Thanks to David at Sustained Magazine for sharing this video with me (he's cool and so is the magazine!)Somehow David knew I would be interested in worm poop and I thought you would be too. The featured video focuses on a US company called TerraCycle, which is innovative in its Zero Waste product development model. The company uses waste rather than creates it.What I particularly love about its Worm Poop product is that it is packaged in plastic bottles that have been collected and re-used (not recycled). This means that the products come in all shapes and sizes and not some standardised bottle...
Friday, 30 May 2008
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Video Week: Earth Friendly Moving
If you are thinking of moving house, wouldn't it be great to find a company that offered a zero waste sustainable solution! Well there is one company in the form of Earth Friendly Moving, which appears to offer such services in the United States. If anyone knows of a UK equivalent, then please feel free to share. For more info, visit www.earthfriendlymoving.com_____________________________________________________...
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Video Week: 17 ways to recycle your electronic waste
This one is just for fun, but at the same time highlights a more serious issue, about which further information can be found at the links that are listed below the video.I hope you enjoy the video and see if you can spot the Camera Phone. My particular favourites are the coffee machine and the shrinkwrapped elephant - pure genius!To find out more about recycling electronic waste, please take a look at:Wikipedia: Electronic Wastehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-wasteBBC: Mechanics of e-waste recyclinghttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6254816.stmSwiss e-waste Guide: a knowledgebase for the sustainable...
Tuesday, 27 May 2008
Video Week: Zero Waste Hotel
If you're in the U.S. and happen to be in the vicinity of Boulder, Colorado, then it's worth checking out the Boulder Outlook Hotel, which happens to run on Zero Waste principles. You can see how they manage it in the following You Tube video. It is something that I would dearly like to see in the UK, so if you know of any such organisations locally, please let me know as I would love to feature them.For those who are wondering, The City of Boulder is located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and apparently is known for "its natural beauty, outdoor recreation, natural product retailers...
Monday, 26 May 2008
Video Week: The Story of Stuff
As this is Half Term and I am out having fun with the kids (in the rain), I am declaring this The Rubbish Diet Video Week. Every day I will be publishing a video clip, some of which have been sent in by readers.It's easy blogging material I know, but I won't have much access to the PC this week and will save any special anecdotes for when the kids are back at school.So without further ado, I would like to introduce the The Story of Stuff, which has been circulating the Internet for months. If you haven't seen it, it makes excellent viewing, particularly with regard to the waste cycle. ...
Friday, 23 May 2008
The power of NO and other preparations
Yay - Half Term has arrived!This means a whole week of pleasure and pain, adventures and scuffles, fun and boredom and requests coming out of my ears for this, that and the other!BUT THIS TIME I AM PREPARED!Yes, I am prepared to occupy the enemy territory and distract the troops into submission.It's simple really.As well as my often-used phrase..."not on your nelly", there's a simple technique I can recommend.It all starts with just one word...."NO!" It's a pretty small word but for parents it can be one of the hardest to say, especially when you're being brow-beaten by the nag, nag, nag of little...
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Almost Mrs Averages leaves Suffolk!
NOW THAT'S A HEADLINE THAT WOULDN'T SELL NEWSPAPERS!But yes, the news is that I'm getting out of town today and even venturing out of the region.Destination LONDON! The UK capital of the freebie paper.One of my memories of working in London during the nineties was how the tube trains were often used as surrogate recycling bins, with newspapers abandoned on the seats, the floors and even tucked away near the windows. The buses were no better!I wonder if anything has changed, particularly in light of new titles that have since been launched. If my memory serves me well, we only had the Metro...
The Experimental Kitchen
Welcome to my experimental kitchen.I know it looks pretty small and it really is this tiny.This photo shows only half the room. The other half is about the same size.It comes straight out of the comic book of modern house-building, which for a family of four, can only be out-done by marketing literature for London bedsits.I used to think our kitchen was too small for proper baking, but since getting rid of the microwave and recently off-loading the breadmaker on Freecycle, I am grateful for the extra space.And believe me, that's welcome space in which I can happily don my imaginary white coat...
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Kids 'n' Crap!
Oh heck. It’s half-term next week! Just when you think everything’s going smoothly and all very tickety-boo, school shuts down for a week and all hell lets loose. Don’t get me wrong, I actually love school holidays. I love the fact that we can stay in our pyjamas until at least 9 o’clock. I love the fun that we have as a family, exploring new things and going on new adventures. Most of all, I love the opportunity to relax with the children and ditch many of the rules that are tied to the school-day routine. But this half-term I am also thinking about my bins, which I now feel need as...
Monday, 19 May 2008
The Mystery Sacks
Well Ruth was nearly there and Fumblina just that bit closer, almost bang on with the location!The sacks which I talked about last week are for biodegradable waste, all of which can be shredded and processed into soil improver and humus.They were spotted in and around Stretham in East Cambridgeshire, when visiting my newly-wed friends Mr T and his wife, who as you can see was more than happy to demonstrate the rest of their household recycling facilities.What a novel way to spend one's first day of wedded bliss eh, rooting through the recycling! (I am sorry Mrs T and feel that I should apologise...
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Fun Friday!
I spotted lots of these sacks on the roadside while visiting a friend last weekend. The same friend who got married on Friday and celebrated his 40th birthday on Saturday. He certainly knows how to party!Anyway, as we drove around the area, I couldn't help wonder why there were so many paper sacks sitting on the roadside. At first I thought they could be doorstep potato deliveries, but some people would need to eat a load of chips or mashed potato to get through all those bags! So, any guesses what these sacks are used for and where in the UK this photo might have been taken. I'd like to...
The Centenary Post
Would you 'Adam and Eve' it! This is the 100th post for The Rubbish Diet, which started just a few months ago in January.I can't believe it was just four months ago. It seems much longer than that. I am also amazed that until this week, I haven't needed to put out the bin for 10 whole weeks (since the weigh-in at the beginning of March). Before I started the blog, I had to put out the bin every couple of weeks because if I missed a collection there would be trouble...and nobody likes dealing with a backlog of waste!The only reason I had to put it out this time was because of a polystyrene mishap......a...
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Jumper Jigsaw
I promise I wasn't in a bad mood when I grabbed the sharpest scissors in the house and had a go at this jumper.It wasn't a revenge attack on Mr A's favourite clothing or anything like that.It was more of a creative opportunityStill concerned? Well don't be... it wasn't even his jumper.It was in fact a long-suffering sweater that has seen good use with our 6 year old and has also been well worn (or rather worn out) by his 3 year old brother. It's been so well worn it's developed a huge hole in the sleeve and my darning skills are not up to much.Anyway, yesterday morning I found it lurking in...
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Jo Beaufoix's Rubbish Diet Plan
Do you remember the Beaufoix Bin from Mansfield?The key problem is that it is always full to its 240 litre capacity. On top of that there are often extra bags of rubbish that can't even fit in, which owner Jo Beaufoix has to take to the dump on a regular basis. That all works out at an estimated 260 cubic litres of waste, every fortnight.This bin needs some help and the aim is to slim it down to around half its size.Jo kindly provided me with a lot of detail about what goes in her bin and is now ready to tackle her rubbish head-on.Her Rubbish Diet Plan includes the following recommendations:SEEK...
Monday, 12 May 2008
Holey Tights!
Hooray... What a beautiful May we've been enjoying in SuffolkWith the warmer weather upon us, I've happily ditched my thick, comfortable "40 deniers" for the more flirty "7 denier barely there" number... just in time for our friends' wedding this weekend (which was perfect by the way).But BOO...I'd forgotten about those darn ladders!You know the ones....They appear in the wrong place at the wrong time and cannot be fixed easily, not even with clear nail polish!Yes, I'm talking tights, nylons or pantyhose!Aside from the more heavy-duty winter thickness type, lighter denier tights can suffer from...
Thursday, 8 May 2008
The Beaufoix Project
The Beaufoix Project....I like the sound of that. It could be the title for a movie. All that's now needed is a plot.Anyway while I ponder that, our more down-to-earth Beaufoix Project to slim the Beaufoix bin is now underway. Having kindly submitted her initial audit to me at the weekend, Jo has been waiting with baited breath, while I have been busy with my investigations.You may now have the picture in your head of Miss Marple with magnifying glass poking about the wheelie bins or hiding in the bushes on “bin lorry watch”.Although very tempted by this approach, I thought it was easier to...
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Is that a Dalek in your garden?
If you've been looking into composting this week (well it is Compost Awareness Week), you might have been considering which option is best for you: whether it's a beehive composter, building your own or perhaps getting one of those dalek types. If you are still pondering, perhaps this little clip will help you decide:...now where did I leave that sink plunger....
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
The person behind the voice: Jenny from Bletchley
If you were listening into the JVS show on Three Counties Radio last Thursday, you would have heard me chatting briefly with caller Jenny about her rubbish.Jenny had phoned in to tell presenter Jonathan Vernon-Smith that her solution to the problem of over-packaging is to unwrap it and leave it at the supermarket. She relayed it with such great humour, I was disappointed when our 5 minutes airtime was up.I knew I could have talked rubbish with her for much longer. Her character was compelling.So, I decided to catch up with her off-air and I guess it’ll be of no surprise that we had a good...
Easier done than said: Bread Rolls
Yesterday morning, I made some bread rolls. I know...I nearly fell off my own chair!It all resulted from a conversation that I had with my husband over breakfast, reminiscing about our stay in a French guest-house last year and remembering how lovely the breakfasts were.It was all down to Madame Marty and her ability to afford time to making her own jams, yoghurt and bread rolls. One morning while chatting to Mme Marty, she asked me what I did. When I told her that I was a housewife, she nodded almost in solidarity and conversed in a way that assumed I made the same lovely things as she did.It's...
Monday, 5 May 2008
Slimming the Beaufoix Bin
Meet the Beaufoix Bin. Sounds posh doesn't it? It's even green, but don't let that fool you. It's not a recycling bin but a good old-fashioned (and overflowing) rubbish bin.It's a real pleasure to have made its acquaintance, not because of its swank sounding name, but because it belongs to the lovely Jo Beaufoix, a fellow blogger and writer, who has volunteered her bin for The Rubbish Diet treatment.And you can see why.Despite its 240 litre capacity, there's no room for manoeuvre by bin day.Just imagine if the Beaufoix household missed its fortnightly collection, especially as they often...
Sunday, 4 May 2008
Rubbish as an Artform
I don't normally blog during the weekend, but I just couldn't wait to share the details of a fantastic art exhibition that I visited today, entitled "Walking to save some sea", by Suffolk artist Fran Crowe.The exhibition is inspired by a 2006 UN report, which revealed that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic litter per square mile of ocean, causing the death of over 100,000 mammals and turtles and over one million seabirds.On learning this Fran Crowe decided to "save one square mile of ocean" by collecting 46,000 pieces of litter, over a period of a year, whilst walking along local beaches. ...
Thursday, 1 May 2008
The Self Sufficient-Ish Story
Dave and Andy Hamilton: Authors of The Self Sufficient-Ish BibleRegular readers may recall my recent announcement about a fabulous book called The Self Sufficient-ish Bible. It's a great read and is very inspiring for anyone who wants to live a more frugal lifestyle.I recently caught up with Andy Hamilton, one of the co-authors and founders of the Selfsufficient-ish website to find out more about the site, their recent stardom as well as their rubbish. I hope you enjoy the insight that Andy has so kindly provided. What prompted you to set up the Website?"Selfsufficientish.com was set up in...
The day I baked an apple pie
Yesterday, I woke up with a real desire for apple pie.Why? I don't know!I just wanted apple pie.More curiouser...I felt the urge to make one.The old me would have just gone out and bought one, but for my alter-ego, aka Almost Mrs Average, who has this thing about packaging and all that, this option is now generally a no-no!Of course, it's pretty easy to get ready-made pastry these days and this has been a popular addition to my shopping basket over the years.But yesterday, I took a step back in time and recalled the days when I used to make my own pastry.The last time was circa 1988 when I was...
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