Like Marian, my husband is a bit put out by this exercise. He and I are both committed recyclers already, and spend a great deal of time sorting our rubbish so as to put as little as possible in the black bin. Rare is the time when we put out a full black bin, and there have been weeks when we haven't put it out at all, preferring to save it until the next fortnightly collection to save our hardworking bin-men one bin.
The difficult bit for us is changing our shopping habits. The main culprit in our lives is food packaging. Fruit trays (especially for soft fruit like raspberries and strawberries), yoghurt pots, that sort of thing. Do we change our dietary habits, or can we persuade Waitrose to take the wretched things back? Last Friday I made my first shopping trip under the new regime. I combined it with a visit to the launch of the new battery recycling scheme at Waitrose (3 cheers for them! Not that we use many batteries in our house...). I found it took me much longer to do my usual shop, having to linger over choices whereas before I simply grabbed the usual stuff. Instead of taking the laundry blobs I usually buy, I opted for a bottle of Ecover washing liquid, which I can later re-fill at Daily Bread (at a cost of X for the additional fuel and time it will take me to get there!).
Sunday I took a meander to the market to buy cakes from Tom (took my own carrier bag, which is usual practice anyway) and a couple of items of veg from Simon Steele.
I think I will be pushing for a more comprehensive kerbside plastics recycling service in the next year's Council budget round, to include all types of plastics - not just bottles - and also Tetrapaks! Watch out Colin!
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