The first weekend

My husband is grumpy. He doesn't like his life made any more complicated. It is already difficult, with both of us working fulltime and having two small boys to look after. It is already looking as though the Zero Waste Challenge adds an order of magnitude to the complexity of daily life. But he is being immensely loyal, despite the grumpiness.

The first weekend of the challenge involved preparing a lunch for a friend on the Saturday. "We can't feed her anything" Stephen protests. "We are not allowed to buy anything any more"....so we sat down and worked out what food could be bought that didn't involve non-recyclable waste. It is taking me aback just how much organisation this really requires. In the end we bought vegetables and fruit from the market from the stalls which provide the food in paper bags, and a piece of fish from a supermarket which was wrapped in a plastic bag (which we think can be recycled in Tesco's carrier bag facility). For pudding we made some biscuits (being careful to buy the margarine wrapped in paper).

The children are used to eating chocolate spread on toast for breakfast. But their favourite spread comes in a jar with a plastic lid. So it is jam and lemon curd for them, until we can source a metal-lidded chocolate spread. And cereal? The only one which comes in a fully recyclable package is Scots Porridge Oats (in its plastic bag). Milk can be bought in glass bottles with a metal top, but that means getting it delivered and the delivery schedule is not convenient for working families. The usual plastic bottles have non-recyclable plastic tops....the list goes on. I can see that we will need frequent recourse to Victoria Kelso's expertise through the month (the council's recycling officer).

Sunday morning was the usual trip to Simon's organic vegetable stall on the market. This is a no-brainer - wonderful fresh food, picked the day before and driven a few miles from Littleport, and sold with a friendly chat and an update on the progress of the farm. And packed into my own shopping bags.

But tidying up the house later on unearthed a quantity of what we are now calling "non-reduceable waste". Any suggestions on what to do with some congealed lumps of wood-glue, anyone?