In the bin:-
1. cat food pouches
2. plastic wrap off the chicken
3. plastic bags off the veg.
4. edge of the plastic from the stuffing
5. butter wrapper
6. cake liner
7. cat treaty wrapper
8. foil that wrapped the beef that had been saved from a previous meal
9. grotty bits of left over cat food
10. grotty bits from the sink drainer
11. floor bits from sweeping the kitchen floor
12. plaster dust and bits from sweeping the newly plastered under stairs loo
13. 'sucked' bones from the chicken dinner
14. 'window' from an envelope (the paper was recycled)
I don't think that's all but it's all I can remember at the moment. The bin under the sink is nearly full.
So much for ...
zero waste.
I have a long way to go.
xx
PS - the bin liner was a recycled plastic bag but than now ends up in landfill.
Small changes will soon make a difference. Can you not recycle the foil? X
ReplyDeleteasked my mum why we never had this huge load of modern garbage.
ReplyDeletewell, the butcher put the meat in paper, there were no plastic or styrofoam anythings, and the corn flake bag was cellophane or waxed paper.
i suppose the modern wrappings prevent bugs better, but food in our house was eaten so fast that the bugs never had a chance!
i do remember when the plastic milk jugs were introduced, so much lighter to carry on the walk home from the grocery store.
Often when I look at packaging it says not currently recylcle. x
ReplyDeleteDo you have a food waste collection? Bones etc. Also cat food can go out for the birds. Then you step up to refusing plastic packaging. Difficult I know.
ReplyDeleteIt's not easy being green. I have a 'green waste' collection which would take items 9, 10 and 13 but the rest would have to go in landfill. I've tried to stop worrying about it because it needs massive change at a corporate level - I just try and do what I can by refusing plastic bags and recycling where possible.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about trying to go zero waste.When you have animals aswell its impossible.Ive got 5 cats,so you can imagine the amount of foil sachets i get through in a week Although,the food my cats leave over night,that i know they wont touch again,I put the plate out on my front for other hungry cats and birds and hedgehogs eat it too.So the plate is pretty much licked clean when i bring it in the next day!,Also,my kitchen sweeping up goes in my compost in the garden..I read somewhere that you can do this.My plastic veg bags are rinsed out,turned inside out and used a few times again for wrapping packed lunches ect.When they are about done with I use them as a bin for putting my cat food pouches in.My neighbour gives me there old news papers,so i wrap other bits,like chicken bones,end bits of porridge ect in that hoping that it will rot into the ground easier when it reaches landfill.Well thats what i hope anyway!!,Debi,xx
ReplyDeleteThe over-packaging I encounter in any visit to the grocery store in the US drives me crazy! It's more and more difficult to find produce just loose, so I can buy one potato, or a handful of green beans if that's all I want. No, it's all packed up in plastic, in quantities I can't use, and I can't get the containers open anyway, so what does it matter? I have asked store employees if I could buy a smaller amount than one of the giant packages, and been told "Oh, we don't price things by the pound, just by the package." So, no, I cannot buy a smaller amount.
ReplyDeleteIt was my impression that more of us live in one or two person households, but all I see is gigantic packages of everything. And as Deborah says above, why are we so worried about sealing up all food so that we can barely get into the package ourselves? I take the food home, store it properly, and cook it with care, and I have yet to encounter food poisoning in my own kitchen.
I don't mean to natter on, but I'm more and more disinclined to eat all that super-sterile, sealed in plastic food, which actually, seems to often have been contaminated because it's been over-processed and chopped up, exposing more surfaces to bacteria.
Oh dear, didn't mean to go on, but I do wonder about the food I will be able to buy in the future.
I know what you mean. There is so much wastage on packaging
ReplyDeleteJulie xxxxx
Things are changing but maybe not fast enough. It's extremely hard to reduce waste beyond a certain point, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteJ x
We have noticed our main waste bin which is emptied every two weeks, these days is only half full and our recycling bin is much the same. We are on a mission not to bring things who's wrappings become waste as soon as we get the item home. When you start to think about waste, you can reduce waste, but at this time it would be hard to stop it completely.
ReplyDeleteI am so very grateful we can use paper,card etc. on the burner or in the Rayburn. The chooks get any left over food (not much) and the compost bins get the uncooked. Just today it was our collection day for plastic but also foil, paper, card, anything but glass really and I take that to the bottle bank in the next village; I didn't even put the bag out today as no point. A lot does say not currently recyclable which is a shame.
ReplyDeletePackaging accounts for so much of our rubbish, we are trying to reduce it but relying on supermarkets doesn't make it easy!
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, you had cake!
Very, very hard to go Zero waste. But if each of us, did what we really could, it would be better. And better is 'better' than just going on... Unthinking.
ReplyDeleteWe got "Bag It!" out of the library and watched it. It is amazing, to be faced with just how many plastic items, we use and discard. Eye opening! :::: And that film is 8 years old, imagine how much worse it is, by now.
Now, we try to stay as aware as possible. Not bringing into our home, what we can avoid... And thus, not having as much plastic "throw away," as we did.
"Throw away" There is no *away*.
I don't think one can totally get away from waste but avoiding things that add to waste and are not able to be recycled is a wonderful step.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
I hope that you dont mind me adding another comment,but another thing i do to is reuse the silver containers that takeaways come in...my sister gives me hers cause she doesnt recycle..I know i keep on at her!!!.I open out the corners so they go into a bigger plate type shape and wrap them around chicken pieces when i get them out of the freezer and they thaw in half the time! And can be washed and reused again next time we have chicken.And it keeps them out of the dustbin!.I also buy the big containers of mushrooms from Aldi and noticed that there is loads of cling film around these packs.So i carefully unwrap this,spread it out and cut it in to smaller pieces for covering things in the fridge.Ive not bought cling film for a few years now and again keeps it out of the dustbin until its no longer useable.Just thought id add a few more things that i do to keep things out of the dustbin!,Debi,xx
ReplyDeleteIt will come we are starting on the path ourselves at http://livinggentler.wordpress.com so far this month nearly 5kg of mixed dry recycling, 2kg of compostable food waste and three dustbin bags of non-recyclables, as a family of four we also have a long way to go...
ReplyDelete