Oh the memories: Part 1

Phew what a crazy hazy experience last week was. It felt like a real party, an opportunity to celebrate so much. It's just a shame that as soon as we arrived home Mr A came down with a terrible cold which I caught too.But it's given me a great opportunity to relax and have a ponder over the highlights of the last year and the lessons learned. I could have included so much because it's all been so fabulously delicious, but there are a few moments that have popped into my mind.Some of the highlights can be illustrated by photos. For example, I recall the damp soggy day that I arrived home from...

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And the winner is..............................

Presenter Lauren Laverne announcing the winnersOh my word, never before has any sentence sent me into a swirl of surrealism, where a noisy room filled with champagne-fuelled excitable chatter and award ceremony music suddenly becomes internally silent, allowing the mind to shut out everything apart from the voice of the presenter.There was a loud buzz of excitement in the air.But to the nominees waiting in anticipation, the only thing to do was to ignore the noise and hold onto every syllable that came over the microphone.The time had come"And the winner in the Independent Media category is...."There...

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The Rubbish Diet Awards 2009

(Photo Credit: Boeke)Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to The Royal Albert Hall in London, the perfect location for The Rubbish Diet awards 2009.Why such a venue?Well of course, it's the oft-quoted feature when references are made to the amount of rubbish we create in the UK. Apparently, between us we generate enough waste to fill up the whole place in just two hours.Two Hours!Crikey.Well it looks like we'd better get on with the show before we get covered in last night's dinner, a good few truckloads of plastic, dirty nappies and goodness knows what else.Yes folks it's the official Rubbish...

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It's time to wind down

A year ago I planned to stop this blog, but something kept me going. I had just completed the Zero Waste Week challenge with absolute amazement over how little we managed to throw away.It was an incredible experience because the idea of living an ordinary life creating minimal waste had felt so impossible, yet I somehow proved it could be a reality - even with two kids. It felt great. And I was hooked.And with a bucket-load of excitement I couldn't help but spread the word. I realised there was much more to rubbish than met the eye. It was not just about bins, it was a lifestyle makeover....

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It's not just how, it's also about why!

"I don't know how you do it." folk often say when they hear my tale about The Rubbish Diet.So I tell them the story, how it all began with a zero waste challenge and how I looked in my bin and worked out what went in there.After all, when you know what you throw in the bin, it's easier to find solutions to keep it out. And just like any other slimming plan, The Rubbish Diet has focused on avoiding the things that once made it fat and heavy."But what do you do?" they ask.So I tell them how I try to buy products that are loose or have minimal packaging, supporting local trade where I can. And I...

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Whittling the rubbish away

So here it is, that picture of rubbish again. Except that it isn't rubbish is it?It's actually a table full of resources, a by-product of an average week's consumption.However, what you see here is not a typical picture of our usual recycling bin. You wouldn't normally see the ready-meal trays, yoghurt and dessert pots or the plastic milkshake bottles. In fact all that plastic would be reduced by at least 50%. There'd be no pile of drinks cartons and as for the aluminium trays, it would take us two months to collect so many. The pile of paper is lower these days too thanks to me having reduced...

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Day 7: What a load of rubbish! Or is it?

Well, it's the last day of my Maximum Waste Week challenge and a whole week spent pondering whether I could go back to my old ways, and throw away the same amount that I used to before I did the Zero Waste challenge last year.It's been one heck of a week and from a maximum waste perspective, I have to report it's been a bit of a failure.It started off with "good" intentions when I went shopping around the supermarket and tried to create a whole load of unrecyclable rubbish to boost this week's challenge. But that was tough, due to the fantastic recycling facilities in Bury St Edmunds as well...

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Day 6: Just imagine what could have happened

Yesterday now seems a long way away. I am left with aches and pains that leave me unable to get up again if I've had a long sit down. But it was worth it!And after the antics of Friday's bin round, I came home to a copy of our local paper the Bury Free Press. And there it was, a huge write-up about The Rubbish Diet on page 4, with a photo of me and the little ones posing with our empty black bin.It was Wednesday that the photographer visited."Could we take a photo of you dangling a plaster over your wheelie bin?" she asked, as soon as she arrived at the door.I agreed but warned her it was...

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