Lemons and Penguins

I always though “Zero waste” sounded difficult and pretty daunting.  How can it be possible to not throw anything away?  Of course, it depends a lot on the recycling facilities available in your area, but it is possible, and doesn’t have to be difficult!  Pictured on the right is my (almost) zero waste breakfast: porridge.

Quaker oats, amazingly, are packaged in a cardboard box – no plastic bag inside like other cereal packets – hooray!  The cardboard box, and plastic milk bottle are easily recyclable. The only waste comes from the plastic milk bottle lid, which cannot be recycled here in Camden (although there’s a company called GHS recycling based in Dorset that collects milk bottle tops for recycling… I just wish they had more collection locations!)

Of course porridge can also be made just with water (no milk) but I prefer my porridge milky!  I do always buy organic milk though, as, apparently it takes a third of the energy to produce than regular, non-organic milk (according to Friends of the Earth).

So, how did our “watch your waste week” go?  In a “normal” week between 2 of us we throw away 3kg of rubbish to landfill.  I thought this was pretty good to start off with, since the national average in the UK is, apparently, 8kg of rubbish to landfill per person per week.  Even so, in our “zero” waste week we reduced this to 25g of non-recyclable rubbish (mainly milk and juice bottle lids, and some bits of plastic wrapping), plus 725g of compostable rubbish (almost all vegetable peelings).  Now all I need is a compost bin……..

Well worth reading – “40 steps on the personal path to green” from the No Impact Man blog.

And if you have 2 minutes spare, have a look at the Pledge & WIN! competition at myzerowaste.com. Not only you can win prizes as an incentive to get to do green stuff, but, even better, you can only win if you leave them feedback on how you carried out your pledges.

Pledges I made were:

• I will talk to at least one family member or friend to promote recycling – for this I was going to send my parents a link to show them how easily tetra paks can be recycled, since they didn’t even realise tetra paks were recyclable (they are!). However, I discovered that Cornwall, where my parents live, doesn’t have tetra pak recycling collection (yet), and although you can post your tetra paks to be recycled, I highly doubt my parents will pay to do this. But I recently found out that the slightly stretchy kind of see-through plastic bags (e.g. the ones that potatoes and cauliflowers are packaged in) can be recycled at carrier bag recycling points in most major supermarkets. So I’m going to tell everyone about that instead (starting here!).
• I will take active steps to stop junk mail being delivered to my home - I don’t actually really get much junk mail, but www.stopjunkmail.org.uk is a good place to start with this. Opting out of the edited electorial register helps, and remembering to tick those boxes on forms (to say that you don’t want more information) means you get less junk mail too. My main problem is companies that I have accounts or membership with sending me too many leaflets. I wrote to the National Trust asking them to stop sending me so many fundraising leaflets (I always donate online anyway) and asking them to consider a paper-free membership option (I love reading their magazine but if I could get it in PDF form I would). Plus I’m trying to figure out how to get online-only statements from the bank and stuff (though barclaycard doesn’t seem to have this option, hm).
• I will offer one unwanted item on Freecycle or take to a charity shop - I am on a clutter-clearing mission again – this is going to be a lot more than just one item! I have 4 red ikea cushions, an old laptop, a bunch of art magazines, clothes, shoes, handbags, a floor fixing kit from b&q, and who knows what else to give away… Freecycle is my clutter-clearing friend!
• I will cancel my telephone directory / Yellow pages - this was more difficult that I thought. To opt-out of receiving yellow pages you have to call 0800 671 444. To cancel Thomson Local I emailed info@thomsonlocal.com but they haven’t replied yet. And apparently BT is *obliged* to supply everyone in the UK with a phone book (you’re not allowed to opt out?! it’s crazy), but I signed the petition at www.saynotophonebooks.com as apparently Ofcom are reviewing BT’s obligation and hopefully a petition might sway them. Who knows.
• I will make something like bread instead of buying in plastic wrap – I’m really looking forward to this one…there is a delicious but simple-sounding recipe for crisp rosemary flatbread from smitten kitchen which I’m going to make.. mmm !

I stayed at a lovel hotel last Monday: the Hoxton Hotel (technically it’s in Shoreditch, not Hoxton) is advertised as a “budget boutique hotel”. I’m not sure how you can describe a hotel whose rooms go up to £189 a night as “budget” (!) but it was definitely boutique. From artwork in the lobby to illuminated room numbers and carpets with stripy floors, it was a lovely place to stay. The hotel is owned by the founders of Pret a Manger, the food chain known for their non-additive, natural food, and the mini bar includes free Pret water and a free “light” Pret breakfast. I love Pret food, and I was very happy to see that my breakfast yoghurt pot was 100% recyclable.

But… where was I supposed to recycle it?

Pret have a huge section on their website devoted to sustainability. With this in mind, I’d have thought their approach to the hotel would be similar. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so. Ok, I understand that recycling isn’t at the top of people’s minds when you’re on holiday but if hotels can put a little note in your bathroom asking you to re-use your towel for environmental reasons, they can at least provide a recycling bin in the room? (I left them a note on the guest comment card to say so too!). As it was I ended up taking my used plastic bottles (water and orange juice) and my newspaper away with me to recycle in one of the street recycling bins provided by the council, but I’m sure that most people who stay in the hotel don’t bother to do that!

In fact, I don’t know anywhere that collects yoghurt pots for recycling. I’d love to be able to recycle such things but currently Camden council only has street bins for “plastic bottle” recycling. I’m not sure if this means they can ONLY recycle plastic bottles and nothing else, or if they just put “plastic bottles” on the side of the recycling bins because they think they will confuse people by putting specific details of what types of plastic are recyclable.

I recently discovered that both types 1 and 2 of plastic can be recycled – that’s every piece of plastic that has a triangle logo on it with a 1 or a 2 in the middle (picture is on the right). So surely whether the plastic is in bottle shape or not is irrelevant…. and surely not all bottles are plastic types 1 and 2?  I think I ought to ask Camden council about this…their website doesn’t make this clear.

After all, the recyclable Pret yoghurt pot is more or less the same thing as a bottle with the top chopped off? I will email the council tomorrow! In the meantime I’m going to pay more attention to what types of plastic I’m using, I don’t think I’ve really paid any attention to it before!

This week I joined the Great Plastic Challenge in an attempt to make an effort to cut down on the amount of plastic I send to landfill. It astounds me how no-one thinks twice about sending a huge bag of rubbish (or two…or more…) to be buried in a big heap in the ground every week. How is it ok to chuck a big heap of plastic and other non-biodegradable junk in a big hole in the ground? Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t make it ok. And what happens when we run out of space to do this? (Even right now as I type this the ocean is full of floating plastic).

Waste incineration (burning rubbish) is often hailed as an alternative to landfill but is arguably even worse as it encourages more waste to be produced and releases toxic substances in to the air. (Read more about incineration and landfill). So, I’ve been trying to follow the 3 R’s – to reduce the amount of rubbish I create, to re-use (or repair) items, and to recycle as much as possible.

Plastic is difficult to recycle. In Camden, where I live, we can only recycle plastic bottles. I don’t actually use an awful lot of plastic bottles. I don’t drink bottled water, and most of the juice I drink is from tetrapak cartons (tetrapaks are also recyclable). But I find that a huge proportion of my rubbish every week is plastic. Where does all this plastic come from? Where doesn’t it? When I look around everything I own seems to be made of plastic. From the keys on my computer keyboard, to the lenses in my glasses and the polyester in my clothes…even the exfoliating beads in my facewash… it’s all plastic. And everything seems to come packaged in plastic. At the supermarket mushrooms are in their own little plastic box which is wrapped in plastic film. Frozen pizzas are placed on a plastic tray before being wrapped in plastic film and packaged in a cardboard box. Yoghurts, soup, pasta, even potatoes, they all come packaged in plastic. I can’t for the life of me find a sensible way to reuse any of this plastic packaging, I can’t recycle it, and as far as I can see most of this packaging is pointless anyway.

So, I’m trying to be more aware of the plastic in my life and to take steps to reduce it. Step one I have already taken, to re-use plastic bags whenever I go shopping. I carry round a cotton bag in my handbag all the time for impromptu shops (see right), and when I know I’m going to go food shopping I take 4 large “bags for life” with me to Sainsburys. I know, “bags for life” are made from plastic too, but I have been reusing them for almost a year now and that’s better than using new plastic bags every time, right?

Step two is also already in progress. I’m trying to forgo putting fruit and vegetables into those transparent plastic bags. This isn’t too difficult. 99% of fruit & veg is peeled before I eat it, and if not, then it’s washed, and c’mon, if I’m fine with the idea of eating mushrooms that have been grown in manure and then washed then I should be ok with eating an apple that’s been washed after some other people have touched in the supermarket.

But…. big but.. it’s so difficult to avoid plastic. Last Thursday I felt too tired to cook and went to Marks & Spencer to buy some nice food…. I brought it home and unpacked it… only to realise I’d managed to buy a whole load of plastic along with my food. Even though I admire M&S’s environmental stance (their Plan A is a brilliant idea and an example to all other businesses), they still mainly sell highly packaged “ready meals”. The chinese spring rolls and rice that I bought were both packaged in huge black non-recyclable plastic trays. ugh.

You might think this is par for the course, that if I’m trying to avoid plastic I should avoid ready meals. But why?! Just because they’re ready meals doesn’t mean they have to be packaged in plastic or non-recyclable materials!

Yesterday I bought a scrumptious pieminster pie (from Fresh & Wild in Camden), whose packaging was an ingenious origami-type piece of cardboard. Below is a photo of the packaging laid out flat. As you can see, it’s just once piece of cardboad. Nothing else. No plastic in sight. Why can’t all food companies do this?

P.S. I’ve just emailed M&S to ask them about this, let’s see what their response is!