Carnival of Trash Time

Here's my gorgeous blog friend Jo Beaufoix who writes a very funny and often poignant blog over at www.jobeaufoix.com. I've known Jo for what seems like years but has only been a couple since I started blogging over at my other blog 21st Century Mummy. I've hardly hung around there since I've been talking rubbish over here, but we've remained good friends and I even had the pleasure of meeting her for real just recently.

Anyway, before I lapse into one of my Ronnie Corbetts you might remember Jo from when she did The Rubbish Diet challenge earlier this year and managed to get her bin Stinky Simon back on track and slim him down a bit.

Well having since enjoyed adventures with composting, Jo is now really getting into this shrinking rubbish thing and is hosting the Carnival of Trash this month.

Apologies for the late notice, but the deadline for submissions is Monday 10th (which is next week), so for all contributors it's time to get your thinking caps on and submit your favourite article over at: http://blogcarnival.com/bc/submit_4478.html

And don't forget to pop over to Jo's very funny blog on the Thursday 13th to check out the entries.

....oh and before I forget, if you're up for hosting December's carnival or even an edition in the new year, then do let me know.

In the meantime, hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you next week.

P.S. Huge thanks to everyone who left me some wonderful comments yesterday, I've put a proper thank you at the end of the last comment on yesterday's post. x

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Almost Mrs Average and the Recyclettes

After yesterday's news about the Bokashi and the Beasties, I think it's now time to stand up and show your appreciation for the Recyclettes.

The Recyclettes?

"Who on earth are they?" you might ask.

Well there are loads of different types of recyclettes that you can find on Google, but my recyclettes are the fab ladies (and their families) who have risen to the challenge of The Rubbish Diet, and my goodness they've shown some commitment. They've shared stories about ditching packaging at the supermarket, taking their own containers to the butchers and getting to grips with compost bins in their gardens.

After getting each of them started on their own personal bin slimming programme it's now time to catch up with the lovely ladies and find out what's been going on in their bins.


And there's no better place to start than the lovely Ruby from Bury St Edmunds, our first volunteer who was brave enough to reveal her rubbish.



We started Ruby's Rubbish Audit at the end of March and what a sorry state of affairs it was. Ruby revealed that she had too much packaging for her recycling bin, so the surplus was going into her landfill bin, which led to overflowing bins all round. Things were so bad that Ruby was more worried about the effect on her own environment than the world at large and by heck did it need some management.

Well the great news from Ruby is that she is now the anti-excess-packaging queen. She no longer uses packaging for her children's packed lunches, unless it's reusable or recyclable. She has begun to cook more meals from scratch instead of buying ready meals and has even gone as far as ditching her packaging at the supermarket!

She's also got a great site called Ruby's Rubbish Blog, where she focuses on all types of nonsense packaging and laughs at it in the same way as an organic gardener laughs at mutated vegetables.

Her latest blogpost reveals that she's now doing a bit of gardening herself. Ruby gardening? Growing her own herbs and tomatoes? My word, that's a turnaround!

At her request, St Edmundsbury Council gave her a brand spanking new brown wheelie bin for her kitchen waste so she no longer has to send her peelings off to landfill. The other fantastic news is that all her guinea pig bedding can go in there too, so even their droppings can be put to good use.

After all this effort and following her "diet plan" she has managed to reach her target with resounding success and has reduced her landfill bin by at least 50%. This means that it is now only half-full every collection day, which translates to roughly 120 cubic litres of rubbish per fortnight.

All her recyclables can now fit into her recycling bin too, which is sometimes only three-quarters full these days.

So hooray for the Ruby Household for such a fantastic effort.

Something tells me they won't be going back to their old ways, so a round of applause please!


Next, smiling at us from up north...or rather the Midlands, is the gorgeous Jo Beaufoix from Mansfield.



Jo is really enjoying The Rubbish Diet challenge, which she started in May, and has had some fabulous adventures with a new compost bin to help reduce her rubbish. Jo was getting hacked off with not being able to close her bin, let alone fit all her rubbish into it. You can read about her woes here. The aim was to reduce her big fat bin by 50% and the most brilliant news is that she is well on the way to reaching her target.

She's been changing the way she shops, buying loose products, washing out yoghurt pots and has found a whole new excitement in nipping off to the recycling centre. The whole family has got stuck in too, sorting out the papers, bags and tetra paks. The girl's doing well.

The other outcome is that her bin now has a name...Yes a name! My bin has a name too, but I never told Jo this. My bin's called Dave. Apologies to all the Daves out there who might feel offended. No offence is intended. It's just a Rubbish Diet needs the humour! I think we need to put out an apology to all the Simons too because Jo's bin is called Stinky Simon! Personally, I think anyone who's called Simon has now got a bigger problem than all you Daves.

Anyway Jo has written about the adventures of Stinky Simon's diet on her very entertaining blog jobeaufoix.com. It's an essential read, which follows Simon's relationship with the bin lorry. In a very surreal way, I can't wait to find out if Simon gets his girl.

So it's time to applaud Jo and Stinky Simon as well as Mr B and the little Beaufoixs for such a tremendous effort. Well done!


To complete the trio, give a huge wave to the wonderful Green Family, all the way from Gloucestershire.


It doesn't seem that long ago since the most wonderful Mrs Green was despairing about her rubbish and I volunteered to lend a hand. They decided to sign up for the Rubbish Diet treatment straight away. They only started a couple of weeks ago but are making astounding progress.

The Greens haven't got the all singing and dancing wheelie bin down in their neck of the woods, or should I say forest (after all they live in the Forest of Dean). They have had to rely on a battered but beautiful old dustbin, who has developed a character of her own, being full to the brim and always accompanied by saddlebags! Their other challenge is that they don't have a mixed plastics recycling collection, so are having to make careful choices.

However Mrs Green and the rest of the Greens have risen to the challenge in a way that goes beyond the dreams of possibilities. They're ditching the mixed plastics where possible, taking their own containers to the butchers and experimenting with all sorts to get rid of that trash. They are recycling everything they can and are managing the daily drag to the compost bin at the end of the very long garden. Within such a short period they have already hit their 50% target head on.

So there is nothing stopping the Greens now and they are absolutely on a roll. They've already been featured in their local paper and have even got a whole website dedicated to their mission...yes not just a blog, but a website.

If you pop along to www.myzerowaste.com you will find competitions, as well as offers and discounts on all things that they can get their hands on. There are newsfeeds to keep you up-to-date with what's happening in the world and of course an hilarious account of how they've risen to this mighty challenge.

And they have truly risen to it, because not only have they surpassed their own expectations, but they've accepted my suggestion to attempt their very own Zero Waste Week.

Yes....Zero Waste. That means trying to go for one whole week without putting anything in their landfill bin at all!

But we must remember Rome wasn't built in a day and it wouldn't seem fair to just thrust it upon them this quickly. So they've got a few more months to finish their rubbish work-out before attempting to go rubbish-free during the first week of September. So watch this space for news of their progress.

I have every confidence they will do well. They've pulled together some fantastic support from people who are encouraging them along the way. They've even inspired another blogger to join in, the lovely Sue who also lives in Gloucestershire, who you may have also seen contributing to the discussions on The Rubbish Diet this week.

Inspired by all the rubbish gossip, Sue's now set up her new blog too, Healthy Cheap Meals, Minimal Waste, where she happily shares her progress at slimming her bin and pulling together healthy meals on a budget. So do pop over and say hello. It's a sure way of saving some money too.

So it's time to put your hands together again and give a huge round of applause for the Greens for everything they have achieved and so quickly. And Sue, please take your bow too. What a fabulous effort and thank you so much for joining in the fun.

Blimey, what have I started? Is it a new blogging genre, a lifestyle makeover, or a revolution?

Chuckle...Who knows? I guess only time will tell. But whatever it is, it's wonderfully infectious and all the families who have taken part are absolute stars.

So what's next?

Well Ruby's at a level where she feels happy, Jo is looking forward to cutting Stinky Simon's rubbish a bit more and Mrs Green has got the most amazing project ahead of her.

How exciting!


But what about the Almost Average Household, here in Bury St Edmunds?

Well it's been nearly three months since the end of St Edmundsbury's Zero Waste Week and the big question is have we stuck to it?

Er yep. It's not quite Zero or Zilch but we're still pretty close to hardly anything.

Apart from a couple of dead birds, a stinky old polystyrene tray and some half-term cat litter, our weekly rubbish still amounts to about a quarter of a carrier bag.

I'm not sure if I've ever revealed what we regularly throw away, so maybe the time has come...to show the contents of the Almost Average bin bag!

Cue drum roll.....

.......the bright lights...

...........and heightened suspense!

Ready?

...well, here it is!



You see, I still have SOME household rubbish, which is mainly the film from Weetabix cartons, small scraps of bubblewrap that are of little use to anyone and my junior saboteur's favourite cheese wrapper, or rather the wrapper from his favourite cheese.

Some weeks you might find the odd crisp packet too, as well as a few cotton buds (but those will soon be eliminated as I have now found ones with paper sticks, so they can be composted).

So what are our next challenges...well it's still rubbish related of course. One of my first priorities is to get myself organised so that Mr A can happily take a packed lunch to work. Call me a control freak, but I have got no idea what goes on outside these four walls as far as Mr A's diet is concerned, but I bet it's got something to do with packets of crisps, takeaways and other nasties. So you see, I've got to take control and it will bring benefits.

It's going to be hard as it means some forward planning, which is really tricky for me. What makes it more difficult is that Mr A has certain tastes, which exclude sandwiches. One might suggest that he is a fussy booger, but it could also be argued that I am a lazy apeth. Between us we might find a solution, so stay tuned.

However, the biggest challenge will be our household declutter. That's a project and a half, which will need patience and some careful management and a bit of bin defence!

You see, when my back is turned Mr A dons his crown to become the King of Declutter, whipping himself into action to bin all of the crap and clutter in his sight and if I haven't got my wits about me it will all be destined for landfill.

So I need to summon up the energy to tidy, sort and pass things on to good homes...

Now that for me will be a greater challenge than Zero Waste Week. So if there are any declutterers out there who can help me re-organise my chateau, (sorry my three bedroomed semi) you will be welcomed with open arms.

And on that note, I'm off to fight my way through the mountain of kids clothes.

I hope you have a great weekend. The fabulous Recyclettes and I are celebrating their fantastic progress in style and will be virtually partying all weekend (all waste-free of course). See you next week for some more rubbish updates.


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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 OUT NEW RECYCLING OPPORTUNITIES

One of the priorities of Jo's Rubbish Diet Plan is to reduce the amount of plastic packaging that goes into the landfill bin. As her local recycling facilities aren't as extensive as those in my neck of the woods, this will be a tougher challenge for Jo and her family.

Jo carried out an audit of her rubbish, which revealed that things like margarine tubs and yoghurt pots couldn't be recycled. However, the great news is that as recently as last month, the local council has included these in their recycling facilities, so they can be ticked off the list straight away.

For anyone who attempts to slim their bin, progress like this always offers a sense of relief.

A call to the council today also revealed that as the pots of jellies and some of the sauce pots used by Jo are made of the same material as the yoghurt packaging, these can be added too. All this shows an encouraging start for the Beaufoix household.

Other news is that Tetra Pak recycling has also been available for some time at the local Household Waste Recycling Centre, so these can be dropped off when the family is passing by.

Further opportunities for recycling additional materials may also be available from November when a new Materials Recycling Facility is introduced near Mansfield. However, not much is yet known about this and should not be seen as the solution.


REDUCE THE PACKAGING

It is important that Jo should try to replace products that have packaging with where possible loose items (e.g. satsumas). Where packaging cannot be avoided, Jo should look out for items that can be recycled (e.g. glass jars) or those that may be composted.

The key is to look at changing just a few habits, just tackling one thing at a time to make things easier.

As Jo often uses a supermarket Internet site to do her shopping, it's worth visiting the supermarket for her next shop to try and look for alternatives to over-packaged culprits that she regularly buys. Even flimsy plastic bags from the deli-counter help to reduce waste when compared to more solid materials associated with pre-packaged produce, which cannot currently be recycled in the area.

When buying chocolate bars, she could consider replacing the products wrapped in plastic film with those that use paper and foil. Paper can be recycled or composted and foil could be used for junk art at home or donated to the local school.

If tinned food is normally bought in multi-packs, it's worth checking if buying single tins is just as cheap and order those instead. This way, the plastic wrapping that is used for multi-packs can be avoided. Pet food, baked beans, tomatoes and tuna are regular culprits.

Of course, if Jo feels she can incorporate it into her lifestyle, shopping at a local market and at local shops to replace some of the supermarket products would be a great step towards reducing excess packaging.


COOKING

On the culinary front, Jo often makes use of pre-prepared sauces, which come in pots. Some of these can't be recycled in her area. I've suggested that she experiments with making her favourite sauces from scratch. Simple chilli sauce can be made from fresh\tinned tomatoes with fresh chillis or dried spices. Some of her other favourites could also be created in minutes.

Jo already cooks frequently and loves engaging with the readers of her blog, so it might be an appealing idea to ask them to suggest some quick and fast recipes for some of her favourite sauces. She could then test them out and even feature them on her blog.



COMPOSTING

Last week, I also recommended that she should take advantage of Compost Awareness Week and buy a home composter at a bargain price.

Jo’s garden is big enough to accommodate a composter and once “installed” she will be able to remove fruit & veg peelings from her landfill bin, as well as tea bags & coffee grains and old bedding from her gerbil cage.

She is keen to do this, so there should be further news on this soon.

Cooked food waste should be handled by trying to reduce portion sizes if possible. Alternatively, if it continues to be a problem, a Bokashi system could be considered.

A Bokashi system is an indoor bucket that can be filled with most food waste, including cooked meat products. Active bran is added to the food in layers and left for two weeks to ferment. The liquid must be drained off regularly and can be poured down the drain or diluted with water as a fertiliser for plants. After 2 weeks, the fermented food can be put into the composter.

A Green Cone is another option that could be considered if appropriate for Jo’s Garden. It is similar to a compost bin but will also accept cooked food, meat and fish. The idea is that contents decompose and drain into the surrounding soil. However, I have not yet tested this so am unable to comment in detail.


SANITARY PRODUCT & NAPPIES

Jo is planning to complete her daughter's potty-training this summer, which will be great for removing night-time nappies from the bin. However in the meantime, she might want to consider getting a few reusable ones. If this isn’t practical, using degradable alternatives might be a solution. It’s not a perfect answer, but is one that could suffice in the short-term.

If Jo fancies a go at ditching the nappies, there is are products on the market called Eenie Undies, which are sold as part of the Weenies range. They are waterproof pants that can be used with compostable weenee pads. Jo will need to assess whether they will be suitable for her daughter and whether they could fit into her budget.

I have given her details of the Lollipop online store, so she can find out more about the Weenies training pants. The online shop also sells washable sanitary products, which may be of interest to Jo should she wish to eliminate disposable products from her landfill bin. Some are not as gruesome as they sound and are much friendlier on the environment as well as the pocket.


CLEANING

I have recommended that Jo invests in cleaning cloths that can be washed many times over and use these instead of kitchen towel and regular sponges. I have used E-Cloth products which have worked very well and now feel that I have got my money's worth. However normal sponges can be boiled to extend use if necessary. Also, used kitchen towel can be composted as long as it hasn’t been used to mop up spills and scraps associated with cooked food, meat, fish or indeed has come into contact with cleaning chemicals.

Priority targets: If Jo and her family focus on reducing the amount of packaging that comes into the home, they should be rewarded with a noticeable impact on the size of their bin. If composting is managed alongside this, they should soon be well on their way to cutting their household waste in half.

I'm going to leave the Beaufoix household alone with their Bin for a while. A little privacy is always useful. I'll catch up with them in a couple of weeks to see how they are getting on...and of course I will report back on progress.

Thinking about progress, I wonder how Ruby's rubbish is coming along. She's been in York for a few days and even managed to meet up with one of the site's regular visitors. I'm left wondering how much rubbish they talked. So while Jo's busy working on her rubbish, I'm going to track down Ruby.

More on that soon!
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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 ask Jo to delve into her rubbish in more detail and reveal much more about what her household throws away. But how cruel of me, especially as it’s such a personal thing to ask of someone, to list in real detail the stuff that goes into their bin.

I am just relieved that she was up for it, especially as my main concern is the amount of packaging that is thrown away in her landfill bin, including things like pre-prepared sauce pots. Ooooh, I've got my eye on them as a candidate for the chop!

Jo estimates plastic packaging to be about 15% of the family’s waste, which is matched by things like wipes, kitchen towels and sponges etc. Other contents include: old food and peelings (10%); tetra pak cartons (10%) and chocolate and snack wrappers (10%).

Until her youngest daughter is fully potty-trained, there is still the issue of night-time disposable nappies.

So, thanks to Jo’s efforts, I think I’ve now got a grip on her rubbish and having checked out a few things with Mansfield District Council, it’s time to present the Beaufoix household with the diet plan for that big overflowing green bin.

It’s going to be tough though because the recycling facilities offered in her area are not as comprehensive as those in my neck of the woods. This is going to be a key issue, but is one that can be resolved with time.

But the great news for Jo and the good people of Mansfield is that yoghurt pots and margarine tubs were added to the recyclables list in April, so people can now stop chucking them in landfill and pop them in the blue bin instead. That's already a few things ticked off Jo's list, hooray!

Anyway, I’m sending Jo her diet plan to consider over the weekend and will publish the details some time next week.

I hope you enjoy the weekend. I'm now off to my first wedding in years (not mine, I hasten to add)...so...see you next week.

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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 have an extra three or four carrier bags of rubbish that can't fit into the bin and are consequently taken directly to the tip.

Anyway, you've met the overweight bin, and it's now time to meet its owner, Jo Beaufoix herself.


Jo lives in the old mining town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, with her husband, two young children, a gerbil, a lorry-load of slugs and a fictional ostrich called Babs.

Jo wants to slim her bin mainly because she wants to help the environment, but is also hoping that the experience will help her and her family lead a healthier lifestyle and save some money along the way.

The Beaufoix household recycles whatever they can including card, paper and tin cans in their blue bin, which is provided by Mansfield District Council and they take glass to the bottle bank and clothes to the clothes bank, charity shops or carboot sales, so they are already pretty organised. They also have a brown bin collection for garden waste.

So the challenge is to work on the rest of the rubbish that goes in their landfill bin, which includes Aerosols, Batteries, Chocolate and Snack Bar Wrappers, Cleaning Waste, Cooked Food and Fruit and Vegetable Peelings. On top of that there are also the Gerbil's Bedding, Nappies, Meat Packaging Trays, Tea Bags & Coffee Grounds, Tetra Pak Cartons and Sanitary Products.

The key task for Jo and her family is to reduce all this by 50% and they are committed to doing this over the next few months.

It's great news that the Beaufoix household is also keen to start composting straight away, which means that they will be able to cut out some major things such as fruit and vegetable peelings, tea bags, coffee grounds and the gerbil's bedding, which is mainly shredded paper.

For Jo, there is no better time to start composting, as this week is Compost Awareness Week, which is being promoted by WRAP and the Compost Awareness Association and is supported by major garden centres, DIY stores and local authorities.

The good news is that living in Nottinghamshire, she will be able to take advantage of the cheap deals offered by Nottinghamshire County Council, which is running compost awareness events on 10th and 11th May, where compost bins will be available from as little as £17.

There are other composting events running across the country this week and you can find more details about local events at www.compostawarenessweek.org.uk. Further inspiration can also be found at the Recycle Now website, where you can see a video of celebrity garden designer Diarmuid Gavin indulging in the subject.

So while I am busy working on her Rubbish Diet plan this week, why not pop over and visit Jo at www.jobeaufoix.com, where you'll receive a warm welcome and an insight into her fun character... oh and I mustn't forget... the adventurous antics of her ostrich Babs.

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