Sunday 30 December 2012

Cardboard Christmas in Shrewsbury and Ludlow

Transition Town Shrewsbury are doing Cardboard Christmas again! The Cardboard bring banks in town wont cope over Christmas and not everyone can trek up to the HRC Please hang onto your Christmas Cardboard and bring it to one of our cardboard collection points: United Reform Church, Abbey foregate, Red Barn Pub, Longden road, Spar Precinct, Castlefields and Riversway Church, Lancaster road. Sites will be operating between 9am and 2pm on Saturday 5th January 2013. Please don’t landfill your cardboard – bring it to us! All proceeds will go to Severn Hospice, Hope House and Friendly Neighbours. For more information phone Ali on 07972 858313 or email alison.thomas08@gmail.com If you would like to collect on your street give us a ring or if you are uinable to reach any of the cardbaord collection point – we can give you bags and collect from you. If you would like to volunteer on the day – give us a shout – all welcome!

Wednesday 19 December 2012

Using your loaf! Bread and Butter Pudding Bag in the freezer

Just been speaking to one of our Rubbish Diet families - Katy and Wilf, with a neat solution to the end of a loaf problem - you know when the last slice gets too dry to toast. They have come up with the Bread and Butter Pudding Bag in their freezer and they just add the odd slice and then when they have enough they defrost it and celebrate with a delicious bread and butter pudding. Great stuff

Friday 14 December 2012

Swapping my 240 litre wheelie for slim-line version

As I struggled to get my blue wheelie bin past the car in the drive last week I had a thought - the Rubbish Diet has reduced my rubbish so much that I don't need a great big wheelie bin any more! So I contacted Shropshire council to see if I can swap my 240litre bin for a slim line version. Apparently I can - so hopefully very soon I will be getting my smaller bin. It will take up less space on the drive and will be easier to move about. Oh the joys of slimming my bin!! So far the benefits have been: No more smelly bin as we have stopped wasting food, No more panic about missing the bin men as it's no big deal if I have to wait 4 weeks for a refuse collection, We are saving money by planning our meals to avoid waste, And I am saving the council on landfill tax as more and more of our stuff is getting recycled. And I feel like the environmental impact of our household is getting smaller as we begin to use resources more wisely and waste less stuff. Determined to keep a lid on waste this Christmas! Best wishes Ali

Tuesday 11 December 2012

InSinkerators for food waste means zero collection cost

From the Shropshire waste blog: Shrewsbury sinks food waste An national study has been launched in Shrewsbury with funding from the Local Government Association. The project will investigate the impact of Food Waste Disposers which are being fitted in the new David Wilson Homes development, Riverside Meadows, on the site of the old Shrewsbury Town football stadium. Philippa Roberts from local environmental consultants Low and Behold who are managing the project explained, “Waste water treatment works like the one in Shrewsbury use Anaerobic Digestion to process their sewage. This same technology can be used to process food waste; producing renewable energy in the process.” The Food Waste Disposers supplied by Insinkerator UK are electrically powered units which are plumbed into kitchen sinks. They grind food waste into tiny particles which can then simply wash down the sink. This will enable the residents to send their food waste for anaerobic digestion without the need for it to be collected. As well as making it hygenic and easy for the residents to cut down on what goes in their bins, this project will also help to produce renewable energy, reduce waste to landfill and thus potentially make huge financial sense. The Council spends millions of pounds of taxpayers money collecting and disposing of waste each year and with around one-fifth of all domestic waste being food waste it makes sense to look at all available options to tackle this. In particular in flats, waste storage and collection can be difficult and some dont have access to a garden for home composting so food waste will generally go in the bin and end up going to landfill. This project is providing alternative means of managing this food waste which can be more sustainable, more cost-effective and simpler for the residents. It will be really interesting to see how this study goes - I imagine bones might cause a few problems in the grinder. can anyone join in?

Friday 7 December 2012

Christmas challenges on the Rubbish Diet

Feeling fairly daunted about trying to keep a lid on consumption over Christmas - any tips would be gratefully received. Here are a few things I am going to try and do.... Christmas cards: • It is so easy to buy charity cards and those made from sustainable sources – and sometimes I even make it in time to go to the charity Christmas card shop in St Marys Church!! • In our office we agree with work colleagues not to send cards but to put £2.00 in a pot to support a charity instead • We are famous in our family for keeping all our Christmas cards with the intention of making present tags and new cards - we do make a few but probably better to take all your cards to Marks and Spencers after Christmas for Woodland trust Christmas presents • One job this weekend is to give the charity shops a Christmas present by having a clear out - this feels like a present for me as well as we declutter a bit! • No doubt I will be looking for a special reuse gift while I'm dropping off the stuff! (must make sure I come home with less though!) • I love to give my family OXFAM gifts like latrines, water, chickens or school meals - presents that don't clutter up their house, produce no packaging, don't need batteries and have a practical, positive impact in the world! • At Christmas I love going to the Fairtrade Shop in town - beautiful things and food that taste FAIRLY good!! • It's great to be given gifts of time - dog walks, promises of house work assistance, cooking once a week! I wonder if that will happen this year - I might have to drop a few hints! Wrapping paper • My challenge is not to buy any wrapping paper at all as my "it'll come in corner" is taking over the whole room! I also have to use all that shiny chocolate wrap to decorate paper - I know this is just sending my rubbish to someone else's but at least the stuff is REUSED before it hits the bin. • I found this guide to make a present box which even I could manage with quite pleasing results! http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-gift-box-from-paper-without-glue-or-/ • I also have some pretty pieces of material that I can wrap things in. Christmas lunch • We are going to my mum's for Christmas lunch. It is always great fun to cook together and my boys eat loads - however - we have to coordinate to make sure we don't both buy stuff - panic food buying is a sure fired way to food waste in the bin. • Christmas tree dilemma - what should we do? plastic or real? Christmas Rubbish challenge • Having been on the Rubbish Diet for 6 weeks now, we will be trying not to overload our bin at Christmas. I dread the packaging - but never fear because as long as it isn't polystyrene it should be recyclable. Anticipating visitors makes me realise that my compost bin is pretty full already. Shropshire Council www.shropshirewaste.org.uk are selling them at £16 each and get second half price - does anyone want to buy one with me? I will be saving all our cardboard for Cardboard Christmas on 5th January! - got a dumpy bag out side to store it. Let me know if you would like a bag or can volunteer with us on the 5th. Christmas electricity Can I have Christmas lights? Please..... I think as long as they are LED they use very little electricity am I right? Hoping we packed them away carefully last year so they will be in good working order for this year. Found 3 sets of lights in Rubbish sort yesterday - if you find yours don't work - you can take them to a WII bank - there is one at HRC and another at Red Barn Pub on Longden Road. How do you keep a lid on the bin over Christmas? Best festive wishes ali

Tuesday 4 December 2012

5 weeks into Rubbish Diet Shropshire and .....

Well we had a good chat last night - only a few people were able to make Rubbish Diet meeting but a big welcome to Gill, Katharine's mum who is now on board with us. The feedback from you all has been great over the last 5 weeks .... James is managing to reduce each week and was down to 520g for week 3 - any more data James? Tina has noticed a huge reduction in volume and is homing in on those awkward items. Howard brought up a really good point - we both realised very early on that getting down to one plaster was not an option for us. BUT both our households have managed to reduce volume by three quarters and weight by at least 50% from where we started. Does it matter if we don't get down to a plaster? My feeling is that we are showing that without wearing a hairshirt we can reduce our waste significantly and still make a difference. Shropshire is already doing quite well when you compare average bin weights - 16.4kg per household per fortnight with national averages. The average household size is 2.4 people in our area which makes an average of 6.8 kg per person per fortnight. The Shropshire rubbish dieters have completely smashed those figures! Even when things go slightly wrong our fortnightly weights are way lower than these averages for example, Anna with 3 adults in her house has just turned in a weight of 1.21 kg compared with an average of 20.4 kg for a fortnight. My first fortnight weighed 5.4 kg for 5 people instead of an average 34 kg!! Last night we talked about how the process is making us change behaviour.... Lots of discussion about leaving black trays on the shelves - Anna left a bargain on the shelf because it was in a black tray And we agreed that it is ok to not feel guilty about everything! It's ok to eat crisps and catfood in foil-lined packaging occasionally! Overall, people seem to have found the process interesting, a challenge and rewarding - my highlight has been putting the wrong bins out and it being no big deal! Incidently, 4 of my neighbours tried to tell us that we had got it wrong - they were so worried that we would be left with overflowing refuse for another fortnight! little did they know!!! Would love to hear your highlights - and Katy is devising a simple online survey for us to put down our thoughts. I am really glad to have made myself and my family go through this process and thrilled that you guys have done it too!! We have proved to ourselves that it is possible and indeed straightforward to slim your bin in Shropshire. So armed with the findings of our trial I am really keen to roll it out to more people in the New Year. People thought we should produce a ten point guide to the Rubbish Diet Challenge The Guide would start with all the benefits: No more smelly bins No more worries about missing the bin men Saving money by not wasting food Less money spent on bin liners! Council Tax going further if less has to be spent on landfilling stuff As well as the overall impact of using resources more wisely saves energy, saves landfill space and saves raw materials All leading to a happier planet! Then we can take the Rubbish Diet challenge to different people... Tina and I are thinking about trying to get Meole Brace School on board in the New Year. Gill is thinking about getting her choir on board Katharine had a great idea of taking it to a Young Professional Forum Could you get a friend, a neighbour, work colleagues on board - or would your club, guide pack or football team be up for a challenge? Have a think and let me know if you have any ideas, suggestions, comments or bin weights.... Many thanks and best wishes ali

Veolia Advent Calendar

Just heard about this ..... Watch your Waste-line this Christmas Check out the Veolia Shropshire Advent Calendar www.veoliashropshireadventcalendar.co.uk "Count down the days until Christmas with our waste and recycling advent calendar. Veolia Environmental Services and Shropshire Council have launched an online waste-themed advent calendar – which is perfect for helping Shropshire residents stay green this Christmas and watch their ‘waste’-lines! Every day throughout December, until Christmas Eve, there will be a new helpful hint about reducing waste this Christmas, or a mind-boggling fact about just how much we use and throw away throughout the festive period." So far so good..... What motivates you? When you hear a shocking fact about waste does it make you want to produce less waste? Maybe, you prefer to be part of the solution - so hearing about how well we are doing as a community gives you that incentive to work even harder at waste reduction? I like to know what difference recycling is making - how much energy we save, how much space in landfill we save and how many raw materials we save I would love to know what motivates you to slim your bin thanks ali