One bin of rubbish a year.

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One bin of rubbish a year.
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Aeolienne

Joined: 03 Apr 2008
Posts: 1498
Location: Leamington Spa, Warks

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 11 10:04 pm Post subject:
Myzerowaste has made the news in Italy!

wellington womble

Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 11 11:10 am Post subject:
Personally, we are rubbish at rubbish (although better than average, judging by the wheelie bins locally) although mostly one bag a week of endless endless packaging. There is a very good blog by Mrs Almost Average called the rubbish diet which is quite entertaining and was going to be made into a book last I read. She ended up throwing away one sticking plaster on the original 'diet'

Went

Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 6968

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 11 11:17 am Post subject:

Recycling facilities here in Spain are widely available - our village has 40 permanent residents swelling to around 80 in holiday times. We have 3 recycling points each taking glass, plastic and paper. Any other recycling can be taken to other facilities about 5km away. We don't have individual rubbish bins but there again there are around 8 large community bins around the village that are emptied every two days.

We produce about the equivalent of 1 carrier bag full of rubbish per week. Trying hard to reduce this but difficult.

paul1963

Joined: 15 Nov 2010
Posts: 2161
Location: No longer active on the forum

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 11 11:45 am Post subject:
Three wheelie bins per year at our house. And that's only because we can;t find anyone round here to take black plastic

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Mon Jan 10, 11 7:50 pm Post subject:

Gawber wrote:

That sounds interesting. I wonder if our Councils have considered this here. Do you think it encourages recycling and using less packaging as people have to actually handle it more for themselves?

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9714
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 10:46 am Post subject: Re: One bin of rubbish a year.

Penny Outskirts wrote:

https://myzerowaste.com/2010/01/the-greens-on-bbc-breakfast-tv/

Saw these people on our local news this morning, quite an achievement!

i dunno - they recycle loads and loads... which is good in a way - but bad in others.. we dont recycle much, cos we dont buy a lot of things that need recycling.

and we raise our own animals, so have bones etc to dispose of, whereas if you just buy from the butchers.. you can be smug about having little waste, whilst the butcher still has to dispose of the bones etc...

good on them for bringing the idea to a larger audience, but their blog is full of things like...tips on not wasting half a jar of pasta sauce.... obviously the first step is not buying the sauce in the first place... something not covered

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 10:51 am Post subject:

A agree CiG - the lady and I had a bit of an argument a while back over corks - she buys screw topped wine bottles that can be recycled as opposed to corked bottles. Corks are farmed sustainably from the Iberian cork forests which support many rare species including the Iberian Lynx. No cork, no need for cork forests. She acknowledged this to me privately but would not put anything on her bog about it. It seems to be that she's going for zero waste even when a little waste is in fact far more sustainable.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 10:53 am Post subject:
I use corks for starting the fire - so they aren't wasted. (Not that I have loads of corks at any one time, you understand .... )

Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 11:09 am Post subject:
A friend takes mine and makes them into cork boards

cinders

Joined: 04 Jun 2007
Posts: 2437
Location: norfolk The daft old bat club

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 2:34 pm Post subject:
I'm not sure if its on her blog, but i read recently that she wrote you can compost corks by grinding them up. Someone responsed by saying it was too much work and they made boards out of them instead. It also seems to me she recycles alot too, maybe her target audience is mr and mrs average consumer

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 2:41 pm Post subject:

judith wrote:

I use corks for starting the fire - so they aren't wasted.

Do all corks burn ? Even the kind-of plastic-y or composite corks ?
That's interesting - I always assumed they'd end up a stinky mess in a fire.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 2:47 pm Post subject:
Plastic corks are the work of the devil. I'd rather have a screw top.

Nicky cigreen

Joined: 25 Jun 2007
Posts: 9714
Location: Devon, uk

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 3:39 pm Post subject:

cinders wrote:

I'm not sure if its on her blog, but i read recently that she wrote you can compost corks by grinding them up. Someone responsed by saying it was too much work and they made boards out of them instead. It also seems to me she recycles alot too, maybe her target audience is mr and mrs average consumer

you can compost corks by not grinding them up too... but chucking them on the fire is what i do. although my wine drinking is either homebrew or cheap.. and cheap seems to come in screw top bottles.. which in turn is handy for homebrew..

you are right - i doubt we here are her target audience... but it would be good if the message was 'you can make your own pasta sauce' rather than 'look at me im so good i recycle 1000s of glass jars and it still uses energy to transport and re melt them but who cares about that im measuring it in bins '

IMO the emphasis is all about how much goes to landfill, without looking at the larger picture - ie whether her choices are still worse for the environment or if someone else has to throw away the rubbish instead of her.

cinders

Joined: 04 Jun 2007
Posts: 2437
Location: norfolk The daft old bat club

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 6:05 pm Post subject:
I think she is quite happy to pass her rubbish around, out of sight out of mine and then sings her own praises, i'm sure she could do more like you said, by making from scratch etc, therefore producing less waste

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 11 6:45 pm Post subject:

Green Rosie wrote:

Why does she think corked bottles can't be recycled? We tend to re-use the corkable ones with homebrew, where as the screw bottles go into the recycling bin.

And I'd have thought a cork could be burned or composted as a pose to screw top that is thrown away.

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