My Waste Watcher’s update

Here it is then, my Waste Watchers update.

As with all diets, even Rubbish ones, you have to weigh in regularly to see that you are heading in the right direction…(The starting ‘weigh in’ is here, just in case you missed it..)

I have to confess to feeling a bit of a fraud.

We had our fortnightly black bin collection on Friday, and I really don’t think our bin has slimmed at all. In fact, it may have podged up due to all the snotty tissues (too much information?!) as we have all been struck down by some icky snot thing.

We have done some small things, like start buying big pots of yoghurt, and decanting into a small tupperware pot for hubby to take to work, and doing the same with big bags of crisps.

And I have signed us up to the Mail Preference Service to stop the pesky junk mail. You can read all about how to do this, in this awesome post here.

BUT I have some grand plans and have made some exciting discoveries, that should see our bin shrinking before our very eyes….

Grand plan #1

Get a Green Joanna from Great Green Systems.

We don’t currently have food waste collections in Wiltshire, and we are not supposed to even put vegetable peelings etc in the green garden waste bins. Our garden is not really big enough to support a compost heap, in that I don’t think it would generate enough garden waste to fuel it, so THIS is the answer!!

You can put in 2/3 kitchen waste to 1/3 garden waste, and you can put in cooked and uncooked food waste, as well as snotty tissues!!

If you live in Wiltshire, the council subsidise 75% of the cost of these (and their friends, the Green Cones) for their residents.You can find out more on the Wiltshire Council website here, and on the Great Green Systems website.

We are very kindly being ‘donated’ one by Wiltshire Council, so we can tell you all how wonderful it is!! (So, escaping on a technicality on the not buying anything new front-I know, still new, but again, like the solar panels, it’s a sustainability thing)

I am VERY excited about it. Perhaps a little more excited than a grown woman should be about a waste digester, but I am.

This should HUGELY reduce our bin contents. And make us compost for the garden. Yay!

I will keep you all posted with developments.

Grand plan #2

We are going to stop buying baby wipes.

We use reusable nappies and wipes most of the time. But when we go out, I always take a pack of wipes, as it is just easier, and then they are also on hand to mop up the inevitable spills. And we use them at home to wipe sticky hands and faces about 100 times a day.

But it is really just laziness.

So I am going to make a load of flannels from the rest of the old towel that I purloined from my mother in law to make the monster bath mitt, and use these instead.

Again, I will keep you posted…

Exciting discovery #1

The recycling centre (aka the tip) will take ALL forms of ‘non-bag’ plastic for recycling!

This is a revelation! How did I now know this?!

In Wiltshire, we can put plastic bottles in our kerbside recycling box, but now we can take other plastics, like punnets from fruit and veg, and yoghurt pots, as well as old plastic toys, to the recycling centre, and they will duly recycle them!

How fab is that? Again, I am aware that I am possibly a little over-excited at this news, but this must be what happens to you when you start Waste Watching..!

(In case you are interested, this is a list of what the recycling centres can take in Wiltshire-gripping stuff I know, but kind of useful)

Exciting discovery #2

All stretchy plastic can be recycled with the carrier bags in the carrier bag recycling bin thing that is outside most supermarkets.

You just need to do the ‘stretch test’. If it stretches, you can bung it in 🙂

If it doesn’t stretch, and breaks, then sadly, it still has to go in the bin at the moment 🙁

So, with just a couple of quite simple steps, we should see our bin slimming quite markedly over the coming weeks….