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

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

Some Shropshire bin slimmers' results

Thank you to everyone who is slimming their bin with us this November! We asked people to take a photo of their rubbish on bin day - then use that day as the first day of the rubbish diet and then weigh each bag as it goes into the wheelie bin. Now we worked out that the average weight of refuse per household in Shropshire is 16.4 kg. So far we have had the following results: 1.3 kg 2 x adults household 2.45 kg 2 x adults household 3.05 kg 3 x adults household 5.4 kg 5 people and a dog 15.0 kg average 4 people and a dog Awaiting results from another 12 households who are taking part. Here are some of the difficult items left in the bin: laminated paper, cheese rind, old fimo, fish skins/chicken bones, inside of a chocolate box ( the goldy bit that the chocs go in), toothpaste tube, toothbrush that had already been used for cleaning, coffee/crisp packets - foil lined packets, DIY - empty paint pots, old paint brush, painty/spirity newspaper. Here are some of the problems that set you back: "My first fortnight was an unmitigated disaster.  Baseline 2kg for the fortnight.  Now up to 15kg.  More people in house -  daughter and boyfriend for 5 nights, my brother and his wife for 2.  That makes it up to an average of 4 people in the house from our normal 3.  Problem areas: -          Food waste -  fridge too full, me too busy, Dad giving me food he’d overbought just on/over its use by, both of us buying salad on the same day, food no longer fit to eat wasted chucked in its packets!! -          Broken crockery -          Neighbours large dog using our lawn as a toilet Onward and upward and yes food waste the focus.  And maybe visitor training? Questions:  what can I do with a broken mug?  What can I do with backpack on which zips are bust? Solutions:   Bag in freezer for stale bread -  the bread and butter pudding bag;  big carrier bags for film and black pots; planning our meals (breakthrough) and cooking stuff that will do three days meals  -  veg bake for me, chicken for the carnivores. So the rubbish diet is not all plain sailing - you do need a good run at it and it is easy to come off the rails occasionally. However - if we manage the bin slim for even 50% of the time we will be making a real difference to the waste that goes to landfill - and our council tax will go further and we will be saving money by not wasting food! Anyone else want to join us on the Rubbish Diet - drop us a line on alison.thomas08@gmail.com or follow us on twitter @RDShrosphire thanks Ali

How to stop "to the Occupier" mail....

People have been asking how to stop mail that isn't personally addressed: James Thompson, Waste prevention officer at Shropshire Council has sent over this information about how to stop "To the occupier" mail... The Mail Preference Service only stops addresses mail for the named occupants www.mpsonline.org.uk You can stop 'to the occupier' by emailing royal mail optout@royalmail.com see http://www.royalmail.com/you-home/controlling-your-mail And you cant completely stop but you can try to reduce free newspapers and take away fliers / political leaflets etc by adding a polite no thanks sign to your letter box It's also about being a bit savvy with giving your address out and making sure you always tick the box to say no to future marketing or not tick the box when they try to reverse the question subtly You can also ask the yellow pages etc not to bother sending you one too https://www.yellowpagesoptout.com/about-us - I find this is a good site http://www.saynotophonebooks.com/ Also this is a really good website http://www.stopjunkmail.org.uk/ This is worth a read too http://myzerowaste.com/articles/household/yellow-pages-bt-directories/ Here's to paperless communication!! Have a nice day