Monday 12 November 2012

The results are in.... 1st fortnight on Rubbish Diet Shropshire

Well after 2 weeks of eating, sleeping and talking rubbish - tonight I have weighed our rubbish..... da da daaah 5 people and a dog have produced 2 and a half bags of rubbish weighing a total of 5.4 kg. My wheelie bin is one third full. Our wheelie bin at the last bin day was nearly full with 5 bags in it weighing a total of 10kg. So in both weight and volume we have reduced our rubbish by almost 50%. The reduction is great but is 5.4kg still high? What weight of rubbish does an average UK family throw away each fortnight? Can anybody tell me? My next question is can we get any lower? Well, we seem to be getting into a rhythm now - avoiding non recyclable packaging. Our recycling system has had an overhaul to make it more efficient and the boys are heeding the big notice on the bin that says NO PLASTIC, NO METAL, NO PAPER, NO CARD AND CHECK WITH ME FIRST!! Our biggest problem is food waste. A couple of errors on portion size or forgetting to use up leftovers and bingo you have another kilo of methane just waiting to happen! So my big push over the next 2 weeks will be to be much more careful planning meals, buying food - trying not to be drawn in by bargain buys and using my freezer more effectively. Check out www.lovefoodhatewaste.org.uk to stop feeding landfill!! And thanks to the grow cook share project in Craven Arms because tey are going to share their Bokashi knowledge with us.

2 comments:

  1. Morning,

    These are great results, and goes to show how important avoiding waste is.
    DEFRA have released the annual figures, and across all local authorities in England, the average household landfills 524kg per year. So that's 19kg per fortnight. The very best authority manages 9kg per fortnight, so your doing brilliantly.
    There is always more to go, its a shrewd move to focus on the food, should help save some pennies as well.

    Its a great blog and i'm looking forward to the next edition...

    Andrew

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  2. Thanks for your encouragement Andrew - I have now moved the bin into the garage so that we really have to think about it!! Have a rubbish free day

    alison

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