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

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

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.

Cardboard Christmas will be on 5th January in Shrewsbury

In the last year Shropshire Council have provided a number of cardboard bins around the county www.shropshirewaste.org.uk BUT these will not cope at Christmas!! To make sure that we keep cardboard out of landfill Transition Shrewsbury are running another Cardboard Christmas day on 5th January 2013. The aim is to collect as much cardboard as possible - getting it out from under your feet, keeping it out of landfill at the same time as raising some cash for local charity We will be collecting cardboard at at least 3 sites in Shropshire: The Red Barn Pub on Longden road Belle Vue The United Reform Church, Abbey Foregate South Shropshire Furniture Scheme Ludlow If you would like to volunteer to help us .... ....or if you would like to run your own Cardboard Christmas project please contact Ali on alison.thomas08@gmail.com Download our Keeping Cardboard out of Landfill Guide from www.transitiontownshrewsbury.org.uk How about collecting down your street - we can supply bags for you to use. For more information - drop us a line So far we have Ashley Street, Woodfield Road and Woodfield Avenue, Castlefields, Would love to have more......

Recycling Day - a good or a bad thing?

Just put out the recycling for kerbside collection tomorrow.... great to get it all out of my kitchen!! 1 and a half black dustbins completely full of plastic pots, bottles, trays, foil and tins 1 green wheelie bin full of woody garden waste about 10kg of paper 6 wine bottles Plus I had a meeting at the Red Barn tonight so took my cardboard up there and I took a carrier bag full of plastic film to the plastic bag bin at Sainsburys and this week I recycled 3 bags of toys and 2 bags of clothes Meanwhile in my grey wheelie bin there lies one bag of rubbish weighing 3.1 kg. Mixed feelings about all this - on the one hand it is amazing how much you can recycle in Shropshire when you put your mind to it but, then again, we have used so much stuff, so much energy has gone into making all that stuff, everything comes in so much packaging...... SO now i have a dual challenge - the first to try and eliminate non recyclable waste and the second is to reduce the overall amount of stuff we produce as a family. Any tips on where to shop to reduce packaging gratefully received thanks ali

Even your odd socks can be recycled!

Just had a nice conversation with lady at Severn Hospice. She says that the Hospice shop on Wyle Cop is very happy to receive rags - just put them in a tied up bag and label them rags so that they don't waste time sifting through them. they sell them to the rag man who recycles all the textiles. You can put clothes in bags in a bank at Red Barn - these clothes are not sorted and are sent lock stock and barrel to eastern Europe. Usable clothes will find a new home - but you can't be sure that unusable items will be recycled. The Salvation Army have a bank at ASDA - check out this link to see what happens to them http://www.wear2bank.co.uk/Questions Better to take rags to OXFAM banks at Sainsburys or bag them up and take them to a charity shop. By the way - I also found a cardboard bank at ASDA! Great for people in Abbey Foregate, Monkmoor and BelleVue

Stopping junk mail benefits all

Follow the link to see how to stop junk mail http://shropshire.gov.uk/news/2012/11/council-helps-residents-to-reduce-junk-mail/ Although we can recycle all our junk mail - it is still better not to produce it in the first place! By signing up to the mail preference service we save trees, save energy, save space in our recycling bins and save the council money in reduced collection costs which in turn means our council tax goes further! I signed up on-line and even I found it straightforward! By the way - anyone got any clue what to do with plastic animal feed bags?