ZWW 2017 Day 4 - Time Saving Tips for Thursday

Day four of Zero Waste Week was all about Time Saving Tips

I arranged to visit a wonderful "SuperHome" local to me prior to their open day. They have a display board featuring my book, so I nipped over with some signed copies for them to sell on the day and I was guinea pig for their guided tour around the house. Plenty of top tips there, particularly around energy saving.

SuperHomes Open Day

Sat 9th Sept, 11am-2pm
4 St Denys Close, Stanford, SN7 8NJ

"If you're interested in making your home more efficient and environmentally friendly, you might like to visit a SuperHome. Open days let you quiz the owners, so you can discover what worked and get frank feedback on what didn’t. There are open days across the country in September, including one in Stanford in the Vale. The Williams family’s 1950s bungalow is heated using wood pellets, and is free from fossil fuels from heating to transport. When it’s sunny they can cook with a sun oven, concentrating heat using reflection."

Some of the things I learnt:

• I had a vague idea that chest freezers were more energy efficient than upright freezers, but I didn't realise it was by as much as 50%. 
• I had never thought of the idea of a chest fridge - also 50% more efficient.  
• I loved their guilt-free fairy lights, using solar energy from a battery system. 
• I was interested to hear they had set up a local Facebook group for sharing stuff.  I think one of those would be great in my village so I'll be onto that later this month.
• I was so delighted to hear that their local "Sustainable Wantage" group was collecting crisp packets for a craft workshop - my last fail of Zero Waste Living.  I was brimming with enthusiasm when I said to Mr Pitt, that we needed to save up his crisp packets for them. "I already am," he said.

As for my own top tips, for making Zero Waste easy here are a few ideas.

My recycling centre

I love my little recycling centre for the few things that don't go into the kerbside collection. The biscuit wrappers I save for a friend who has a Teracycle collection point at work.  I'll need to add in crisp packets to my collection now.

I have a reuse centre with these lovely pull out boxes on a shelving unit, for things like envelopes, notebooks, and sewing accessories for mending.

One thing that is wasting time at the moment is my collection of tubs - none of which seem to have the right lids attached, so a sort out of these is needed to get back to an easy life.  I use these all the time for buying meat and cheese from my local butcher, buying dry goods in bulk, freezing extra portions of things like casseroles and curries so I have home-made ready meals in the freezer for days when I have to visit clients or schools. Just a quick sort out and I will no longer be wasting so much time finding a box and lid that go together.  If I end up with lid-less containers I'll relegate them to the tool shed.

That's my top tips for tidy zero waste life.  Onto #FoodWasteFriday.

The cupboard clean out

In the second week of the www.ecothriftyliving.com decluttering challenge, Zoe has tasked us with clearing out our store cupboard and trying to use up those items that are still ok to eat after the best before date.
Here is my cupboard this morning.

I know more or less what is on it, Including a couple of things that I know are way out of date. I have no idea why they are still unused.
One ageing item is a time of evaporated milk. I used to use this to make ice cream as I can't eat cream.  I haven't made ice cream for a couple of years now but I have certainly made it since the purchase of this tin so I can only assume poor stock control as the reason it is still lurking at the back of my cupboard.

I am going to do some research before deciding whether my tin can be turned into ice cream or whether it is better off in my wormery. One thing is for certain I will definitely not be 'binning' it. I will at least open the tin and if the contents aren't edible then I will get the remaining value I can from the milk and the tin.

As for the rest, I found a few items nearing their bb date so I packed them up to take them on holiday with me next week.

Then after cleaning the cupboard I put anything open or dated in 2017 on the bottom shelf, the 2018 on the next shelf up and 2019 and beyond at the top.  If I do this once a year all should be well.

Spot the difference?

Want to join in the declutter? There are plenty of ideas being shared on the facebook group. Here is the link.

Wonderful Wind Power

Yikes, it's been cold today.   But I still managed to get my laundry dry for free, thanks to the wonderful power of wind.

From 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free.  Check out the savings this can bring!

I couldn't resist making use of the bright sunshine beaming down on my solar panels and so I put on a load of washing at around 10.30 this morning.  I took a short break from work late morning to make a cup of tea and while the kettle was boiling I nipped outside to hang the washing on the line.  It was cold, but even so, I could feel a pleasant warming of the sun on my back as I pegged everything out to make use of this perfect wash day combination of wind and sunshine.

This was particularly appreciated, not only for the sheer pleasure of enjoying a few moments of autumn sunshine, but all the more so, to think that Junior Daughter might also be benefitting from its gentle caress as she treks in the Brecon Beacons for her Silver Duke of Edinburgh challenge. Each Duke of Edinburgh challenge she's done so far has been non-stop rain.  Fingers crossed this lovely weather holds for a couple more days!

The Swishing Challenge

I've set myself a little challenge this year.

I'm not going to buy any new clothes for the whole of 2013!

Do you fancy joining me?

We can't all do it, because we need someone to keep at least the more ethical parts of our clothing industry afloat, but if you want to take up a challenge, be kind to the environment and save money too, then here's the plan... For the whole of 2013 I will not purchase any new item of clothing. At the same time I'm going to consider what's in my wardrobe and what I actually wear. I am going to select two items every month and take them to one of my local charity shops.

So does that mean no new clothes at all? No 'new' clothes.  That's right.  But clothes that are 'new to me' are allowed. For specific occasions I'm opting for second hand or "preloved" items. The thing about preloved fashion is that someone loved it enough once to buy it and loved it enough to pass it on when they no longer had use for it. So all it needs is for someone to love it again. I like that!

It's funny how when you make a decision like this, things happen that fit perfectly into your plan.  They were probably happening already, but you weren't attuned to them and so they passed you by un-noticed.

I was walking down Watling Street in Towcester and a red dress caught my eye in the window of a shop.  I didn't allow myself to pay it too much attention because I'm not buying new clothes, remember!  But as I walked back past on the other side of the street the name of the shop caught my eye and I just had to go in. "Re:Love".

From the outside the shop, looked like an exclusive boutique, inside was a very warm welcome from Jackie and Caroline and some very inclusive prices.  This is just the sort of shop I love, somewhere you can find that piece that's a bit different, something that is really you rather than just this year's latest fashion, that everyone is wearing.

An old favourite I hadn't worn
for a while is feeling loved again!

So the first part of the challenge is going well so far.  I've managed two months and bought no clothes at all.

Down-sizing my wardrobe, is going to be a struggle, because I'm a natural hoarder.  I've heard all that stuff before - if you haven't worn it for a year then you should let it go.  But I often like to dig out an old favourite that's been lying long lost at the forgotten end of my wardrobe.

The thing is though, I do love a challenge.  So now it is set, I'm determined.



Despite my in-built reluctance to part with things,  I picked out two dresses in January that I haven't worn for a long time.

  They are ''occasion' dresses.  I've worn them both at weddings.  But I thought that next time I have an 'occasion'  I have newer favourites that are likely to be chosen over these two, or I might find something that is 'new to me'.



For February's charity shop offering, firstly I've picked a shirt I love the style of, but know it is not my best colour!

Secondly, here's a skirt I adore, but have only ever been able to wear it with a safety pin at the waist.  I have heard lots of people say they keep clothes that are just a bit too small.  I heard someone the other day refer to 'incentive jeans'.  But keeping something that is too big? Silly me!  I hope someone else finds it, fits it and loves it for me soon.

Ten Green Bottles and One Clear One

I was alarmed to read the other day that the average UK household uses around 330 bottles and jars a year. Alarmed, yes, because I'm sure I can get through that many in a month!

I was reading about glass recycling in the UK, and was not surprised, given the UK's (and my own) liking for wine that Britain generates a surplus of green glass cullet (the broken down glass that is then formed into new bottles) but has a shortage of clear glass required by the British food and drinks industry.

The next time I walked into my kitchen I noticed my ever growing hoard of empty glass jars.  You know, the ones you keep just in case you feel like making blackberry jam next September.  I'm going to try to cut down on my hoarding habit and admit to myself that yet again I probably won't make time to make jam.

But the other thing that struck me about this issue is that the increasing popularity of Pinot Grigio (comes in clear glass bottles) must be a blessing for the UK glass industry! Nice to think I'm doing my bit for the planet.

Cheers!

Gardening - It is all so much effort!

Or is it?

Well it does require some effort, most definitely, but I can't help thinking that sometimes we don't do ourselves any favours by the way we garden.

I have long associated the growing of tomatoes with the 'Growbag' technique.  Stick a couple of grow bags on your patio and plant them up with a couple of tomato plants in each and low and behold you will have tomatoes in abundant supply all through the summer. BUT probably only if you remember to water them every evening. Ughhh! Can you be bothered with that?

The thing we all know about Growbags is they dry out very quickly. So why do we insist on planting our tomatoes in them?

This year we decided to do things a bit differently.  Instead of using grow bags we planted our tomato plants straight into the ground along a post and rail fence.  If I remember rightly they got a couple of cans of water over them when they were first planted and I pulled up the weeds from round them early on but since then they've been entirely left to fend for themselves.  If they want water then they have to send out their roots to look for water. If they want to survive among the weeds then they have to be strong and be the fittest.

It seems to be working!

You want water? Find your own!

So despite the money saving (no grow bags to buy or water to pay for) and the huge saving on time and effort we are still being rewarded with lots of tomatoes and they taste wonderful.

Free Fuel

Last Christmas I was given a briquette maker - one of those metal contraptions you use to turn waste paper into 'logs' to burn on the fire.

I was mad keen to give it a go but a quick read of the instructions and a bit of common sense told me it was not a job for January. The main thing about making waste paper briquettes is that the paper needs to be soaked before you make them and then they need to be able to dry out. So... a job for the summer, it seemed.

But having sensibly put my briquette maker away until the weather was right, you may have guessed it, I never once thought about making myself some winter fuel this summer. However, on a gloriously sunny day in mid September I remembered my plan and went to survey the pile of newspapers that I'd been donated by my grandmother. It was a big pile. Better late than never, I thought, and set to work making my briquettes. By this time I had of course lost the instructions so a quick search on Google led me to this video from http://www.downthelane.net.  What was bothering me slightly was that the newspapers I was shredding up could easily have been recycled so other than the benefit of hopefully gaining a little bit of free heat was I really being environmentally friendly turning newspapers into fuel?  As we have two wood-burners and a Rayburn we get through a lot of wood in a year, most of which we manage ourselves from a small woodland.  Chopping wood, where ever it comes from always generates wood chippings and there is lots of waste from the smaller brushwood, and other than a useful mulch for flower beds and around our new trees it pretty much seems like a waste product, so I decided to add a bit to my paper mix to see what happened.

Having set my mixture to soak for a few days I went to inspect and it seemed to be a suitably gooey mess. So I spent a pleasant afternoon in the sunshine making 36 paper and wood-chip briquettes. Are they going to dry I wondered?

I left the soggy creations on a palette in an open barn hoping that if the sunshine didn't last at least the wind might dry them out. Little did I know our Indian Summer would continue.  This morning I went to inspect my briquettes and they were nicely dried out. Here they are stocked in my shed ready for use.  I'll let you know how they burn!

TIP: I think one of these briquette makers makes a great present, but really, why buy one? - just borrow. Anyone who has one will only be using it for a few days a year!

Credit Crunch Carrots

In a mad moment we decided to dig up all our carrots yesterday.

In true Rosie style - stable door and horse bolted style - I Googled 'How to Store Carrots' after having dug up the entire crop.

Yes, I know, we always get everything wrong. And digging up the entire crop wasn't the first gardening sin we'd committed. For a start we didn't bother with thinning except when we wanted a few carrots for dinner - when instead of weeding out the weediest ones we picked the biggest. Well, if you want to eat them, then why not pick the biggest?

First sin, don't thin.

So, for my second sin, what did Google tell me about how to store my carrots? That's right! The best way to store carrots is in the ground. Ah well! Too late for that.

I continued my Googing and was pleased to learn from the World Carrot Museum - did you even dream there'd be such a thing? - that carrots will actually increase their vitamin A content during the first five months of storage. Yay! A glimmer of hope.

I decided that since I couldn't exactly plant my carrots again I ought to try to find them the next best thing, so I found two old bread crates someone had kindly left behind after a party (you see it sometimes pays to never throw anything away!)and filled them with a layer of soil from my vegetable garden. Then I sorted through my carrots and picked only the perfect ones, laying them in neat rows on the layer of soil. I then covered them over and started a new layer. My crop from one packet of seeds, which has kept us going through the summer already, amounted to an entire wheelbarrow full which turned into three layers of perfect carrots in each crate and a large number of 'rejects'.

Hopefully this way we'll get to eat more than the mice and slugs will!

The rejects have now been scrubbed and cut up into chunks (taking out any bad bits) and I'm making them into soup - one batch for now and one for the freezer. The only slight problem is, I've eaten so many carrots while I chopped I'm worried I might be tinged with orange. Oh well, better than fake tan!

Secret Santa

Looking for ideas for your secret santa this year? A few years ago someone bought me one of those wind-up torches. It is fantastic! Finding a torch in my house used to be a nightmare. I don't need a torch very frequently and so when I did need one it would invariably have flat batteries. I have found my wind-up torch to be a great Christmas present. It is in its third year now and still going strong.

I'm sure they are widely available on the High Street, but here's a link to one from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Proteam-EN1217-Energy-Saving-Dynamo/dp/B0015V57Z6/ref=pd_sim_lp_2. They cost just less than a fiver.

Done that already and need another idea? What about an eco-stapler? That's another thing that's really annoying. Do you ever remember when you are out and about what size staples your stapler takes? I never do, so I frequently run out. An eco stapler clips up to three pages together with a cut and fold action. Again they cost less than £5 from here: http://www.myecostore.co.uk/magic-stapleless-stapler-p-413.html but probably available on the High Street. I like these woven juice carton purses - £5 , the Elephant Dung Notecubes -£7.95 and the colouring pencils made from recycled newspaper from 'myecostore'.

Oxfam is a great place for eco-gifts for your secret santa. Take a look when you are passing or have a look at their stocking fillers page online: http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/ethicalcollection/giftguide/stocking_fillers.html

The kitchen compost caddy

Do you hate emptying the kitchen compost caddy?

I don't like the idea of using bags in my compost. It can surely only add to the time it takes for everything to decompose and besides, you have to buy them. But I did recently try out a new trick for my compost caddy. I have found that when I empty my compost bin and rinse it out it helps if I then tear up some egg box cartons to line the bottom. I've found that whatever gloopy mess I put on top comes out more easily when I have a cardboard layer on the bottom, making the emptying job much easier and the caddy needs less rinsing.

Water

Water is something that in many parts of the world is seen as the most precious commodity. Yet in the UK, often we take it for granted. Be honest, how many times have you poured away water that you've taken out with you on a trip or taken up to bed with you and not drunk?

A while ago it occurred to me that I could be using this water rather than pouring it down the sink.

I found an old plastic watering can – the kind that was used for watering houseplants – and I keep this on the windowsill by the sink. So now when I take bottles of water out school bags and sports bags or glasses of water from around the house I tip the water into the watering can rather than down the sink.

I use this water to rinse the sink and to rinse out glass bottles and other packaging for the recycling. Best of all, when the watering can is full I use this as my cue to water my houseplants. They are looking a lot healthier since I introduced this new system, which probably goes to show just how much water we used to waste.

A Hole New Font

A friend sent me this link today. http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html

This got me thinking about printing in general.

I try to print as little as possible – to save paper and ink, but I hadn't really thought about my printer settings. I often print things for proof reading in best quality, whereas I could use draft.

 

Testing out the ecofont!

 

New Year’s Resolution

This time last year we decided to get rid of our rubbish bin. It was feeling a little sad and underused already so we gave it flash label "Plastic Recycling" and bought it a friend "Metal Recycling". In addition to this we had a basket for burnable rubbish, a compost bin, various containers to collect bits to put out for the birds, and the bottles collect in a cupboard until someone can be bothered to carry them out to the kerbside collection bin.

Okay, we do get some funny looks when someone asks "where's your bin?" but we are all getting used to saying that we don't have one.

Feeling smug that we had no rubbish, I felt tempted to ask for an extra recycling bin. However, I realised that was probably not the answer. Just as rubbish has a cost, so does recycling, and the thing that is going to drive manufacturers to reduce packaging is consumer demand. So, as a consumer, I decided that I was going to demand less packaging. Most shop assistants no longer give me strange looks when I insist on using my own bag, or plonk my fruit and veg bagless at the till (though I draw the line at sprouts!). I have managed to cut down the amount of packaging I produce for recycling.

However, the sin I plan to attack in 2009 is the food waste.

I have a compost, a wormery and I feed the birds with my food waste, which is better than it going in the bin. I already plan for leftovers to be used as much as I can but I think there is still room for improvement. So among my New Year's Resolutions this year is to focus on food waste.

Want to join me? Have a look at Love Food Hate Waste for some ideas.

All Wrapped Up

I'm sure lots of people have been out buying Christmas cards and wrapping paper this week.

I like the range at Oxfam.

What I like about it most is that it is made from recycled materials and can be recycled again after use. The clear label tells me the wrapping paper I chose was made from 100% recycled paper. It also asks "When you have finished with this wrap please recycle it."

The Christmas cards told me they were printed on 50% recycled paper and FSC sourced wood pulp. What is more, the packaging is scant but robust with no plastic wrap.

Perfect!

 

Freecycle It

Freecycle is a great way to turn your rubbish into someone else's treasure. Found at www.Freecycle.co.uk this Internet based group has local branches so that people can give away unwanted items in their local area. In the past year I have parted with off-cuts of lead flashing, a big box of outgrown art materials, some large plant pots, a spare kettle, some black paint, a rickety pasting table and an old Dyson that I had stopped using because it was too heavy for me.

I have also parted with a television which although it worked some of the time, it didn't always turn on straight away. No-one in my household had the skills to fix it but someone locally who didn't have a television, gratefully picked it up from me. He thought he might be able to fix it, but even if he didn't he felt it would be better than nothing. We had been using it for over a year in the same state. Why would someone want to take on something that doesn't work?

Well, firstly, some people have the skills to fix things. Some people love trying to fix things even if they don't succeed. Some people just don't like the "I can't afford it at the moment, so I'll buy it on credit" culture.

The first television I owned was given to me by a work colleague who was getting a better one. This television also cut out at odd times. We used to joke that it would wait until the most dramatic moments to switch off, but we still used it for three years and then gave it away to someone else.

So before you bin anything at all, it is worth considering whether someone else may be able to make use of it. I have seen requests for old carpet for allotments, broken electrical items for spare parts, and amazing array of weird wants for fancy dress parties or theatre groups. There really doesn't seem to be anything that can't be re-homed this way. (Oh, except naughty children!)

Last night’s curry

I used to be one of many who felt the need to plan every meal for my family. I thought that in doing this I would make sure I only bought the food I needed, so saving money and saving waste. But I have come to realise that I can take an extra step.

Even though I planned meals, tried to only buy what I felt we needed in the quantities we needed it, I still found that I would end up wasting a shameful amount of what I bought. It is all very well carefully storing your leftovers in the fridge or freezer, but what is the point if we are just going to throw it away a few days, a few months, a year later?

I now plan into my week at least two 'unplanned' days. These unplanned days are the times when we will eat up leftovers, use up something from the freezer or get creative with anything that needs using up before it goes out of date.

The Lovefoodhatewaste website tells us that if we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off the road. I like the sound of that. I also like the fact that in times like these, when everyone is saying their food bills have rocketed, it is a great way to save money too.

Go Bananas

Did you know? All bananas sold in Sainsbury's are now Fairtrade.

It is hardly surprising that they are announcing a 5% increase in banana sales (35 million bananas) since the switch to Fairtrade. Read More

A few times recently I've found myself in other supermarkets and of course they sell Fairtrade bananas too, but more often than not they are in a plastic bag.

I'm not for one minute suggesting that bananas are particularly green, although most seem to be these days especially when you're hungry and you want to buy one to eat now, but they are nice – when they're not green – and so I do buy them. I just like the fact that when I'm in Sainsbury's I don't have to think about whether they are Fairtrade or not as I know they only sell Fairtrade bananas now.

The main thing is though, why do they have to be in a plastic bag? We are going to peel them anyway so it isn't a hygiene thing.

Talking of which, how do you dispose of your banana peel?

I use my banana peel to fertilise my roses. A tip my mother-in-law gave me, when I noticed how perfect her roses looked. Just lay the banana peel on top of the soil around the base of your rose. I guess it is the potassium the bananas like. Takes seconds, costs nothing.

500 Trees

I read recently that it takes 500 trees to absorb the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted when a PC is left on all day over the period of a year, so switch it off when not in use.

 
So many people leave their computers on when they are not using them because of the amount of time it takes to load them up when they do want to use them.

 
You can cut down the amount of time your pc takes to load by having a good look at what you are loading automatically at startup. Many computers load more than one virus checker, when just one is sufficient - even if you want to have another one available it doesn't have to load every time you switch on. Do you really need to load MSN or iTunes for example every time you turn your computer on?