No rubbish fortnight

[Shirley]

LOL - LOL!!

I imagine he means before!!!

PD - what great frozen tomato disaster????

[pskipper]

definitely before :)

[Shirley]

I've just come up with a use for those little pull tabs on the plastic milk bottles. Wash them well... and dry. Then use them to make a lift the flap booklet for a child.... an advent calendar etc....

This challenge is proving harder than I expected. I've just eaten rabbit (well last night) and now have the bones to dispose of (and the plastic bag that the bunny was wrapped in as I bought it from the farm shop and didn't shoot it myself.)

[Andy Hamilton]

This challenge is proving harder than I expected. I've just eaten rabbit (well last night) and now have the bones to dispose of (and the plastic bag that the bunny was wrapped in as I bought it from the farm shop and didn't shoot it myself.)

Perhaps you could crush them up and use them like blood, fish and bone - well just bone as a soil improver?

[PurpleDragon]

Well, you know, I never thought of that.
I had a chicken, cooked it, boiled the bones to make stock, and then chucked the bones. I never thought to crush them up.
I was a bit miffed when I thought that I couldn't use them - thanks Andy!

[Millymollymandy]

How are you getting on Andy?

Lots of cold showers? LOL

[Shirley]

How are you getting on Andy?

Lots of cold showers? LOL

[Andy Hamilton]

How are you getting on Andy?

Lots of cold showers? LOL

Er um, I must admit that I have cheated in this area. I decided to 'offset' so I picked up two plastic bottles from the street and put them in the recycling. Yes it is downright cheating, but for a good cause

[Andy Hamilton]

Ok dilemma time - got the train back to NOrthampton at the weekend for my nephews 1st birthday party. I managed to reuse a 'party' bag to put his present in so no rubbish there. The problem is now that I have a bunch of train tickets that I need to do something with and I had a cup of tea on the train. The tea bag I took home to compost, but I sitll have the cup it came in and two little plastic milk containers. The tops for the milk were made of metal so they can go in the recycling as they seem to be made from aluminium. The cup itself could be used as a plant pot but then there is the plastic lid.

To break it down I need to find uses for...

A takeaway tea cup
A one serving milk carton
Credit card sized train tickets. (in fact I have loads of them from the local train)

[Shirley]

You are doing very much better than I am Andy!!! I've just done a massive offset though and given lots and lots of green glass bottles to a fellow Neepster to use in the floor of his eco-build!

My DP thinks it's a stupid exercise and has just insisted on throwing stuff away - but I've been trying hard not to.

Train tickets - I used to give mine to the kids and they'd use them when playing with their own trainsets. Will they compost or do they have that magnetic strip type thing on them??

When you say mini milk carton do you mean those thumb sized pots?? You could make a card out of them using the little ones as eyes, the upturned cup as a snout... draw some circles on it and make a piggie card (or other animal). Quite why you would actually WANT to do this I don't know, but it could keep any young visitors occupied if you get any.

[Ranter]

Okay the fortnight is over & I failed to produce zero rubbish.
I produced rubbish that was plastic that can't be recycled locally & I couldn't think of a way to re-use: little pods that contact lenses are supplied in; a bottle of bathroom cleaner that I'd had hanging around for ages & finally emptied; plastic/foil tops from milk & wine bottles; filter cartridge from water filter jug.

I saved for re-use glass jars; small plastic bottles which were part of a toiletry gift set (I'll decant shampoo etc for use when I'm away); corks from wine bottles - for fly curtain; plastic bags & cellophane wrapping - to cut into strips to stuff a large cushion for the garden. I made 2 small ones this year, after the next one though I don't know what I'll do with this stuff, there's only so many cushions I need in a small garden & I have a draught excluder.

I've switched to a dry cat food that comes in a box & still isn't Nestle (actually found one the cat likes) so that's a bag less. Will look at Natural Collection's water fiter cartridges that are refillable. Only other rubbish was a polysterene take-away box which my boyfriend dumped in my bin. I'm trying to persuade him to eat properly & cut down on the take-aways.

So although I failed on the zero rubbish pledge, I'm still kinda proud of myself.

[Andy Hamilton]

Failures as well for me I am afraid. - not too bad though I decided that I could not give up a sex life for 2 weeks and I am not quite ready for fatherhood The bits from the top of milk bottles wound up in the bin too despite shirleys advice. The area in my kitchen abouve the cupboards that I store plastic containers has got much bigger and realistically I am not sure that every thing will get used, there are only so many containers for soft fruit that you need. Might end up on freecycle.

Lovely bit of time was spent fishing emmas tissues out of the bin and into the compost that was one of the highlights. I don't think that this challange was as hard as the no plastic one. I think I will do it again sometime in the new year and this time no offsetting whatsoever. I think it will be much easier when I have more of my own produce.

[Shirley]

Water filter thingies can be sent back for recycling (at least the Brita ones can - freepost address too!)

The worst bit for me was the plastic - particularly stuff that has wrapped meat. I didn't think it was hygienic to wash and reuse that.

I watched as the binmen arrived this morning to collect - it wasn't zero waste over a fortnight, but I still felt good about it. J (3) keeps asking me whether things can be recycled, so I think that's a good result.

[Merry]

Well - I did my level best but it was nothing like zero waste.
The thin plastic wrappers from raw meat was my biggest problem too, together with the toothpaste tubes and the plastic and foil blister packs from my OH`s medication.
It`s concentrated my mind wonderfully and made me think even more carefully about the packaging that comes into the house - as little as I can manage but still too much!

[Millymollymandy]

Pretty much the same as you guys. I keep every jam jar and little plastic pot anyway, reuse plastic bags then use finally for cat poo. So our rubbish wasn't any less during this fortnight, but I have thought about it more!