Not giving up...

Ever since we started this challenge I've been wrestling with the problem of how far to take the Zero Waste ethic. Should we shun everyday staples to keep down the waste, then start buying them again next month? How far should I push it? I considered, for example, 'going Indian' for the month - i.e. not even using (recycled) toilet paper. Having done this in India I know I could, but it's not so easy in this country where all loos are geared toward paper usage. However some time ago I stopped using disposable sanitary products, and this poses less of a challenge. I shant go into detail, but if ladies want to know more, just visit http://www.mooncup.co.uk/ One of the best purchases I've ever made.

Back to more everyday items, and I decided that there were some things we wouldn't give up, but we'd make more of an effort to minimise the waste created. The main example of this is yoghurt. We have stopped buying individual portion-sized pots of yoghurt. Instead we buy a large waxed-cardboard pot (compostable) and decant the yoghurt into small airtight tupperware pots for lunches. The pots still have a plastic peel off lid, but one of these is better than 6. Maybe we can persuade the organic company that makes the yoghurt to make the lids compost-heap friendly too?

We're avoiding things wrapped in plastic, but actually anything that comes in a plastic bag is still looked upon as a resource at the moment. With the green dog loo still waiting to be installed we need bags to take out dog-walking, and I don't want to have to buy any!

Crouching dog, hidden rubbish

Last week was national Recycle Now Week, and I was busy running neighbourhood roadshows on council estates, holding stalls at city centre parks and the Arbury Carnival, door knocking and taking part in a Sustainable Living Exhibition in the Grafton centre. For this exhibition we had invited Michelle Reader, an artist who uses waste materials in her work, to come and make a sculpture in-situ. Michelle did bring her own rubbish, but as you can see Marian and I took our bags of rubbish from the first week of Zero Waste to see if she could reuse any of it. Over the course of the day a fantastic transformation took place, as piles of rubbish were diminished and the sculpture grew into this wonderful dog! The County Council are now going to run a competition to name it.

We didn't get rid of all our rubbish unfortunately, but it has inspired me and I would like to make something out of what we collectively have left at the end of the month (maybe a trophy for the person with the least waste - ha ha!)

Things that are annoying me this week:

You used to be able to get yoghurt in a glass jar - what happened?

I can't find any margerine that isn't in a plastic tub

Overpackaged boxes of chocolates received as gifts (close to finishing one, eek!)

When I asked the girl on the fish counter to only use one plastic bag for my haddock, she said "I normally get told off if I only use one bag"

Boxes of ice-cream cornets that you assume will be wrapped in paper inside the box but the paper has a needless layer of plastic in it (best to stick to the brands you know!)

If it's broke, fix it!

News just in - I have heard through the grapevine about a meeting being held on Tue. 19th June, at 8pm. at the CB1 Cafe, on Mill Road in Cambridge entitled 'If it's broke, fix it!'. The idea is for people to share their knowledge and experience of repairing goods, who can do it, how much money you could save etc. They want to build a local resource of information and advise about repairing goods.

I think it is free, if you would like to go any questions, comments or suggestions can be sent to FixIt@red-inc.demon.co.uk

It's a dog's life

Determined to get off on the right foot, on Friday evening I rooted out the 'green dog loo' that's been in the shed for months and cleared a space to install it. This is basically a bin with holes in that you bury, put dog poo in with an activator and flush through with water every so often, thus composting the waste. Over the month I will need to dispose of about 60 of our dog's doings. Most of these are collected on walks, and at the moment we reuse plastic bags from bread etc, and most of them go in the special bins in the park - but this is still landfilled. On examining the instructions on the kit though, I discovered that I have to dig a hole about a metre wide and 70cm deep, and then back-fill it with stones and gravel which I don't have. Realising that this is a bit more complicated and time-consuming than first thought, I decided I need my other half to help out. As he's away it will have to wait - so much for getting off on the right foot!

To cheer myself up I took our considerable backlog of plastic bottles to the recycling centre, and spent Monday evening making fish cakes from scratch for the first time. This added about an hour onto the usual cooking time for bought fishcakes, but there was no packaging, I froze some for homemade 'ready meals' and they were delicious! Now I can feel smug again.

Bin Diving

One thing we didn't anticipate was our cleaner's lack of commitment to Zero Waste. It is difficult at the best of times to get her to understand about recycling: what goes where, what needs to happen to it on the way, that sort of thing. But in her zeal to get her job done, everything (and I do mean everything) goes straight into the black bin. Do not pass GO. Do not sort out the plastic and glass and toilet-roll cardboard cylinders. Despite my clear and obvious system in the kitchen for collecting recyclables. So I had to do a bit of bin-diving yesterday in order to remove those things from the black bin. Unfortunately, because there is so little in our black bin at the moment, it was a bit of a stretch to reach the lone bag right at the bottom, but I did it. I think she goes on holiday next week :~)

Ask Victoria

We've already been firing questions at our City Council expert, Victoria Kelso, and we'll be reporting on our findings.

If you have any questions regarding waste, how about clicking on the "comment" link below, and adding your question here, and we'll get some responses back to you.