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.

The Blue Planet Effect

I’m loving the Blue Planet Effect. Never before has plastic packaging had so much attention.

But I’m noticing that people are sometimes deciding to ditch single use plastic in favour of other forms of single use packaging, which can be more carbon intensive to produce. Paper, glass, and compostable packaging are undoubtedly less damaging to the ocean.  But all packaging comes with its own issues.

Plastic has become a popular packaging because it is lightweight, which reduces the carbon footprint of transportation.  Plastic is cheap, which helps keep prices low.  Plastic is waterproof (until it rips!) so helps with deliveries that could otherwise be spoiled by rain. Some advocates of plastic say it helps to reduce food waste. For example, plastic packaging (of the airtight kind) can help prevent oxidation which leads to discolouration of foods such as meat or avocados.  It is said that cucumbers are wrapped because it slows down the rot, making them last 10 days longer (as long as you don't open the plastic, I guess).  As I read on one pro-plastic website:

"Try as we might, we will always create some waste. In the end,

 which would we rather create – a little bit of plastic waste or a lot of food waste?"

They've got a point, of course, but we won't mention the tonnes of wonky cucumbers that get wasted because they are not the right size and shape to go through the packaging machine.

Another advantage of plastic is its recyclability. Unlike paper and card which can only be recycled up to 5 or 6 times before the fibres become too short to be usable, plastic can be recycled over and over again.  For food grade plastic, we can't say that it is infinitely recyclable like aluminium or glass, because a tiny fraction of the inside of the plastic is scraped off and disposed of to ensure the resultant rPET (recycled Plastic) is clean. However, it is more recyclable than paper and card.  

Furthermore, a paper bag has a carbon footprint of approximately 16 times that of a plastic bag yet probably doesn't last as long.  It seems like we can't win, doesn't it?

The big problem with plastic really is almost the same as the advantages.  It is lightweight and cheap. Because it is lightweight and cheap it is hard to ensure that transporting used plastic for recycling is economically viable.  It needs to be crushed and baled in order to get rid of the air before it is transported.  Because it is cheap, not many organisations that produce waste plastic value it enough to  have the space for a baler and to store enough bales for it to be viably transported.

Because it is lightweight it is easily blown about by the wind.  So even if you do put your used plastic into a bin, if the bin is not well designed the plastic can find its way out again.

The real way forward is to ditch those things you can do without altogether by switching to reusables.  Here are my top 5 easy switches:

·      Straws …either refuse or get a reusable, dishwasher-proof stainless steel straw. 

Metal straws with cleaning brushes

·      Bags… you can buy or make lightweight reusable net bags for your fruit and veg and reusable shopping bags are plentiful and equally easy to make your own.  In my local butchers we have no problem taking our own tubs to buy our meat and we can reuse our egg boxes too. 

Net veg bags from Onya

·      A reusable water bottle will save you money and be kinder on your health as well as the planet. We know the downside of fizzy drinks, and don’t be fooled by flavoured waters, milkshakes or fruit juices as they can be just as bad or worse. Bottled water has a carbon footprint 1000 times greater than tap water in a reusable bottle.

My refillable water bottle comes with me everywhere.
 It has saved me a lot of money over the years.

·      Cling film – it is a nightmare to use anyway, so swap for a lidded container or a plate that fits over the top of the bowl.  Clean tea towels are also a good thing to cover food with as they prevent the food from drying out, keep off any flies and (most*) other creatures.  Unlike cling film, though, a tea towel will stop the food from sweating. I also invested in some reusable silicone baking sheet and this sometimes does the job of lining things that I might previously have lined with cling film, like for making fridge cake in a loaf tin.  I also invested in a couple of packs of Bees Wrap which I find very handy.  It rinses really easily and I have been using mine for a couple of years now and it still looks like new.

Various alternatives I use in place of cling film.

·      Takeaway coffee – break that habit and you would save a fortune, but if you really can’t then make your savings bit by bit with a reusable coffee cup. Many outlets now offer money off your coffee if you bring your own cup.

If I don't have my coffee cup with me I don't get coffee
 unless it is in a proper cup!

If you are not quite ready for reusables yet, you can still do your bit by making sure you recycle all the plastic packaging you can.  In the UK we recycle 58% of our plastic bottles. That means that a whopping 42% get discarded in the general waste and in the hedges and ditches of our countryside.  

There has been a lot of talk about the Chinese ban on waste form other countries. Switching to brands using recycled packaging helps to keep the value of recycled plastic high and this will help the UK companies that recycle plastic. Higher demand means higher prices and that comes from brands that use recycled plastic in their bottles getting good sales and those that don't losing market share. We can all help with that by checking out the packaging of what we buy.  Many years ago Coca Cola did an experiment to see if a 100% recycled bottle was a viable option.  It was, but we are not recycling enough of our plastic to meet the demand for 100% recycled so they opted for 25% recycled content.

Switching to compostable packaging helps too but only if you then put it on your compost! Compostable packaging breaks down in a home compost or industrial compost facility, but it won't break down in anaerobic digestion and it will take many years to break down in Landfill.  I decided back in 2015 that I wouldn't buy snacks like crisps, cakes, biscuits or nuts unless they are in compostable packaging, which I do then take home with me for my compost.  Making that decision has, I am sure done me a lot of favours, as I usually take some nuts and dried fruit from home in a small container when I am travelling about and otherwise, I just wait until my next proper meal.  I think my waistline thanks me for that decision on a regular basis!

* Neither cling film nor a tea towel will deter a mouse.  It will just chew right through it to get to the tasty offerings beneath :)

Talking Rubbish on Radio Four PM

On Friday I was invited to be part of a panel of experts on Radio Four's PM programme.

All week PM has been talking rubbish in an effort to get people thinking about packaging, what they are prepared to accept and how they dispose of it.  Listeners were invited to voice their opinions and to send in their questions to the panel of experts made up of Karen Cannard of The Rubbish Diet, Dominic Hogg of Eunomia and myself.

Here are the links to the programme each day with timings for the relevant section.

Monday  - 17:24 http://bbc.in/2j0cQzI
Tuesday -  17:36  http://bbc.in/2j4jSnq 
Wednesday -  17.45 http://bbc.in/2ikukpG
Thursday   - 17:20  http://bbc.in/2iLCzsk
Friday  - 17.45  http://bbc.in/2iLCzsk

The studio at BBC Oxford.  Just me on my own hoping
 the tech would work.  It did and it sounded like we were
 all sharing a jolly cup of tea together!

We had some great questions sent in. We couldn't all answer all of the questions so here's a bit more from me.

Stephen from Gibralter - Wed 11th
Thanks for your great reports on the recycling of plastic.

I understand that some plastic products may not be easily recycled but is it really beyond the potential of the scientific community to come up with an effective process that would allow for the 'mulching up' of all types of plastics into a solid mass? Even if this 'by-product' only goes towards controlling the vast spread of plastic that seems to be reaching all corners of the earth & sea. Who knows, we might even find some commercial use for it. Construction, insulation, transport etc. Might inspire a few entrepreneurs to make some more money from plastics.

There’s now lots of technology that can sort plastic into different types, colours etc to enable it to be recycled.

Technically, I am pretty sure all plastic can be ‘mulched up’ into plastic flake or pellets and it can then be reused to make other products.  The issue with plastic is almost the same as the advantage of plastic.  It is lightweight to transport. However, it is bulky before it is broken down.  When transporting plastic for recycling you are transporting a lot of air.  The cost of the transport has to be factored in to the worth of recycling. 

Plastic is probably most difficult to recycle (or too costly to recycle) when it is mixed materials or heavily printed. Some plastic based packaging is both of these – such as crisp packets and chocolate wrappers. 

I think there is the technology to completely avoid any packaging that isn’t recyclable or compostable.  But research and change costs money, so consumers need to vote with their hard earned cash and force change. There are companies making money from plastics but the margins are very small, the transport costs are high and so are the insurance premiums as large quantities of stored plastics are a fire risk. 

As consumers, the more we demand that our products are made from recycled plastic, the more we are likely to see the value of recycled plastic increase.  This wouldn't necessarily mean an increase in price of the end product, because the increased demand will bring about economies of scale as the overheads of collecting and processing the recycled plastic will be spread over greater sales. So we can play a part in ensuring that companies make the transition from "virgin plastic" to "recycled plastic".  What I do is boycott products that don't use recycled plastic and support those that do.  If lots of people do that then it becomes a no-brainer for companies to make the switch.  They realise they have to in order to keep their market share.

Liz - Wed 11th
I wonder if we need to think of alternative solutions than simply what supermarkets are doing or not doing. For instance, can we avoid the need for packaging at all?

We certainly can avoid packaging for the most part through our shopping choices.  I set myself the challenge of buying nothing in single use plastic for a whole year and many of the changes I made then have stuck with me now.

Bulk Barn is Canada's largest bulk food retailer and allows shoppers to buy most food products loose at the quantity they desire and place inside whatever container they have brought with them (eg jars or tupperware), or at most in a thin plastic bag.

As part of my zero plastic challenge, I found SESI Oxford - a food cooperative that buys produce by the sack full and you can take your own tubs along to refill them at East Oxford Market and various other outlets around Oxford.  This saves so much packaging. These services are brilliant, but sadly they are not everywhere yet.  In reality all supermarkets could offer such a service -  they just don't yet, because consumers haven't started deserting in droves to go to their local refill centre.  If they did supermarkets would be onto it in the blink of an eye.

Veg box suppliers such as Abel and Cole also use far less, if any packaging, than supermarkets and most is cardboard or paper rather than plastic.

I found that Cultivate, a local farm cooperative, also used minimal packaging and I could return it for reuse. I also use a local greengrocer, where not only is most of the produce sold loose, it is from local farmers and doesn't exclude the wonky veg.   

Val - Nethy Bridge, Scotland - Wed 11th
A question re recycling: how clean do things have to be?

We have a private water supply which makes me more aware of water usage (no doubt a meter has the same effect). There are some things which take so much washing - ketchup and soy sauce bottles for example- that I am sure I would use more resources cleaning them than it's worth.

This is a great question, and one I'm often asked. When I wrote my book, 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free, I put this question to various waste management professionals. This is what I concluded. You need to empty out and rinse food packaging enough to remove any leftover food. 
You can’t recycle a foil carton when it still contains half a shepherds pie, so you do need to scrape out any food remains into your food bin or compost bin. Besides, that way the leftover food can also become a valuable resource to make compost or energy.

All recyclables are cleaned in the process of recycling, so they don’t need to be pristine. I don’t rinse wine/beer bottles, but I rinse most things, just giving it a swill at the end of the washing up so I’m not using extra water. I have returnable glass milk bottles, but if I had plastic, I’d rinse them certainly.  I just think about the people that have to deal with all this stuff.  Un-rinsed milk bottles in even moderate heat really stink. An un-rinsed soy sauce bottle won’t offend anyone.

For rinsing things like food cans or ketchup, I always use up the last bit of things like that in sauces.  I swill a little clean water round a bottle or can to add it into the sauce /stew/ gravy I’m making.

When I spoke to the manager of the company that collects and sorts the waste and recycling in my area his opinion was this:  it doesn’t really matter if there’s an inch of wine left in the bottom of the bottle. It's far more important that every wine bottle gets collected, rather than worrying about whether or not the bottles are rinsed.  My view: who wastes an inch of wine? Really?

Shelagh - Wed 11th 
For many years I have been trying to get Sainsbury's to re-introduce their system of boxes which a number of customers still use. We have had ours for going on 40 years! We do not, therefore, ever use plastic bags.  The boxes fit special box trolleys and tesselate when stored. This system also means we get through the check out much quicker than those with bags, which collapse, fall over and split.

Keep trying! Perhaps they were ahead of the curve.  They probably stopped it because it maybe didn’t have enough uptake.  I think things are changing now.  We might see such schemes back again. I remember one issue, was that some people used them to carry bagged stuff in them.  I remember thinking at the time that it was defeating the object.  Consumer behaviour is key to forcing the hand of supermarkets.

On the programme on Friday, presenter, Paddy O'Connell brought up the issue of why we have to buy a new spray mechanism every time we buy a new spray cleaner.  I thought refills for these used to be available. I don't know why they aren't, but I certainly couldn't see any when I went to check today in a Sainsbury's supermarket.  This is definitely worth investigating and I plan to check it out further.

Kevin - Wed 11th
Why can't bubble wrap and cling film and celophane be recycled?

It can be recycled.  Not all local authorities collect it, but some do.  It is usually a cost issue as flyaway plastics can cause littering during collection and it can be more costly to transport making recycling uneconomic.

Personally I always give any bubble wrap I acquire to my local charity shop – as reuse is better than recycling.  I mostly avoid cling film using airtight containers or just putting a plate over the dish.  You can also get a reusable cling film substitute called bee wrap.  I have some of that too.

Jerry - Wed 11th 
Is it really economical and environmentally friendly to wash out yoghurt pots and margarine tubs to make them acceptable for recycling?

If you just give messy yoghurt pots a quick rinse at the end of the washing up that's enough, but if you have done a good job of eating every last bit of the yoghurt you can recycle it without rinsing.  As for a margarine tub – use up all the margarine and you don’t need to rinse.

John, Aberdeen - Wed 11th
As some councils can accept plastic film, butter and other spread tubs, etc. for recycling I have assumed that they were quicker than others at signing up contracts and the demand for those recyclates is limited. Am I right?

It is more often to do with geographical availability of recycling facilities for the different materials.  In some areas the cost would outweigh the benefit, whereas other areas would have a cost effective outlet for recyclable materials.

It can also be to do with where in the contract cycle a council is as more and more revenue streams for recyclables are opening up, but if a council is one year into a five year contract it is harder to make changes than if they are coming towards the end of a contract and about to renew.

Samuel (aged 9) - Wed 11th
In Edinburgh were I live, we have one bin for all paper, cardboard, plastic, tins, and a separate box for glass. What I would like to ask you is what happens to it? How do they sort it and recycle it? (**why do councils do it differently - what are the consequences)

If you get the chance to visit a Materials Recovery Centre (MRF pronounced "MURF") you should go. They do sometimes do school visits. They are fascinating places – the technology involved in sorting materials is often quite surprising.  They use all sorts of things from gravity and air, to lasers detecting different light rays coming from the plastic to sort it by colour.  Some MRFs have good websites that you can look at and see what happens.  This is a good YOUTUBE video that shows you the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIVKmwzWSuc

Councils are responsible for their own waste and recycling contracts and that results in lots of different systems all over the country.  That means that the public are often very confused about how things work.  I think it would be great to have a standardised system, and maybe one day soon that will happen.  Recycling rates seem to be higher in countries that do have standardised systems. 

There's information about the different methods of recycling in my book, along with facts and figures about what difference it makes to our carbon footprint (pages 90-97).

Carol - Bristol - Wed 11th 
We have, at home, many, many VHS video tapes and CDs and DVDs, that are blank or started off blank. It isn't clear that those non pre-recorded media are recycled by any business or local council. We've been hanging onto them for years now, along with old cassette tapes, until someone recycles them, but do you think it will happen? What is the environmental impact of the materials in these media going to landfill and if they were recycled what would the materials be recycled into?

Video and audio tapes can cause a lot of problems and costs if they find their way into mixed recycling as the tape can clog up the machinery. I did manage to find a specialist company in Bristol that recycles media – EMS Europe.  I know that it was getting increasingly difficult though, so I don’t know if they still operate their recycling scheme.  Terracycle recycles various forms of media but it is a chargeable service.  They are costly items to take apart and the recovered material is of low or no value.  Streaming and downloading is a huge help, as there isn’t the physical waste from this. But we have a whole lot of media waste to dispose of at the moment, brought about by changing technology.

I wonder if any company who has made mega-bucks from the selling of such items would consider paying for the recycling of them now? Don't you think they should?

Martin - Edinburgh - Wed 11th
Would you tell me, if we introduced recycling of packaging in all supermarkets, as they do in Germany and some other EU nations, how much difference would it make to recycling levels, to the consumer and the economy as a whole?

Personally, I think it may not help recycling rates.  Look at how many people used to get new plastic bags – 6, 8 maybe 10 a week, because they didn’t think about bringing their own from the previous shop.  I think we would be better working towards reducing packaging as much as possible, whilst still protecting goods from damage and waste, and having more standardisation around the country.  

If there was more understanding and less confusion then more people would recycle more stuff. I hope that we will get to the stage where people do feel ashamed of being wasteful. Apparently not many of us are there yet, but I think as the realisation of how much the use of resources impacts climate change, we will start to adapt and change our ways.  Education (and resulting consumer / peer pressure) is key to this, I think.

Megan (primary school teacher)
What important message about packaging and waste do our experts think she should be passing on to the children in her class?

I think the most important message to pass on to children is that we need to think resources, rather than rubbish. Every time we have something we don't need anymore and want to dispose of it, we need to think: "How best can this be made use of?"

It is really important to understand the Waste Hierarchy. This is definitely something to cover carefully in primary and secondary schools. (It is in my book). Reduce, reuse and recycle is also a key message. But I think it helps if children understand why.

There are three advantages to recycling

1. Stuff that we make requires resources (materials) that we might have lots of on the planet at the moment but not an infinite supply. So one day the materials might run out if we overuse them. Often getting raw materials creates pollution and destroys habitat.

2. When we throw stuff away rather than recycling there are still places where that stuff has to go to landfill. We are running out of spaces for landfill. In many cases mixed waste in landfill is creating greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.

3. Making things from recycled materials rather than raw materials takes less energy. E.g. an aluminium can from recycled aluminium uses only 5% of the energy compared to a can from raw materials. Paper from recycled paper takes 45% less energy. Looking at the maths and science behind the figures is fun and shows why recycling makes sense and helps reduce carbon footprint.

Again, there's lots of information in my book that can help with this. I use the book for years four, five and six as well as in my Dustbin Diet for secondary schools, where children make their own version of the book. Here's the version made by Henry Box School in Witney.

You can also download a free bingo game based on the facts and figure in the book.

Recycling rates are stagnating  (except in Wales, where they are doing a great job at waste management). Food waste is increasing and many large retailers are reporting record sales, which I presume means we are buying more and more stuff and no doubt wasting more and more stuff. So it is great that the subject of waste and packaging is being discussed on prime time radio. I feel the Radio Four PM team did a great job and hopefully they will inspire people to think about packaging and perhaps start influencing a packaging revolution by encouraging people to choose carefully how they spend their hard earned cash.

For this we need to thank the research and production team. I found out that Emma Close put forward the idea and Emma Rippon bravely commissioned the series. Thank you to both of you. Then Ruth Edwards and Xavier Zapata with presenter Paddy O'Connell researched the issues. Tomas Morgan, the BBC correspondent in Wales, made the wonderful piece on how Wales is excelling on recycling.A big thank you to all of you for raising this important issue and at a time when people are generally receptive to change.

Looking forward to a less packaged 2017

It isn't just me, is it? People are generally coming to the realisation that packaging is a big problem for the environment.

I was recently asked my opinion on what I thought was the worst case of packaging that I had seen. That's a tough one for me as I don't see a lot of packaging these days as, since my year of no single use plastic in 2015, I have totally changed the way I shop.

These days I buy all my meat from my local butcher where I take my own containers and the meat is put straight into those. I buy vegetables and fruit from a green grocer in my nearest town. Most of their produce is unpackaged and loose so I buy the exact quantity I need. They do sometimes "package up" some things, usually if there are items they need to sell quickly. I have sometimes bought these but I undo the bag carefully and reuse it and these clear plastic bags are recyclable in my area.

I buy dry goods from SESI Oxford  where I refill my own containers and I also know that I am getting fairly traded, ethically sourced produce too as that's the ethos of the shop.



I buy in charity shops too, where there's no packaging either.

But I had a feeling I might find some over packaging at Christmas, especially with six nieces  and nephew's visiting. To my surprise there was nowhere near the amount of packaging I usually see. It was pretty much all recyclable too. Things are looking up.

I thing the worst packaging to be seen was actually this.

This is surprising in that it seems to be a product aimed at people who want to reduce their use of resources. The idea of it is that you don't need cling film as these discs of plastic fit over your cut fruit and veg and help it last longer by stopping the cut edge from coming into contact with air. For decay to take place air, water and warmth are required for bacteria to grow. The cut edge of fruit and veg is usually moist whereas a whole piece of fruit or veg with its skin in tact is dry on the outside. That's the point of the skin. This is why people use cling film to block in the moisture and block the air out. That's also what the fruit huggers are designed to do. They are a reusable version of cling film. I am all in favour of that.

So what is wrong with this packaging? I will start by saying it is not awful. I can see that the card is separated from the plastic, which means it can easily be removed so the card and plastic can be recycled. The worst thing about it is that I can't get in it without taking scissors to it. That means I can't use the packaging to keep the unused bits together and clean for when I want to use them.

I think for something like this a better quality reusable form of packaging would be far more suitable.

Maybe a tin or sturdy plastic box like these pastry cutters I was given for previous Christmases would be too expensive to produce, but what about a clear zip lock bag. The cardboard insert can go in just the same.

Whenever I buy anything I always consider the packaging and I won't buy things knowingly that I feel are over packaged or are packaged in non recyclable material. I think there are more and more people who think like this these days. So I say I am looking forward to a less packaged 2017 because I feel that by the end of the year we may well reach the packaging tipping point. Mainstream media are getting the bee in their bonnets about it just like me. That will get more people talking about it and it WILL get manufacturers running scared and thinking of better ways to package their produce. That thought makes me very happy.

Happy New Year!

The Plastic Challenge - four months later

The Pitt family have been plastic free now for four months.  Well almost… almost plastic free that is.

Any eco challenge would really be pointless if you didn't use up what you already had and despite the fact that I've been doing my best for naked shopping for a long time now, I feel that at the end of four months of being close to plastic-free purchasing, we are still surrounded with plastic, plastic and more plastic in our house.

By the end of February we had accumulated this little collection below - all from items we already had in stock before the start of 2015. I kept this stock of plastic in a small box in my recycling cupboard.

It came in handy last week when I did a Dustbin Diet workshop at St Christopher's School, in Accrington, Lancashire. I did take great care to gather up all my plastic resources to bring home with me, having littered the stage with them in assembly and then thrown them around the classroom while discussing the difference between valued resources and wasted rubbish.  The students absolutely got the point and they are now working away at their own version of 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free which will be published in July this year, and more importantly they are thinking about how to break the habit of throwing away rubbish and planning ways to reduce, reuse and recycle more.

Then on Friday, while I had the loan of the car, I had a clear out of my recycling cupboard.  I had cards to take to a local collection point to be turned into new cards, which are sold for charity.  I had some clothes I no longer needed - a cardigan that somehow got left out of the children's clothes clear out a couple of years ago and some golf trousers belonging to Mr Pitt's slimmer days as well as some old frayed shirts.  All this was destined for the community shop where they sell the clothes but also get money for 'rags' too.  I had a broken mouse and and a broken iron destined for the small electricals collection bin in a nearby car park and I had my tub of plastic.  Having cleared out my cupboard, the temptation to recycle the plastic was overwhelming and so out it went into the recycling box.  I have the pictorial evidence to remind me.

Then I wondered: what would I use as resources for my next Dustbin Diet session? Time to start again on the plastic packaging box, I felt, and so I've been having a use it up week.

On Saturday, we munched our way through a packet of oatcakes that came in a Christmas hamper. On Sunday we used up some biscuits in a lovely lime cheesecake.  We finished up a layer of a box of chocolates that had been hanging around a while, and we finished one layer of the cheese crackers we bought at Christmas.  That was already quite a lot of plastic!

Then, I finished up an old packet of yeast that had got left behind in the back of a cupboard. (It still worked fine.)  I emptied out a few things from their flimsy plastic packaging and put them into reusable storage jars. I also rounded up the bottles of various products such as shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom and finished them off this week, rinsing out the last dregs.  In no time at all I have filled my plastic resources container ready for the next school!

But all that is plastic we already had, so what of our plastic free purchasing this year?  I have to say, that as we are trying to live our lives as close to 'normally' as possible, we haven't managed to succeed in keeping our purchases 100% plastic free.  I think we have managed to cut down significantly though.

Here's our single use plastic purchase list for the first four months of 2015.

The necessary stuff...

• 2 small plastic bubbles from the new batteries for our kitchen scales,
• plastic packaging from cat wormer and flea stuff,
• plastic packaging from various medicines.

The stuff we could have avoided if we had been more organised…

• 2 plastic lids from tetrapak orange juice when we decided we needed extra orange juice for a party (we normally buy orange juice from the milkman in reusable glass bottles).
• The plastic wrapping from three birthday cards when I didn't remember to buy suitable cards from our wonderful local charity cards (These are still plastic wrapped but I return the wrappers for reuse.)

Stuff we could have avoided but didn't notice or think about...

• 4 lots of plastic wrap from round wine bottle lids - while most of these seem to be metal, we haven't discriminated between those wrapped in plastic and those wrapped in metal.
• The very annoying bit of plastic that the person serving me in Oxford Covered Market wrapped my cheese in without me noticing, EVEN WHEN I HAD SPECIFICALLY ASKED HIM NOT TO!!!

Stuff that we could have avoided but cracked (i.e. the complete fails!)...

Junior daughter's list:

• the wrapping from a plastic punnet of grapes bought while out longer than expected
• plastic packaging from some flapjack - again while out and about and hungry without enough pre-planned snacks
• the plastic wrapping from a bag of apples
• the plastic wrapper from some 'honey barbecue wholegrain snacks'
• two plastic bags from clothes bought via Internet.

My list:

• the wrapping from some feta cheese when I'd promised to make a Greek salad for a shared buffet supper

Family shopping list:

• 1 plastic bag from Emmentaler cheese bought on holiday in Austria
• 1 large packet of crisps bought on holiday in Austria 

Plastic brought in to the house by others…

• the flimsy plastic wrap from inside two boxes of cheese straws brought to a party
• 3 plastic punnets from olives brought to a party
• a small bit of cling film from something brought to a party

Other miscellaneous items that have appeared...

• a small pack of Galaxy Minstrels
• a large pack of M&Ms
• a small silver packet from some kind of biscuits

Who did they get munched by, I wonder?

And here it all is:

Our 4 months' worth of plastic packaging.

In addition to all this we've acquired:

• a small piece of bubble wrap which I'll keep for reuse
• various 2 litre plastic bottles from lemonade and coke and tonic water which we are going to use in the garden as cloches
• a plastic bag from the butchers when we couldn't resist buying their delicious pasties and hadn't come prepared with a container (we opened the bag really carefully so we can reuse it!)
• the plastic bag from a 2.5 kg bag of cat food which we are using to store all our plastic for the year
• two 10kg sacks from cat food - already used for garden purposes
• three tubs with lids from Philadelphia cheese washed and already reused several times for storage

So how have we avoided having much more plastic than this?

1. Quite a bit of home baking - we have so far made all our own bread, biscuits and even oat cakes and crisps.

2. Always taking our own bags and containers when out food shopping.

3. Buying from shops rather than the Internet and whenever possible buying second hand from charity shops.

4. Being organised about taking drinks, meals and snacks when out and about and particularly for Junior Daughter taking sufficient food to school in her own containers to avoid all the pre-packed plastic covered food available in the canteen.

5. Having a plentiful supply of peanuts, Japenese rice crackers, giant corn, and Bombay Mix all purchased in our own containers from either SESI or Whole Foods Market.

6. Cooking from scratch from fresh ingredients rather than buying pre-packed ready meals - but we have been doing this for years so that's just a habit we already have.

Conclusion?  We could try harder but not a bad effort, dare I suggest?

The plastic challenge - week three

This week's shop was pretty successful.  I bought quite a bit of meat including some for my grandmother.  She decided she wanted hers in a container rather than in a plastic bag - it's catching on.  Fortunately our local butcher is extremely supportive and is more than happy to fill up my own containers.

We went shopping on Saturday for some more vegetables, and the one thing we didn't come back with (aside from peas of course) was a cauliflower.  We were in Waitrose and all the cauliflowers are in a plastic bag.  We know that it is the same in Sainsbury's.  The last cauliflower I bought was in Whole Foods Market where they are not in plastic bags.  We could maybe have found one at the market, unpackaged but we decided we would do without as we had bought sprouts in one of our own Onya Weigh bags.

The one bit of plastic we came back with this week was a tub of Philadelphia cheese.  I've decided this purchase is exempt from my plastic challenge as I buy it for making cheesecake or tiramisu which is a good way of using up leftover/stale cake.  We had half a chocolate log in the fridge which had really been there long enough so it got mashed up into the base for tiramisu and soaked in Tia Maria and strong coffee.  Then I whipped up the Philadelphia with some icing sugar and spread that on top and covered it in grated chocolate. It is now all eaten up as pudding after Sunday lunch.

Making tiramisu out of the leftover chocolate log

There was some extra chocolate sauce left over from the chocolate log, and so I turned this into a fridge cake.  This was another plastic challenge as I have up to now made my fridge cake by lining a loaf tin with cling film.  This was easily overcome though, by using a pork pie tin which has a loose bottom, lined round the edge with some Bake-o-glide.  It worked really well and was easier than the cling film method.

My new method for making fridge cake

So why do I consider the Philadelphia cheese packaging to be ok?  Well, it is most certainly reusable in our house.  I always keep the empty pots, wash them out and reuse them for example for snacks like peanuts and raisins or grated carrot and celery sticks which I take when I am working away from home and Junior Daughter takes to school.  There is no other plastic packaging other than the tub itself.

Mid week I decided I needed to buy my cat food as they say you should introduce new cat food gradually.  I did buy the Countrywide brand and the cats like it. So again more plastic, but at least it is in a useful bag.

Here's the Pitt Purchased plastic tally to date:

2 toothpaste tubes with lids
2 plastic bubbles from the battery packaging

In addition, but with plans to make use of the plastic:

1 tub with lid from Philadelphia cheese
1 bag from cat food washed out, dried and back in use.

I have also pulled out of my plastic store a small plastic bag when I've needed one. It was from apples. I'll be keeping this and no doubt reusing it again, because apples from now on will only be purchased loose.

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!

Eight months in

Well, I'm now in month eight of my swishing year.

What have I achieved?  What have I spent and how does it feel?  I thought I'd ask myself those questions.

Firstly, what have I achieved so far in my swishing year?  Well, one of the things I pledged to do was to give away to a charity shop two items from my wardrobe for every month.  I started the year picking out two things each month, but by May I decided it was time for a real wardrobe slim down, so I went through the whole lot and gave away well...  I think the list is something like this:
6 scarves, 3 belts, 3 skirts, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 dresses suitable for weddings, 2 sun dresses, 2 jumpers, 2 shirts, 1 pair of trousers, 1 hat, 1 pair of shorts.  And that's just the stuff I can remember.

My wardrobe is now organised and I can see what I've got.  Things aren't getting creased from being overcrowded.  And I've found a few old faves that were lost or forgotten.  RESULT!

Charity shop prices vary enormously, but a conservative estimate for my donations would be around £40.  RESULT!

Secondly, what about the buying?
I think I've bought more clothes than ever before!  But, I've just done a quick tot up of my spending and I've spent around £70.  This has bought me 1 skirt,  1 jacket, 1 dress and 7 new tops.  I feel as though I have a whole new wardrobe!

At my Dustbin Diet workshops I was able to make sure that I wore at least one thing each session, that I had either been given second hand by a friend or that I'd bought from a charity shop.

The shirt is second hand from a friend and the skirt was from Oxfam.

At my first session my swished outfit consisted of this quirky black and white blouse which my best friend gave me several years ago and it has become a firm favourite, teamed with a pale green long line M&S cotton cardigan/jacket bought for £9.99 (not pictured - it was hot under the lights on that stage!) and a pale green, black and cream dog-tooth checked Hobbs skirt, which was a whopping £17.99 both purchased together at Oxfam.

The skirt may well be my most expensive charity shop purchase.  It is beautifully made, I loved the style and colour and knew I'd get plenty of wear from it.  So I felt it really was money well spent.  I've worn it on both my Dustbin Diet pilot workshops,  to a waste reduction workshop / book signing at the lovely Octavia's bookshop in Cirencester, and to a Dustbin Diet workshop in a primary school.  So far I've also worn it several times to work, to meetings, out to lunch.  You may have heard this saying, that the cost of an item of clothing is its price divided by the number of times you wear it.  So, of just the times I can remember wearing it, I make that already less than two pounds a wear.  I have several more 'costly' items in my wardrobe!

But not only that, a quick look at the Oxfam website tells me that it spends '84p out of every £1 saving lives, improving lifestyles and campaigning for change'. So, adding in my other Oxfam purchases this year,which include the Fat Face top (pictured below) which makes up another of my Dustbin Diet swished outfits, a short sleeved lime green Jaeger jumper and a brown tie front lace cardigan, amounting to just under £50, means that I've contributed £42 towards this work.

Fat Face cotton top purchased from Oxfam

I've made a couple of purchase from other charity shops included this fab top (below) bought from my local community shop for just 50p.

I love this Monsoon top bought for 50p from my local community shop 

I also came across  Swishing.co.uk, a great website that allows you to swish online, using virtual money credits. This summer my daughters and I have tried it out.  You upload photos of clothes you no longer want onto the website and the Swishing team will let you know if they'll take it. There are guidelines on the Swishing website that tell you the kind of thing they will take, but it is pretty obvious and pretty much anything of suitable quality. Your items are then 'approved' and they will give you a 'virtual' price.  If the price is right to persuade you to part with your items and enough to cover postage then you post them off.  Once they are received, you get a credit on your account and you can spend the money on something new (well, new to you!). It is a great place to hunt down something for a party or a wedding. How many of us have an outfit that we've already worn in all our social circles and so it's now redundant in the wardrobe, because we don't want to go out wearing the same thing again?  Well, the answer is to Swish it for something else!

I added three new tops to my wardrobe, all of which I love, and all for a fraction of the cost of anything similar in the shops.  I think it is a great site and I plan to have a regular browse.  I've also decided that it's a much quicker way of finding an outfit for special events.

So...what have I achieved, what have I spent and how does it feel?

I've reorganised and reinvigorated my wardrobe.
I've donated around £100 to charity - from giving and buying.
I've gained around £350 worth of new to me clothes for around £70 (plus a bit of virtual swishing money).
I've had fun with my daughters helping them to go through their clothes and helping them to choose some new stuff on Swishing.co.uk - quality time with daughters - always priceless :)
And it feels so good, I'm not planning on giving up my new purchasing habits at the end of the year.  Eight months in and swishing has become a lifestyle choice I love.  Why not give it a try?

An eggs-ellent find

My local butcher has always sold free range eggs and I've bought them from there a few times, but recently they have introduced a twenty pence per half dozen discount if you bring your own egg box.

The eggs are £1.59 per half dozen (with the 20p discount) for large eggs.  Four eggs consistently weigh 266 grammes which makes a nice big cake.  I always weigh my eggs and use equal weight of butter, sugar and flour for cake-making.

Lemon drizzle cake and raisin and oatmeal cookies.

I am really keen to support this kind of reuse system.  It is bound to work well as the customer has the incentive to remember their egg boxes or have the pain of paying 20p per box more.  Carrot and stick is always a good combination.

Cardboard egg boxes are great on the compost, and the cardboard and plastic egg boxes are recyclable and collected by most councils, but reuse generally has higher carbon savings than recycling - and this system of egg box reuse is a perfect - yet oh so simple - example of a carbon saving system.  The Waste Hierarchy (pictured below) shows that the best way to deal with packaging is to prevent it.  If you can't prevent it then the next best thing is to prepare it for reuse and if you can't reuse it, then recycle it.  If you can't recycle it then ideally your method of disposal will recover some value from it - as it would if you were to compost your cardboard egg boxes.  As the Waste Hierarchy diagram shows, binning your egg boxes into landfill is the last resort - and basically shouldn't be happening!

The Waste Hierarchy

Image reproduced with kind permission of Scottish Environmental Protection Agency:

 http://www.sepa.org.uk/waste/moving_towards_zero_waste/waste_hierarchy.aspx

The first time I noticed the egg box reuse incentive (i.e. 20p saving) I didn't have egg boxes with me, but I knew I'd be passing the butcher's the next day, so as soon as I unpacked my meat I retrieved plastic egg boxes from my recycling bin and found a cardboard one that was awaiting being torn up to add to my wormery, and popped them in my bag.  The next day I was pleased with my 60p saving -  it was a cricket tea week - so I needed eggs for sandwich filling and eggs for cake-making.

I noticed yesterday the eggs from the little supermarket in our village were 10p per half dozen cheaper but my daughter bought those a few days ago to make a birthday cake (the butcher was closed) and the four eggs weighed just 214g.

So, I've got into the habit now of keeping my egg boxes in the bag I take to the butcher's, so I can always get my discount.  I'll be cake making for cricket tea this afternoon.  I'm thinking... lemon drizzle, fairy cakes, fruit scones and I might try making some chocolate cookies.

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!

Going Bananas

Bananas - lots of them - going cheap - or going to waste.  Couldn't bear it! They've been transported all this way. Bought lots, eaten lots but still I have five of them left getting blacker and blacker.

Time for banana bread! My favourite banana bread recipe is from The River Cottage Family Cookbook which has chopped up apricots and sultanas in too. That's three of my five-a-day, I reckon! This recipe calls for three large ripe bananas - but I declared mine 'medium' so opened up all five ate the least blacked one while I mashed the other four and it turned out just fine!