Ashley St Rubbish Dieters off to a flying start

15 Households on Ashley Street are slimming their bins together! The Rubbish diet challenge, Spring 2013 has got off to a flying start with 15 households on Ashley St, Cherry Orchard, working together to slim their bins. Jackie Jones and Naomi Hutchings began the bin slimming process before Christmas and were so surprised at how effective it was, that they decided to get ask their neighbours to join them. Jackie Jones said “We can’t believe how many of our neighbours have joined in – we thought it might just be a couple of other houses. It is proving to be really popular and we take it in turns to host meetings each fortnight to eat cake and exchange weights.” Naomi added “We have decided to share lifts to the bring banks and the household recycling centre – so each fortnight, one family collects all the cardboard, tetrapaks, electrical items etc from the street and takes them for recycling – so we are saving 14 journeys very 2 weeks as well helping people without a car to recycle more.” The results after the first 2 weeks were astounding with most families reducing their waste by one third and one family reducing their waste by a massive 20kg! Whether it’s a space issue and you can’t get everything in your bin, your wheelie bin smells because of rotting food or you just can’t stand our throw away lifestyle – the rubbish diet challenge will solve all your waste problems. It’s very simple to do: you start by weighing your rubbish the day before bin day – so that you have a starting point and then you weigh it for the next 4 bin days. Each slimmer is given a starter pack with a step by step guide to how to slim your bin. This is full of top tips for reducing your waste and avoiding difficult materials. The great thing about doing the Rubbish Diet Challenge is - it really works! The results are dramatic and the support you get from other local dieters is great. To find out more about the Rubbish Diet please email Alison Thomas on alison.thomas08@gmail.com or call 07972 858313. Alison said “I would love to hear from you if you fancy taking the Rubbish Diet challenge to see how much waste you can lose, we are hoping individuals, streets, schools, clubs or businesses will take up the Rubbish Diet challenge this Spring. The Rubbish Diet is a finalist in the NESTA Waste Reduction competition and we are looking for 100 households to take part in a trial with us in April. I will come and talk you through the process and connect you to other people in your area and support you through the 8 week process.”

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

Bin confusion in Shrewsbury!

Just got back from recycling at the Ludlow Medieval Christmas Fayre - a fantastic event set inside the beautiful Ludlow Castle!! We had a fine time squelching around in the mud and bin diving but.... we managed to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill dramatically. We first worked at the event in 2011 - in 2010, the event had sent 37 skips to landfill - last year we reduced this to 7 simply by putting in a waste separation system and capturing recyclable materials. This year all the event landfill waste went into 2 mini skips - a great result given the very wet conditions. It will be a couple of days before I know weights. Anyway - that's just to explain why I haven't been blogging this past week. So what was happening at my house while I was away? well, being quite a control freak and obviously totally obsessed by rubbish I was a little concerned about whether we could adhere to the Rubbish Diet without me standing over the bin. However, imagine my delight when on Tuesday morning - bin day - my husband put out the recycling instead of the refuse because there was hardly anything in the bin and he thought it must be a recycling week!! www.shropshirewaste.co.uk On closer inspection there was one bag in the bin full of sweet wrappers from the boys bedrooms and the kitchen bin contents weighed 2.4 kg. In the past it would have been a disaster to miss the bin men - but under the Rubbish diet it's no big deal - no fear of having an over flowing bin and no foul smelling rubbish because there's no food waste in it! So it seems that my family are quite happy to keep on with the rubbish diet even if I am not here and treading lightly with regard to waste is getting easier and easier.

Landfills don't need calories

Talking of food waste - here's a bit of info to get us thinking.... "As its coming up to Christmas we could all do with a bit more spare cash in our wallet, right? Well did you know that the average UK family throws out approximately £550 worth of food each year! Shocking, isn't it? But it's true and most of that is simply because we buy too much or cook too much and then never get round to eating it. And of course when you've got a busy lifestyle with kids this problem is just magnified. Some kids can be fussy eaters too - we've all spend hours slaving over a hot stove only to see the little ones leave half the food uneaten on their plate. Well one way to help avoid this is getting your children more involved in meal planning and preparing dinner. This can be fun and may help them to appreciate the value of food and waste less. Simply by planning out your meals for the week ahead in a diary, you can reduce waste because you can plan out a shopping list, so that you only buy what you really need. Some ways of reducing food waste are really as simple as just storing food in a different place. Two-thirds of UK households are letting fruit go to waste, simply by keeping it out in a fruit bowl whereas fruit like apples will last up to 14 days longer if kept in the fridge. Another top tip is to make the most of your freezer. Try freezing any leftovers in individual portions and then you have a perfect lunch to take to work in the week. But make sure you wrap food properly before freezing to keep it at its best. Use freezer bags or plastic containers and minimize the air around the food helps avoid ‘freezer burn’. And it's not just all about money - by saving food waste we can all tread more lightly on the planet. Producing, distributing, storing and cooking food uses energy, fuel and water. All these activities result in greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming. Think of a pack of cheese for example. The resources that go into raising the cows, processing the milk, transporting the cheese, refrigeration, the fuel we use to drive to the shop to buy it - all this to put it in the bin at the end of the week. It's insane but it's happening all over the country right now - in fact in the UK we throw away the equivalent of more than three million slices of cheese every single day! In Shropshire around 20% of all household waste is food waste - so that means we're producing about 30,000 tonnes of the stuff every year. Of course now some of this will be composted or feed to pets and the like but even if it doesn’t all end up in landfill its far better to avoid this waste in the first place. Being frugal with your food is helping to ensure our environment is protected for the future generations." For more handy hints and tips and a delicious selection of family friendly recipes visit http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ Regards, James Thompson, Waste Prevention Officer Waste Management Shropshire Council

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.

Thoughts from a bin slimmer

I'll admit to making a somewhat half-hearted attempt at slimming my bin. Partly, because it seems to be quite slim already. This isn't because I'm some eco-warrior, just because I've done the easy stuff and I'm not sure what to do next. 

I unintentionally slimmed my bin a few years ago, I actually had to go out and buy a smaller bin. We were emptying ours so infrequently that it was really starting to smell!

I wasn't really trying to at the time it was just a lucky coincidence. 

The things that made this happen were:

1. We bought a house with our very own garden and started composting. All the veg peelings that used to go in the bin are now outside making lovely compost for my veg patch.

2. We stopped buying milk in plastic bottles or cartons and instead have it delivered. Three times a week a bottle of fresh milk is on the doorstep before breakfast and the empty bottles are taken away to be re-used. This is surely one of the most wonderful and environmentally friendly ways of packaging anything - nothing to throw away at all! 

These two things made a dramatic difference. And, I'd got rather complacent until I heard about Karen Cannard http://therubbishdiet.blogspot.co.uk/ getting her weekly rubbish down to just one plaster. 

I'm definitely a long way off from that one.

I quick peek in the kitchen bin has revealed the following:

A cake box - This is mostly cardboard so could have been recycled but is also coated in sticky icing and needs the plastic film window peeling out. I was too lazy to get covered in lemon icing while trying to rip out a bit of necessary plastic that I just binned it. 

Washing up gloves - I always bin these and dishcloths. I think the only answer is to buy a more expensive, better quality brand, in the hope that they last longer and so I throw away less. Also, instead of binning a pair of gloves I just bin the one with the hole in and so only need one new one. I occasionally end up with two left hands, but every little helps! 

A biro - At the risk of covering everything in blue ink, I'm going to hunt down my old fountain pen from secondary school and stop using disposable pens.

Hope you've enjoyed these ramblings and please share your bin slimming challenges and successes!