps, foreign coins and beads will go to Against Breast Cancer, so that's easy as I have a permanent box on the go for them.  If you don't know anyone who collects this sort of thing and several charities do, then maybe you could set up a collection point at a local school, playgroup, library or café?

There are some safety pins, which have a place in my sewing box, but this makes me think that I actually have so many safety pins I really could part with a few, so I'm going to put a packet of them together for Junior Daughter's ballet school - where they often need them for emergency costume alterations, repairs and keeping the halter-neck catsuits in place when the velcro fails!

There are some odd bits from games, which I will re-house, for now in my box for lost games and puzzle pieces (yes…more procrastination but..).  It might just mean that another game gets completed and so can then find a new home.  There are several metal screws, washers and nails and a picture hook, which will be put in their proper place with the tools in the utility room and a couple more bits of metal and hard plastic to be housed in the appropriate containers in the garage.

I need to do a bit of research on the contents of the hand-warmer as, if I don't know what's in it, I don't know how to dispose of it safely.  TAKE NOTE MANUFACTURERS OF SUCH STUFF!!! IT MAKES ME MAD, MAD, MAD.  I try not to buy anything that I don't know how to dispose of at end of life these days, but I haven't always had that at the forefront of my mind and I also have to deal with things other people bring into the home.  It really should be made illegal not have accurate information about what something is made of, or if it needs to be a closely guarded secret for commercial reasons then it should be the law to provide an address to send it back to for whatever form of reuse or recycling is possible.  Don't you think?

Anyway, I'm procrastinating again!  What I was really going to say was… Wish me luck… I'm going in..and Dad's coming too! 

We may be some time ;)

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 5

With today's Zero Waste Week email being all about food waste I just had to zone in on the kitchen today.

A topic that could fill a book - it sure can.  After writing a section on food waste in my book 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free, I felt I wanted to concentrate  my next book on just the subject of food waste as there are so many things we can do to make more of our food.  I'm hard at work on it and I hope it will be finished before the end of the year.   If you have a top tip for reducing food waste that you'd like to share in my book, please do message me in the comments and I'll be in touch.

Needless to say, with researching and writing about reducing food waste I've become pretty nifty at using up every scrap.  I started my book, coincidentally, on the first day of Zero Waste Week 2013 which, as you may know was all about how to reduce our food waste.  I learnt lots from the tips that the Zero Wasters shared that week and I've been gathering tips and trying out recipes ever since.

So, today I had a CORN lunch, having first picked out what is going to go into tonight's bean casserole dinner. There was some tomato and onion pasta sauce and I picked out the cucumber and apple pieces from a bit of last night's salad - the rest is peppers, spring onion, carrot and celery all of which can go into the casserole.  What was left looked like the makings of a couscous lunch - it had been pork filet in a tomato sauce, and it turned into a tasty couscous sauce.

After lunch, before returning to the delights of explaining anaerobic digestion in a fun and exciting way for teenagers, I decided to blitz the kitchen clear out. One thing that has been driving me mad lately is that my collection of plastic pots (two drawers full when none are in use) was a mess of pots and lids but never the right pot with the right lid.  So I emptied out both drawers and sorted the pots and lids putting together the ones that matched.  I put a few margarine and ice cream tubs into the recycling as they didn't have the right lids and a few pot-less lids went in too.  The rest are now neatly stacked in their wicker drawers and harmony is restored at least to that quarter the Pitt kitchen.

The other area of the kitchen that bothered me was the kitchen dumping ground - a wooden trolley.  I had no idea what was there, but the general rule was that if it didn't have a place, that's where it ended up.  But my kitchen, in theory, has a place for everything.  Which could only mean one thing, if it was on the bottom of the trolley, it wasn't needed.

Before :(

Most of what was on the trolley went into either the recycling boxes, or one of two pots in the garage for odd bits of scrap metal and odd bits of hard plastic, neither of which we can put in our recycling boxes.  The scrap metal pot gets emptied occasionally at the local recycling and reuse centre when we are passing or have something else to take there.  The bits of hard plastic just accumulate as nowhere takes hard plastic in this area.  But the pot is an ice cream tub and it isn't yet full, so I'm happy for it to sit there in the garage for now.  I will say though, there has been more than one occasion that the 'hard plastics pot' has been raided for a gizmo - or at least a piece of plastic that can be used to make or fix a gizmo.

A couple of glass jars went into the dish washer and will be added to the slowly building jar collection which we'll use for making jam and chutney in the coming months.

Sadly, my lovely cast iron cook pan that has been broken for many years is awaiting a trip to the WEEE recycling so it can be taken apart to begin a new life.

And here's the result of my whirl wind sort out session…

After :)

How long will it last?  I estimate somewhere between 10 minutes and 10 days, but for now, I'm feeling good about myself and a few resources are on their way to find a new purpose.

There was nothing added to the charity shop bag, so I picked out these from various shelves and cupboards… I've never used them, but maybe someone else will?

Off to the charity shop

Oh yes, here's my attempt at mending my jeans - I'm not quite sure why I decide on pink embroidery thread, but oh well, the main objective of no more bum on show is achieved!

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 3

Day Three of the big clear out…

So far, so good. It's onto the landing - another dumping ground.  First stop is an old games chest.  Well, to be honest, until this morning when I lifted the lid for the first time in ages, I'd forgotten it was an old games chest.

I'm not sure how or why we missed this out last year, but it is not going to escape this time!  All the games were complete, but some required a little taping of the box corners.  Then it was swiftly into the charity shop bag.

Next, this lovely puzzle.  It was sitting on top of the toy chest, and has been there for more than a year! The annoying thing was, I didn't know if it was complete or not, and the outside of the box didn't say how many pieces should be there.  The really annoying thing was… I remember 'doing' the puzzle last year to find out if it was complete, but I have no recollection of whether it was all there or not - I'm not making that mistake again!  I've done the puzzle - isn't it lovely :) and I've mended the box and now it is in the charity shop bag, ready to go.  Someone will love it, I'm sure!

Next is this little corner of shame.  Everything from old light bulb to broken (I presume) smoke alarm is hidden behind this curtain.  This might be a challenge.  I don't know of anywhere that recycles old light bulbs, for instance.  The local collection point clearly says 'low energy bulbs only'.  I'll need to do a little research.

I've had a few suggestions for my saddle and bridle…including The Blue Cross, Riding for the Disabled, local riding schools and even up-cycling the saddle into a stool!  I'll need to make a few phone calls at some point today.  I've also listed it on reyooz.com and on freegle, so maybe it will find a new home.

The makings of a cool stool?

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 2

Day Two of my big clear out….

Today it is time to tackle the utility room… ahh! I knew this would be a tough one, so I had a little look before breakfast to get an idea of what I'd be up against.

This room gets treated as a bit of a dumping ground.  Does anyone else have that problem?

We went to a lot of effort last year to tidy it up and sort everything out and we tried to get rid of the stuff we never used. We came to the realisation that Mr Pitt is a bit of an Imelda Marcos, but we persuaded him to part with three bags of shoes and as a result the shelves are are lot more organised.

However, I still found a nice stash of textiles of various sorts, particularly odd socks awaiting attention on top of the washing machine.

 I managed to rescue a few pairs of socks and I've added the rest of the odd socks to the rag bag.

This pile of jackets needed attention too.  How many sets of gardening clothes does one need, after all? I washed the jackets and decided three of them were only fit for the rag bag, but the others are now dried and hung back up ready for chilly days in the garden.  Among these, I found my favourite fleece jacket, which had been abandoned  after getting covered in burdock.  As this week is all about giving things attention, I decided to invest the time picking out the burs from the fabric.  The only solution!

It took me about about 15 minutes, but the jacket is now good as new and back in my wardrobe.

The one thing I'm left with now is this saddle.  It needs a clean (and I'm going to try to bring myself to do that this evening), but once it is cleaned, what can I do with it?  Does anyone have any ideas how to part with an old saddle?  Could be a tall order!

Onto the the daily email all about swapping disposables for reusables.  I have to say, I'm not one who is going to be swapping to reusable toilet roll, lovely as it looks.  I have a septic tank, and just like a compost heap it needs 'brown' and 'green' contributions to keep it healthy.  The 'brown' contribution is, in fact, the toilet roll,  and the 'green' contributions,well that's the … you know!

However, I am going to play swapsies!  Firstly, I'm going for reusable sanitary pads.  I've already given them a try, so today I've ordered everything I need from Made by Gituce.  Previously I burnt our sanitary pads in the wood-burner, so it is not going to reduce my landfill.  But it is far better to reuse than to burn resources and for a little outlay today, I reckon I'll be making savings within a year.

The next thing I'm going to work on is razors, as that's something that does end up in our landfill bin at the end of the year.  I'm still undecided as to what exactly to get. Can anyone suggest an alternative to disposable razors that work well for teenage girls?

Oh yes!  The crisps didn't happen last night after all, but they did happen today, and they are going down very nicely right now!

Junior Daughter was first taster and the conversation went like this:

Me: "So, are they alright?"
JD: "They're lush!"
Me:"Really?"
JD:"Anything home made always tastes better."
Me:"Why is that?"
JD: "I don't know, but I think it must be the little spoonful of love that you added."

Homemade crisps

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 1

I've been looking forward to Zero Waste Week and seeing through my pledge.  I found that I've been thinking about it on and off for the last few weeks, making mental notes about what I'll need to tackle and wondering what I'm going to part with.

As you've probably guessed, I love this year's Zero Waste Week theme of 'One More Thing'.  I wrote a whole book of things we can all do to reduce waste, but there's always one more thing.  There's always room for improvement  and this week, I'm going to try to do just that.

My Zero Waste Week pledge - my 'One More Thing' to reduce waste -

…is to go through each room and pick out at least three things that we no longer use, but can't give away as they are because they need some kind of attention.  I'm pretty rubbish at mending stuff.  I have good intentions, and I never just throw something away.  But I do find that I procrastinate instead of just dealing with broken things straight away.  So, I'm going to use this week, to try to develop my mending skills and try to kick the habit of letting things build up in the hope that I'll sort them out one day!

In addition to that I'm going to join in with the Zero Waste Week daily emails and find something more each day that I can be doing to reduce my use of resources.

So, what am I mending today?

I decided that I'd start in the spare bedroom as I know that there's lots of stuff in there, hidden in drawers and under the bed and there's at least one box that is full of stuff with bits missing, so I thought it would be easy to pick out three things we could part with and get off to a flying start.

First up, I decided to take the plunge and address these lovely ladies…

They have been long neglected atop the spare room wardrobe.  They get a very occasional dust, but they are really a bit sad and unloved.  I brought them down from their perch to investigate whether they could be cleaned up to be given away, and found that the clothes were removable and washable.   They've been through the wash, and are now out on the line and hopefully they haven't shrunk.  If I can dress them up again, then they will go to the charity shop, to see if they can find a new home.

Next up, hanging on some wall hooks I found a stash of unwanted jewellery, which I've add to my collection of broken beads, ribbons, single earrings and cufflinks, buttons, jewellery boxes and old watches, which I collect up for the charity, Against Breast Cancer.  A lovely lady, Laura Hounam, who I've blogged about before, takes these bits and pieces and turns them into wonderfully desirable and modern jewellery that she sells at craft fairs and exhibitions to raise money for the charity.

Third up is a dressing gown, that has somehow escaped the charity bag for all these years.  That's gone into the washing and will be added to the charity shop clothes bag that I've started up.

That wasn't so hard!  But I'm still left with the box of toys and games from last year's clear out.  I've decided to keep this, in the hope that as I go through each room, I might find the missing pieces.  If not, then I'll have to have a re-think at the end of the week!

Onto my Zero waste week daily email that awaited me this morning!  It's all about plastic, with lots of suggestions for how to reduce the amount of single use plastic we all use.  Plastic is one of those things that because there are so many different types, some local councils choose not to offer a collection service.  Pretty much all plastic can be recycled and the myth that it all gets shipped to China and landfilled is very far from the truth.  There are many companies who recycle plastic here in the UK.  I know that, because I've visited several of them!

But despite the fact that most plastics can be recycled and I live in area that does take almost all of it in the kerbside collection boxes, it is still something that I try to cut down on.

I always keep a few plastic bags in my various handbags and rucksacks.  We keep plastic bags in the boot of each car, so that we are not caught out shopping without a bag.  We buy most fruit and veg loose, and if not, then again we reuse the bags and put them back in with our shopping bags when we unpack the shopping.  We take our egg boxes to the butchers to refill with local eggs and we also take our own plastic containers for our meat purchases.  We use various tupperware pots for packed lunches.

So, I've I hopped over onto the blog post to see what 'One More Thing' we could do to reduce the amount of plastic recycling we end up with and here's the plan…

The plastic packaged thing we don't seem to be able to do without in our family is crisps.  The problem with crisp packets is that they are made from mixed materials which apparently makes them too difficult or costly to recycle.  So the only way to avoid this waste is to do without them or make our own.  I have a gadget that will cut slices of root vegetables very finely, so this evening I'm going to give it a whirl.  Anyone got any tips for DIY crisp making?

New Year, new you?

Do you do that thing of making New Year's Resolutions?  If so, what is your resolution for 2014?

Last year, I embarked on a year of "Swishing".  My new year's resolution was this:

• to give away 2 items of clothing to charity each month, and
• to not buy any new clothes, but instead buy from charity shops or reuse/recycling shops or websites

Like many people, I often find that within a few weeks I've forgotten all about my new plans and resolution, but not last year.  I cleared out my wardrobe, sorted out plenty to give to charity and not only that, my daughters both cleared out their wardrobes too.   So as far as the first resolution is concerned I smashed that target.

As for the second, not only did I manage to keep to the resolution, I loved doing it too.  I bought quite a few new clothes, but spent less than £100 in the whole year.

I found that both the giving aspect and the buying aspect, spread too.  During the summer holidays, with the assistance of my two daughters, we decided to embark on a big sort out.  We set ourselves the target of reducing the amount of stuff we have around the house.  We have lots of storage space, so it is easy to think that we can just keep everything - just in case it might be useful.  But we were getting to the stage where every bit of storage was full up - every shelf, every cupboard crammed full of stuff, that might be useful to someone, someday.  Time for a clear out!

We decided to go for the 'One Room at a Time' approach, giving everything a good clean as we went and mending anything that needed mending as we came across it.  But it was slow going and frustrating because we still seemed to have packed shelves at the end of the process.  I just wasn't being ruthless enough!

My perusal of charity shops on various occasions throughout the year, though, had definitely sparked a shift in thinking.  I started to tell myself that if ever I needed something again I could just borrow it, or buy it second hand.  And that got me thinking...I needed a target!

So, that's when we set ourselves the aim of parting with 80 bags of stuff to take to the charity shop.

It took me two months to go through each room, fishing out toys, games, books, clothes, bags, rags, buttons, jewellery, shoes, belts, boots, hats, art and craft stuff, CDs and DVDs.  I managed to fill 80 carrier bags to give away.

Here are 3 principles that helped us fill our 80 bags:

• We didn't want to part with all our games, as we do use some of them when we have younger visitors.  How to decide which to keep?  We decided that if all the parts were there and the box was perfect, then it went to the charity shop.  But, if there were bits missing, or it was a bit tatty, we kept it.  Why?  It was fairly easy to see that the games in perfect condition were the ones that had been played less.  The ones that we'd used over and over again, seemed to be the sensible ones to keep.  The better the condition of a game, I thought, would mean it more likely to bring in revenue for charity.  We often found that the tattier games had makeshift pieces, so we'd clearly played them despite their condition, so we'd be more likely to play them again.
• We set up boxes for each person, so that I wasn't making a decision to give away something that wasn't mine, but could still feel like an area had been cleared and finished with. Each person was then able to go through their box as and when they had time.  I'm sure much of what was given away, would have been kept if it had just been left where it was out of sight out of mind!
• If it didn't fit, it had to go.  This helped, for instance, with DVDs and books, where we had stuff double stacked.  It made us go through them and part with a few that we thought we wouldn't watch/read again.

If it didn't fit, it had to go!

So, is my house minimalist and organised now?  Far from it!  Despite our clear-out we still have a lot of stuff.  It did fire a desire to free up more space, to acquire less and to clear out more.  I had a big clear out in my office, when I decided to minimise the paperwork I had stored over the years.  I recycled more than my body weight of paper by setting myself a twelve week clear out programme.  But there's lots more that could go, so the summer sort out might be repeated in 2014.

And New Year's Resolution for this year?

I plan to continue my efforts at reducing food waste, reducing packaging, buying from charity shops or choosing considerately up-cycled goodies.   But my big giveaway this year will be…

BOOKS!

Here's the rules if you want to play the game too!

• 10 books per month to be given away
• No new purchases of print books unless for work
• Borrow from the library whenever possible.   

Paperless Office - Week 11

Today I've collected up all the envelopes that have been hidden away in drawers into one basket.  I've got sticky labels  at the ready and I'm going to go through and make them ready for use.  All the tatty ones will make their way to the recycling.

The last time I bought envelopes was about four years ago.  I think this lot is ample supply for the next four years!

The Paperless Office - Week 10

After nine weeks of slimming down the paperwork in my office, I've got to the really hard part now, where I have to tackle the things I actually have a reluctance to part with.

I've decided next on my 'hit-list' has to be the books!

I have to admit that I'm one of those books as wallpaper people.  There are books in every room of my house.  I have so many books that every time we've found a new space for a bookshelf it has been full in no time.

I can't bring myself to part with all of these books, of course, but I have come up with a reasonable compromise.  I'm going to select 50 books to go to my local 'community shop' which does a fantastic job raising funds for local charities and organisations within my village - every village should have one.  It really is a great example of how one person's trash is another person's treasure.

Now I know I'm going to find it hard to select 50 books to give away en masse, so I have set a rule.  As soon as I have posted this, I'm going to grab a couple of hefty carrier bags and I've given myself a target  of twenty minutes to grab and bag.  Otherwise I could be there for ever staring at my bookshelves in contemplation instead of sitting at my computer getting on with writing my own book!

Here goes...

The Paperless Office - Week 9

Well, three quarters of the way through and I've smashed my target.  I've recycled the equivalent of a whole tree's worth of paper.

Last week out went 2kg of appliance manuals for all those gadgets I no longer have.  This week I'm going to tackle the sprawling pile of business cards.  The pile is supposed to look like this...

... which is pretty harmless in terms of an amount of paper and the space it takes up.  But then every time I try to find a particular card for contact details, it more more often than not ends up looking like this...

So, from now on I have decided to stop collecting business cards where possible and to use social media as the point of contact instead.

As a precursor to that I will be going through the stack of business cards and adding the relevant ones to my email contacts list, and as I do so, sending an email, Twitter or LinkedIn message to each one.

The Paperless Office - Week 8

The files are sorted out and slimmed down and I've added another 5994 grammes of paper to my recycling, giving me a total so far of 58,575 grammes.   I got a bit fed up with looking through each file, picking out what needed to be kept and then tearing off the bits giving personal details, to minimise the need for shredding, so I kept putting off the task, and thinking that as it was out of sight, it would remain out of mind.  But it was bothering me, so I scooped up the pile of files on Saturday evening, headed for the comfort of sofa and log fire and watched Strictly while I tore away at all the old insurance policies, more old bank statements, contracts of employment for past jobs and more. Now they are all gone, to be turned back into something useful.  And I feel cleansed!

My target was 58,823.5 grammes, so I have less than 250 grammes to go.  That should be no problem, as next week I plan to tackle these...

I have a drawer full of instructions for electrical appliances and their guarantees. The clue's in the photo! I'm not exactly gadget girl, I don't own an iPad or even an iPod and I confess to still owning a handful of video tapes and a whole box full of audio cassettes!  I've owned the same phone for nearly three years.  I've had only three others in my nineteen years of owning mobile phones, one of which I lost, one was stolen and the third broke after about 5 years. But with twenty years of living in the same house, even though I'm not one to rush out and swap my stuff for the latest model, I'm pretty sure there are a fair number of these manuals belonging to appliances that have long ago gone to the white goods graveyard at the local recycling centre or to the little pink box in Sainsbury's car park.

Next week's task should be a doodle then. Out will go the manuals for the appliances I no longer have! Anyone joining me?

The Paperless Office - Week 7

The last couple of weeks have been great for tidying and making space and my office is a happier healthier place now with room for future development and inspiration.  But I've not been making much paper recycling to add to the grand total.

Last week I was typing up notes into a private blog and when I wrote the blog post about this I'd managed an overall total of 49.759kg.  By continuing to add notes to my blog to clear out my old notebooks, I managed another 288g of recycling to get me over the 50kg mark!

I haven't by any means finished going through all my old notebooks and handouts from the various meetings, events and training courses I've been on, but this will take time.  The rule from now on though, is to write them up into the blog as soon as I can.  Tagging each note with appropriate key words, means that it will be much easier to find the information as and when I need it.

This will most certainly be a huge saver of both paper and time.  My blog is already developing into a useful resource.

But onto this week's task.  And it's a big one...

This week I am going to go through my file of bills for house running costs.  I keep these bills so that I can look back through what electricity / oil / water etc that I'm consuming.  We have regular attempts at making reductions in what we use.  But like using a blog for my notes, this information can be kept in a spreadsheet rather than having to keep all the paper work.

I have set up my spreadsheet with a worksheet for each service: water / oil / electricity / council tax etc.

I record units used, unit price and total amount paid and any other information I feel is useful.  Then the piece of paper can go to the recycling.  I tear off the part with address and account number for shredding, which is much quicker than shredding the whole document.

Having dealt with the house running costs, I had a quick look through some of the other files and found plenty of paperwork that I just don't need to keep any more.  Once you start to really think about what you do and don't need, it is fairly easy to kick the hoarding habit.  I think it helps that I've started to see all this paper as a valuable resource as it can be turned back into paper.

I've added a further 2534 grammes bringing the total to 52.581kg and have freed up more space in the crammed full drawers of my filing cabinet.  But I can now see the bulging files in between the down-sized ones so...

...next week's task is to go through these!

The Paperless Office - Week 6

Half way through my challenge, but already nearly there in terms of recycling my tree's worth of paper and card.

My filing cabinet has plenty of space, my desk is looking a whole lot better.

From the rest of the paperwork on my desk I recycled another 180 grammes.  But I'm still left with a pile of notes about either the process of writing or the research I'm working on that I want to keep for the future.

The problem with filing things away is that you need some kind of retrieval system.  So, I decided the best way to keep them was to resurrect an old blog I used to use when I did my Masters Degree.

A blog is a good way to keep notes, because you can tag each note with multiple key words so that you will be able to quickly find the relevant information in the future. Blogs don't have to be public.  My notes blog is private.  No-one but me can see it.  So the notes can be as messy as they are on the pieces of paper on my desk.  As I type them up I might be tempted to tidy them up or add to them, but I can do that any time.

So far I've typed up several notes out of notebooks and from scraps of paper and added another 400g grammes of paper to my recycling, bringing my total to 49.759kg so far.  I think by the time I've typed up a few more notes and extracted anything out of date or no longer relevant from my note books, I'll have crossed the 50kg line!

The Paperless Office - Week 5

So far I've recycled or found new homes for:

1. Magazines
2. Old paperwork from the bookshelves and filing cabinet
3. Cardboard boxes
4. Lever arch files & ringbinders

That has resulted in 48.661kg of recycled paper and card.  My target is 58,823.5 and I have 8 weeks to go.  It feels like going on a diet. A slow but encouraging start, (that was 8 kilos).  Then came break through on week two and three with all that old paperwork and cardboard.

Week four was more about tidying up, but over the next 8 weeks I hope to make my way towards the last 10 and a bit kilos.

Today, I'm going to tackle my desk and notice board, and I hope that will take care of the 'and a bit'.

My desk is sadly often a bit of a dumping ground.  But here goes...

Do I go for the easy bits first or the hard bits? Easy bits, I think!

1. Stuff to put away or give away...

2 new copies of my book, wrapped in reused magazine wrappers and ready to give to eager purchasers, need to go back in to the box of books in my cupboard.
1 tatty copy of my book, which I'm forever referring to for various reasons, goes on the bookshelf.
2 copies of Clean Slate Magazine, which I want to keep, on the bookshelf.
2 articles on food waste from the local council magazines torn out and put into the ring-binder for my next book.
2 printer cartridges into the recycling envelope.

2. Deal with post

3. Amalgamate the outstanding items from the various to-do lists!

Into recycling goes:
The rest of the magazines, some post that I've now dealt with, 5 to-do lists (now down to one!) and a 2012 calendar from the notice board.

It's looking better but I'm left with a pile of papers and notes which I will work on later and now the paper's gone I can see all the odds and ends like paper clips, pens, cds and flash drives, so they are going to be sorted out too.

This week I've recycled another 518g of paper and card.  I'm getting nearer that target!

The Paperless Office - Week 4

This week is all about creating space.  Now I've recycled all that paper, various files from my book shelves are now stored in the filing cabinet where they should be and I still have an entire shelf of my filing cabinet empty.  But I have a sofa in my office and that's now piled high with empty lever arch files and ring binders.

So these need to find new homes. There were a few that were old and tatty, so these would be no use for giving away.  But they were perfectly serviceable for holding my company accounts documents, which no-one looks at except me and my accountant.  So I swapped the tatty files with some better ones that were storing past years' accounts.  The better files will be easier to re-home.

Senior Daughter is re-homing 5 of them. Junior Daughter has asked to have some too. I've put a big pile aside to take to a charity shop tomorrow, and the rest are in a bag to be offered to JDs friends at sixth form.  I'm sure they will have no problem finding a new home there.

Total paper recycling contribution - a mere 66g of paper inserts from the files.  But space gained - priceless!

The Paperless Office - Week 3

Another 15,523g of old bills, questionnaires from data surveys and some old notebooks gets added to last week's total.

Already well over half way there, we are on to step three.  After all that paper last week, I thought I'd go for something quick and easy this week.

Boxes

How many boxes is your office home to right now?  When you buy computer equipment, it comes with a guarantee.  That guarantee often specifies that you have to keep the box, because you need to return the product in its original packaging if anything goes wrong.

Those guarantees are often only for a year, yet I find the boxes hang around long after that.  Besides, I can't remember ever actually having to use any of these boxes as 'original packaging'.  So, I've decided it is time they went.

My local council collect cardboard in the kerbside collections.  You do need to flatten the cardboard, and sometimes they need to be broken up to fit into the recycling boxes. If the boxes are very large, then it is sometimes easier to take it to a recycling centre, if you are passing.

I've recycled the cardboard box from a laptop which had an inner cardboard box too.  Out went the warranty booklet and various other leaflets, and now the recovery disks and the user manual (kept even though it is unopened!) are now taking up much less space on my bookshelf.  A large box from a printer, plus the box from my Kindle have gone to a recycling bank I was passing and that has freed up a good bit of space!

Then I went through the boxes of software which were taking up half a shelf.  First, I recycled two cardboard boxes from some software I no longer use along with the user guides.  I've sent the CDs for recycling too.  There's a collection bank for media in a car park in my nearest town.

Then I looked at the boxes for the software I do use.  A lot of software comes in a large box with an inner that houses a small plastic case or even just a CD.  I checked to make sure the product keys were on this inner packaging or on the discs themselves.  And that means I can recycle the large cardboard outers.  The software now takes up a lot less room.

The over packaging typical of software products.

Add to that, the cardboard document wallet beyond repair and it all weighs in at 10,669g.

My total for three weeks is 48.001kg