The Rubbish Diet

Farewell old blog.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 12:12:00 +0000

There comes a time when you know you're ready to close door for the last time and move on. To turn the key and drive off to pastures new.

And I've come to realise that such a time has come for this blog.

There's part of me that doesn't want to let go. After all, this space has been my home and the place where my family and I have grown up, working out how we manage my ever-increasing enthusiasm to reduce waste.

It's also been the meeting point for many new friends. Strangers, who have since become good friends. We've laughed together, dined together, attended events together and naturally talked rubbish.

But I've been increasingly conscious that I don't spend much time here these days. Not since the team and I have built a much bigger 'house', the Rubbish Diet website, which has become a worthy home to the online challenge and HQ for community support. That's where you'll find all the latest updates about my exciting rubbish adventures, all that's happening in West London plus lots of tips and advice shared by our fantastic team. For me, it no longer makes sense to have a blog and a website that share the same name. It feels a real milestone to abandon this old thing. It shows just how much The Rubbish Diet has grown up.

And I hope as I wave goodbye here, that you'll continue to follow me and the team over at www.therubbishdiet.org.uk. We've got lots of exciting new things to announce in the autumn, so please do watch that space.

But, I have some other news too. This space grew out of my passion for blogging and my curiosity to learn. explore and document stuff that matters to me, whether it was family, the world around us or simply as an excuse for everyday self-expression and a chance to get something off your chest. I am still a random blogger at heart, so I've built myself a new personal space. It would be lovely to see you there. It's all fresh and free from my old clutter. You can find it at www.karencannard.wordpress.com.

It's been six and half amazing years. To think that I thought this rubbish stuff would only last eight weeks. Ha! What did I know! That's the thing with rubbish, it has that capacity to fire up a troubleshooter's imagination so bloody easily and never let go.

I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who's dropped by and supported me and my rubbish ideas over all this time. You've been wonderful and have helped make some great things happen and create some fantastic memories.

There's still lots to do, so I hope this isn't really goodbye and that I'll see you in either Rubbish Diet HQ or my imaginary writing studio very soon.

Let the rubbish adventures in those bins continue.

Karen x

Rubbish pleasures: Can you find happiness in reducing waste?

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 11:08:00 +0000

I've been pondering lately.

I'm not sure why I need to qualify it with 'lately'. I'm always pondering. Pondering is something I continuously do.

And the thing that's got my braincells sparking this time is the subject of happiness and how more and more people who we nudge along through The Rubbish Diet are expressing a real sense of pleasure at the end of it.

The family that I helped in last year's 'Throwaway Britain' documentary captured this perfectly, when discussing their slimmed bin:

"When you lift it up to see such a little bag after two weeks it's absolutely a joy." said Graham Heap, whose family took the challenge to reduce their waste in just two weeks. He added "I never ever thought that the size of my rubbish bags would put a smile on my face."

I raised this point recently at a TEDx talk that I gave at Cambridge University earlier this month. My talk was about how as individuals we have the power to revolutionise waste. Helping to innovate the economy through recycling more, supporting our local communities by paying more attention to reuse opportunities and how when we focus on reducing what's left in our bin, our creativity excels in finding new solutions to abate waste.

And I ended with Graham's quote, whose family had to quickly develop new routines, embed whole new habits and reorganise their recycling very differently in order to reduce their waste so drastically. For many, that would seem a total palaver. Yet for the Heaps, the positive results and personal successes outweighed any former perceived hassles.

The Heaps aren't the first to express such surprise pleasure at reducing their waste so drastically. I'd felt the immense rewards myself back in 2008 after I did that Zero Waste Week and there will be many others who had done so beforehand too.

But it's only recently that I've started thinking about this feel-good factor in more depth and it's an area that I'd like to understand more. For six years I've been talking rubbish and helping people take steps to reduce their waste and I'm going to carry on doing that. However, where I was once just happy with the results of people's Rubbish Diet endeavours, the more I witness individual's and community success stories, the more intrigued I am to understand some of the science behind these unexpected 'rubbish pleasures'.

What really drives people like myself to strive towards a massive waste reduction target during a Zero Waste Week?

Is it because we are natural goal-seekers who love beating targets? Is it because we feel accountable to whoever has set the challenge? Is it that fantastic feeling when we exceed our own expectations? Is it the surprise that we discover in ourselves or possibly the innovation beyond our bins that captures our imaginations?

Perhaps it's the positive sense of well-being brought by being an active part of the waste solution after years of being part of the problem? Perhaps it's the joy of saving money that we would have once thrown away as rubbish in our bins? Or perhaps it's enjoying our belongings for much much longer?

I know for one thing, there is an amazing sense of satisfaction in not having to put out the rubbish bin so often. And there lies a happy moment at its simplest.

From practical reasons to those that are more difficult to define and reach, I know that everyone's level of pleasure will be different and will be dependent on their individual motivation.

So, if you're happy to share your story and discuss with me your own experience about how it feels having reduced your waste, I'd love to hear from you, either through the comments below or by email.

Equally, if your experience has led to opposing feelings, I'd love to explore these too. I'm now crossing my fingers that taking The Rubbish Diet hasn't resulted in a household rift or - heaven help us - a divorce!!!

And if you've never done The Rubbish Diet before and fancy testing out some rubbish pleasures of your own, you could sign up to the challenge here. But don't expect it to be a totally easy ride. Most people have various hurdles they have to overcome, many of which are often beyond our control.

Maybe that's the true source of rubbish pleasure. In beating down those barriers, whatever they might be.

A great way for organisations to save waste and cash with WARPit

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 07:41:00 +0000

Below is a copy of my latest column for the Bury Free Press, which is published monthly. If you've been pondering how your organisation could make better use of Reuse and push unwanted items further up the waste hierarchy, even helping your local community, then do read on.

Karen Cannard: Bury Free Press: 28 February 2014

A few weeks ago, I managed to catch up with Daniel O’Connor, the founder of WARPit, who was making a rare visit to Suffolk. I’ve been following the organisation for some time and was I curious to find out more about successful schemes that have been implemented around the UK.

In a nutshell, WARPit is an online resource redistribution system that helps organisations and departments to lend or give away surplus equipment to internal departments or external organisations that actually need it. And so far the company has helped divert over 132853kgs of waste and save its clients over £787,000 in the process.

Dan, whose background lies in waste management, created the first version of the sharing tool in 2006, using an email list like Freecycle. However, it did not offer enough control to satisfy waste and liability laws, which are a key part of an organisation’s Duty of Care. He also admits it was also ‘a bit of a scatter gun approach’. So, he started to develop bespoke software in Jan 2011, which hit the market three months later.

Now, with 70 customers around the UK, WARPit’s database & network is helping managers save procurement and disposal costs in all sorts of organisations that vary from SMEs to local authorities, schools, colleges, universities, NHS trusts, government departments and charities.

Resource distribution systems for organisations aren’t particularly new. There have been many implemented around the country using basic technology such as bulletin boards and email rings. East of England’s free Eastex network has also been in place since 2004, but has gone a little quiet in recent years.

So what’s so different about WARPit? From a user-perspective it looks very streamlined, with easy-to-use photo-loading and comprehensive listing facilities. However, it’s the links to facilities management and corporate procurement procedures that may provide a real key to its success.

In a case study of its implementation at Scotland’s University of St Andrews, it was described by the Estates Department as “a very effective stock control system, much like an asset register, so that the university is better able to manage its resource use and waste.”

And organisational savings aren’t to be sniffed at. During its three month trial of using WARPit, the university saved £4,129 in waste disposal and procurement costs. Elsewhere, WARPit’s partnership with Northumberland County Council has just won a Society of Procurement award for cutting the local authority’s purchasing costs by over £50K.

Also from a sustainability perspective, in addition to tracking the financial savings of redistributing surplus equipment, WARPit’s management reports allow organisations to analyse their carbon savings for CSR reporting too.

But what I really love about WARPit’s potential, is the opportunity to create reciprocal resource sharing networks between organisations in a town, across a whole county or indeed a whole region. And this raises the bar for developing strategic partnerships within local or regional economies.

For example, Sunderland City Council’s partnership with Voluntary Action Sunderland - which has recently been recognised with a Compact Voice award - passes on surplus resources within the council and to third sector organisations and schools in the city. The effectiveness of the system increases as more organisations join. With more resources circulating, the system serves its community better, making all partners more resilient.

Before leaving, I asked Dan about his most rewarding experience since starting WARPit.

Apparently, it was rehoming 30 pairs of unopened Ralph Lauren brogues, left by an Olympic basketball team who were staying at the University of East London.

Now that’s what I call a really huge challenge, especially as they were size 12-18s!

EXTRA UPDATE: Please note that WARPit is free for charities. Other subscriptions are dependent on organisation size.

Launching Suffolk's very own Waste Reduction Hot List!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 06:06:00 +0000

Being voted into Resource Magazine's Hot 100 was indeed an honour last week. I'm still buzzing with excitement! Thanks again to all who voted and also once more to everyone who's supported The Rubbish Diet and my ramblings.

It has left me with my own burning question, and that's to uncover the Who's Who of movers and shakers closer to home, i.e. the people who make a real difference to reducing the county's waste across Suffolk.

These aren't awards and there's no prize, it's just a bit of informal fun to find our own local heros. I have my own personal list of favourites encompassing certain friends, community champions, local councillors, teachers, business leaders and waste professionals. But what I want to know is...

WHO'S YOUR LOCAL WASTE REDUCTION HERO IN SUFFOLK?

It could be someone in your family who's always repairing things, a local volunteer who's passionate about sharing recycling expertise or someone who's succeeded at their own personal waste reduction challenge, or on a more formal setting, someone who works in waste who's striving to make the most of recycling. It may be a teacher who's constantly finding new ways to reduce waste at school or a colleague in your business. It could be an engineer/designer who's developed a great product that helps to reduce waste.

When it comes to ways to reduce waste, the list is endless.

SO WHO'S ON YOUR HOT LIST?

Don't be shy. Simply add their details (or nominate yourself) by clicking on the link below. I'll publish the results on this blog later in the Spring. Vote now at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FXBX2C5

Exclusions: Please do not under any circumstances nominate that blogger from Bury St Edmunds, who talks rubbish incessantly. Her ramblings and rubbish escapades take up enough of my time.

Celebrating the people who are transforming the resource economy

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 20:13:00 +0000

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the Kit Strange Memorial Lecture at the Houses of Parliament.

It was the inaugural lecture delivered by Steve Read from the Somerset Waste Partnership, in honour of the late Kit Strange who, as director of the Resource Recovery Forum, pioneered the idea of waste as a resource. I never had the chance to meet Kit, who died unexpectedly in 2011, but from the warmth, memories and respect demonstrated by Steve Read and many of his peers, it was clear that he'd had an incredible impact on the waste sector in many ways, which as householders detached from the policies, strategies and innovation, we naturally take for granted.

Over the last six years since I became curious about waste, I have found myself in a unique position as a blogger in seeing how this industry works, meeting influencers, policy makers, waste management companies, researchers, campaigners, designers and technological innovators that are directing the old dinosaur of a single stream landfill culture to one where our rubbish is treated as a valuable resource that is fed back into the economy. Many attended the lecture yesterday and it was a great opportunity to catch up with just some of the people who are continuing to develop the resource economy through recycling, organics and redesign for reuse and repair.

To coincide with the lecture, Resource Magazine also announced its highly anticipated annual Hot 100 of influencers within the Resource sector. Kit Strange was a former winner of his inspirational work.

It was great to see Iain Gulland, Director of Zero Waste Scotland heading up the this year's list. I've heard Iain speak on a number of occasions about improvements to Scotland's recycling infrastructure and his vision for and practical steps towards Zero Waste.

In a list that features such high calibre professionals and visionaries from across all sectors of the waste and resources industry, you can imagine my delight when the Top 10 was announced and I discovered I was featured at No. 7.

I'd like to thank everyone who voted. It feels an honour to be there and was a total surprise. For me, it represents the relevance of capturing peer-to-peer enthusiasm, community based knowledge sharing and empowering people with new purpose and motivation to think differently about waste. And I'm chuffed to share the platform with my colleague Rachelle Strauss of My Zero Waste and National Zero Waste Week, who was listed at No 11.

Congratulations too to everyone listed. I can't list the full 100, but the Top 10 goes like this:

1: Ian Gulland, Director - Zero Waste Scotland
2: Emma Marsh, Head of Love Food Hate Waste - WRAP
3: David Palmer Jones, CEO, - SITA UK
4: Steve Lee, CEO - CIWM
5: Jonathan Straight, Chief Executive - Straight PLC
6: Janez Potočnik , European Environment Commissioner
7: Karen Cannard, Blogger - The Rubbish Diet
8: Dominic Hogg, Director - Eunomia
9: Ray Georgeson, Chief Executive - Resource Association
10:Liz Goodwin, CEO - WRAP

In his lecture, Steve Read indicated that consumers and citizens are often the missing stakeholders in the waste and resources sector. And it is true, for both the engaged consumer and the detached. Yet we are a vital ingredient that's needed to help the industry maximise its efficiency. How much we understand the impacts and how we choose to use our bins has a direct influence on the country's economy. I recognise that much of this depends on the media and I continue to strive to drive media interest, develop audience engaging formats and push for greater aspirations among communities.

Hearing of the immense commitment, achievements and drive of people like Kit Strange and other professionals always increases my vigour to keep tickling people into increasing their support and contribution on the homefront.

Huge thanks to everyone involved in organising yesterday's event. It was a real pleasure to be there. And I did my bit for food waste too. Thanks to the caterers and organisers for encouraging delegates to take away the leftovers in compostable containers. A resource-focused event at its very best.

Farewell 2013 and hello 2014: Reflecting backwards and pondering forwards.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 17:47:00 +0000

I hope you had a great Christmas and are are looking forward to the new year.

If you haven't done so yet, there's no better time to sign up for the Rubbish Diet Challenge and make it your new year's resolution, You'll be in great company, with 100s of people signing up by the day, thanks to The Rubbish Diet being the Campaign of the Week at Money Saving Expert.

It's been an amazing year and probably one of the most difficult from which to choose a particular highlight!

January kicked off with Wiltshire Wildlife Trust running the Rubbish Diet, which saw great results from their dieters and resulted in meeting the fabulous bloggers who took part, including Sarah (Everyday life on a shoestring) and Jen (Make and Mend Year).

Of course, running all through the year was the enormous team effort to implement the Rubbish Diet in Suffolk, Shropshire and Powys as part of the Nesta Waste Reduction Challenge. Sadly, we didn't win the £50k but it was brilliant to be one of the finalists and come out of the process with an established team, a purpose built website and a radio production toolkit. Congratulations to the Gleaning project which won - a worthy project that helps rescue surplus produce from our farmers' fields for distribution to charities.

And dotted throughout the various campaigns were great opportunities to visit places such as San Francisco - as part of the Zero Waste International Alliance Dialog - to learn about how the city attains such a high recycling and composting rate at 80% and hear from practitioners from around the world about waste at different levels, not just recycling but from a humanitarian perspective too.

Whilst there, I also had time to finally catch up with Beth Terry, an old blogging friend and author of My Plastic Free Life. I've known Beth since 2008, so it was a wonderful chance to meet and hear her stories of how she's now influencing Richard Branson. Back in the UK, I managed to meet our own plastic-free hero, ironically self-titled Polythene Pam, who has since created a new Plastic-free directory of tips and resources, which you can find at http://theplasticchallenge.com/

There was no rest for the wicked even during the summer. A call from ITV brought an opportunity to trek to the North West to help the Heap family reduce their waste. To see their negativity towards recycling turn towards enthusiasm and determination was utterly brilliant. They soon reduced their landfill by 95%. When you catch the waste reduction bug and see what's possible, it's proof that slimming your bin can really be contagious.

Towards the end of the summer I had the chance to meet Jen and Grant, more blogging pals from the Clean Bin Project in Canada, and send them to several of my favourite zero-waste hotspots for their UK film tour. They had a great tour and if you haven't seen it yet, the Clean Bin movie is one upbeat documentary about reducing rubbish that you really shouldn't miss.

The second half of the year brought even more excitement with Rachelle Strauss' 6th National Zero Waste Week building on the successes of last year. If you took part and thought that was good, just wait until you see what's planned for next September.

The last few months also saw waste professionals taking the Rubbish Diet challenge, which brought an interesting focus on testing whether they could 'practise what they preach.' A highlight was Viridor's Dan Cooke's tale of working out what to do with an old wetsuit and CIWM Wales' Rebecca Colley-Jones challenge of turning her unexpected offal leftovers into a haggis. I hope they'll blog about them soon, especially as an insider's view offers a fascinating perspective.

The BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish didn't win the CIWM communications campaign award, but it was great to be in the finals. Here in Suffolk, presenter Mark Murphy's and I had loads of fun talking rubbish and listening to residents' stories, united in a single mission to reduce the county's waste.

That was a real highlight, as was interviewing and recruiting our first Bin Doctor for a campaign further afield in Harrow, not to mention joining the Board of Trustees at ReusefulUK.

So what's for next year?

With fantastic partners and a great team in place managing The Rubbish Diet joint venture, I hope for the website and local engagement projects to go from strength-to-strength. I'm already looking forward to Wiltshire Wildlife Trust bringing the challenge to their local projects for the second year running as well as The Rubbish Diet taking to the streets of Harrow this January. Our Harrow Bin Doctor, Debra, is already in place working closely with our community engagement manager, Ali, and has been talking rubbish with local community groups. With most Rubbish Dieters having reduced their waste by 50% over the last 12 months, I hope for much more of this in 2014 and I am very excited about where The Rubbish Diet will travel this year, especially as more and more supporters sign up around the UK.

From a local perspective in my part of Suffolk, I want to continue to research and highlight the fantastic solutions that are being put in place by businesses and communities to reduce waste, to empower those who want to follow suit. There's lots of potential to connect interested individuals and organisations through a reuse culture alone.

My other focus is on the innovative, motivating and entertaining aspects of waste reduction in a mission to bring a renewed vigour of interest in the topic to our TV screens, showcasing the possibilities and realities of what can be achieved. There is so much more that our media can do to empower the nation and highlight issues where it's needed too.

And as for industry, I want retailers and brands to take an even closer look at the rubbish they sell us and in cases where hard-to-recycle plastic is used for cosmetic rather than protective reasons, redesign it for easier recycling. Starting with something as simple as the ubiquitous plastic gift card would prove an instant hit. If iTunes can switch to a card-based alternative, hopefully other gift cards will follow. There is so much more to tackle than small cards but I also believe that what we might perceive as small things are also worthy of attention. There is great value to be had in not forgetting that old saying 'Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves'. Attending to the tiny details can often lead to huge change.

I hope that that 2014 will bring more exciting stories and innovations that will inspire more change. Against the tide of government cuts and news that recycling rates that are flat-lining, both individual action and community support is going to be more important than ever.

I know my ambitions for next year are high as is my level of confidence in people's abilities to make a significant reduction in our country's waste.

But I also know that by thinking big and with the right support in place, many things are possible.

So thank you to everyone who has made 2013 such a whirlwind of amazing waste-busting adventures. Here's to whatever 2014 will bring.

Happy New Year!

Bins can only get better! A Rubbish Diet update.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 16:52:00 +0000

Hello. Remember me? It's been a while since Zero Waste Week, but I am still here. Well, here, there and everywhere. Putting one foot in, one foot out, doing the hokey cokey and shaking it all about.

Lots of great things have been happening in the world of The Rubbish Diet recently and to keep you in the loop here's a quick run down!

Revamped website:

If you haven't seen the new website lately, please do pop over to www.therubbishdiet.org.uk where the team has been busy populating it with new stories as well as a growing list of top tips.   If you still haven't signed up to do The Rubbish Diet Challenge, now's a great time to see if you can have a go at slimming your bins by Christmas. What a great way to end the new year!

Facebook page:

Despite me being totally pants at Facebook, we now also have a Facebook page, thanks to the dedicated social-media elves at Rubbish Diet HQ. That's the beauty of collaboration and teamwork! Do pop over and have a look, It would be great if you could like it and invite your rubbish busting friends. The more the merrier, as they say.   More details at www.facebook.com/therubbishdiet

Harrow Rubbish Diet:

It's with great excitement that I can announce that The Rubbish Diet is being rolled out in Harrow, West London, and we have appointed a Bin Doctor to help make that happen. Debra Alexis has already taken up the post and you can find out more about her here. If you live in Harrow and can help spread the word about the Harrow Rubbish Diet challenge that's launching in January, please do get in touch with Debra.

Awards & Competitions:

Excitement is also building over the prospect of the CIWM awards this Thursday, where the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet is shortlisted for an award in the Media Communications Campaign category. I'm travelling down with presenter Mark Murphy and his production team that championed the campaign. It would be brilliant to bring such a prestigious prize back to Suffolk and celebrate once more the support and good work of all the participants.

Hot on the heels of the awards is also next week's NESTA interview, where the team behind The Rubbish Diet joint venture, will be making our final pitch for a £50K prize to invest in rolling out the diet in more communities around the UK.   Imagine that! It would be simply awesome. It was our finalist position in NESTA's waste reduction competition that funded the development of our website and the Rubbish Diet trials in Suffolk, Shropshire & Powys, so the chance to support even more communities would be an amazing opportunity.

ScrapstoresUK:

Not directly linked to The Rubbish Diet, but still very important to me, I have recently accepted an invitation to join the board of trustees at ScrapstoresUK, an umbrella organisation and charity that supports the work of Scrapstores and resource centres, which reuse surplus and waste resources from retailers and manufacturers as supplies for children's art & crafts. Scrapstores are always looking for more suppliers of materials as well as volunteers. More information at www.scrapstoresuk.org.

Media Representation:

And last but certainly not least, having received an increasing amount of interest to contribute to media productions on both radio & TV, I have taken the huge step and signed with Sue Rider Management, a fantastic agency that is now working with me on some exciting developments. While I swoon in awe at the agency's other clients, I am doing my utmost to remain grounded between bouts of running around with great excitement at the prospect of even more 'rubbish' adventures to come. I think the words to use are: watch this space.

I think the theme of this update is most definitely one of great excitement about all that's happening, but amidst this I am naturally still keeping an eye on what's happening in the wider world of waste. If only I'd had time to blog after the RWM exhibition in September, I'd have applauded some of the great work that the Co-operative is doing to backhaul its recycling from the network of small stores to its distribution centres. And as for Ann Summers, the company's 50 Shades of Waste presentation was a real revelation - and a very pleasant one at that! And what about the latest news from Tesco eh! Finally, a supermarket publicly announcing their levels of waste in fresh produce and committing to reduce it.

And finally our ITV family, The Heaps, who were recently featured on Tonight's Throwaway Britain, are maintaining their slimmer bin at 95% of its former self.

Now that really is great news!

I shall indeed be back soon with more. Thank you as ever for following and supporting the adventures of The Rubbish Diet and this Almost Mrs Average. You are lovely!

My unexpected Zero Waste Week harvest

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 20:38:00 +0000

Proper gardeners & allotmenteers won't particularly be that impressed by the produce to the left, but I am absolutely surprised by the results, in a good way.

For this is yesterday's haul from my garden and for a non-committed and fair-weather gardener like me, the results have been encouraging...

... with the exception of that bowl of potatoes, the only harvest that came from three abandoned potato plants. However, I am surprised we had any at all and as I'd forgotten to buy extra spuds yesterday, these were a welcome and unexpected addition to today's lunch.

The blackberries are a real surprise this year, especially after I deliberately hacked back the bramble to clear some space. I hadn't quite expected nature to love my brutality so much and as a result we've picked several bowlfuls of blackberries over late summer. After such great results, I'm now planning to take the loppers to it again and see if we can create the same harvest next year.

And as for those tomatoes, having only planted 6 cherry tomato plants in late spring/early summer, since the first one ripened about 10 days ago, I'm delighted to have collected a small bowl of ripe tomatoes every other day. We normally have to ripen any tomatoes that we grow using the banana in a bag trick, which can be dispiriting, so this has been a fantastic surprise ~ especially for a tomato fiend like me.

But the greatest unexpected treat of all has been that bucket of apples. Having planted the tree seven years ago, each year it has disappointed with small offerings that are populated with unwelcome creatures that eat the apples from within.

For the very first year ever, this summer has provided a bucketful of apples that are a decent size and the majority of which are bug free. As it happens, the tree was pruned last year too and with great weather, finally it seems to have worked.

But of course, as Zero Waste Week comes to an end, the issue at the forefront of my mind is storage and preservation so that we can make the most of our apple harvest. I would hate for any of it to go to waste. So, having followed Love Food Hate Waste's advice for years, it was a 'no brainer' to store as many as I could in the fridge for future inspiration. A Twitter conversation on the topic also brought tips from @melaniebbikes whose advice led to stewing some to add to the freezer. I also liked this tip too, which I'm going to try another day.

@KarenCannard apple is also a great base for herb jellies, great way to preserve those too! (River Cottage Preserves handbook is my bible)
— Melanie B (@melaniebbikes) September 7, 2013

Collecting so much produce from our small garden this week has made me much more aware of the rewards in growing even just a few things that save food miles and packaging ~ and for very little effort too. It would have been such a wasted opportunity not to have planted those tomatoes. Pot luck was definitely on our side.

Meanwhile, to prove that sweet things pictured above aren't just for dessert, I cooked up some of yesterday's blackberries, added some chopped apples, a few veteran spring onions, a handful of mint from the garden and pepper seasoning, creating a great sauce to accompany today's lamb.

Now that was another unexpected Zero Waste Week result!

So with Zero Waste Week 2013 almost over, I hope you've had a great week yourself. If you've missed it and want to catch up with all the news, visit www.zerowasteweek.co.uk, where there are lots of tips. Those of you who are particularly enthused may even want to sign up for The Rubbish Diet and see how much further you can reduce your waste over the next eight weeks. If you haven't tried it yet, do sign up at www.therubbishdiet.org.uk.

But before I sign off, perhaps I should confess to our own food waste tally. We didn't quite get to zero, but we didn't do badly. I have no qualms in blaming most of it on the kids, with the abandoned Toasthenge, a few dregs of bottom-of-the-bowl-moist-cereal, a tiny bitesize piece of bagel, a small amount of pasta that competed with an unusual lack of appetite and some unappealing leftover fries from an emergency fast food pitstop this evening. Sadly my own contribution was some very burnt stewed plums which I'd forgotten that I'd left on the hob during school pick-up on and my two slices of bread with mouldy measels. All the above, of course, have been fed to the worms, so nothing has gone to landfill.

Huge thanks to Rachelle Strauss of MyZeroWaste for all of her hard work and inspiration in running another successful and well supported campaign. Such a great start to September!

If it weren't for you meddling kids... I'd have gotten away with it.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 05 Sep 2013 11:54:00 +0000

Toasthenge on Beans

Now that I've packed them off to school, I have to confess that I can finally breathe a little easier when it comes to Zero Waste Week.

Of course (and for the first time without even a hint of sarcasm) I am already missing my little darlings. They've been great company over the summer, but geesh do they sometimes give me trouble on the food waste front!

And most people with kids will know the battle.

Take the other day for instance, I thought I was onto a winner by serving up 'Toasthenge on Beans' - my historically successful reversal of 'Beans on Toast', in which they are guaranteed to eat the crusts. A throw-back to when the kids were little, its success has been proven time and time again and even at the ages of 9 and 11 it's still an easy favourite and a guaranteed zero waste coup...

.... until... the moment when I served up lunch on Tuesday and my 9yo announced that he wasn't actually hungry because he'd only gone and helped himself to a chocolate spread sandwich just 30 minutes earlier.

I admire his self-sufficiency... but AARGH!

I'd already had a full plate of beans with toast, his brother had his own Toasthenge and my husband turned his nose up saying... "well, you know it's not my kind of thing!"

No way was he bending his baked bean phobia to become my Zero Waste hero.

So, I took a page out of my mother's book!

"If you don't have it now, you'll eat it at dinner," I grumbled, then remembered dinner would be a much more delicious home-made fish pie with vegetables, so my threats instantly felt like an own goal!

Trying to reduce food waste when you've got kids is a challenge, especially when they go through their fussy stages, and I remember from my own childhood how I hated breadcrusts and many of the vegetables that the adults liked. Mealtimes used to sometimes feel like an endurance test, especially with my late mother's 'waste not want not' mantra, which she regularly served up with a full plate of nosh that looked like it was meant for climbing not eating. I could never complain that we weren't well fed and am now very grateful for her dedication to home-cooking.

Maybe that's why I find myself more flexible these days. I want my children to enjoy everything they eat and balance it to their own appetites too, trying to offer a healthy range of meals, which they can serve themselves and have seconds if they then wish.

But I also want them to be adventurous in their tastes and approach to food, and unless managed carefully this can easily become an enemy of zero waste ambitions, especially with a pre-teen who has his own thoughts about how adventurous he wants to be and sees fruit and vegetables as the adversary to his happy status-quo.

Now you can imagine my evil joy last Hallowe'en when he saw me making pumpkin soup. As he looked on with intrigue he immediately turned his nose up at it, saying he really didn't like the look of it. However, several hours later, and without complaint, he lapped up a bowlful... which I'd served up to him and his brother as a pasta sauce.

So, when it comes to encouraging kids to join you in your zero waste ambitions and maintain a healthy diet, there is some hope! I can't claim to be an expert, more of an intrepid explorer, but if it's of any help, here's what's worked for us.

1. Keep offering up those vegetables, but tell them to help themselves rather than filling their plate for them with something that they may not be likely to finish. What's left in the serving bowl can then be used as ingredients for other meals.

2. Soups are fab for hiding nutritious veg. If they don't like 'soup', serve it as a pasta sauce or mix it up with rice. Stir fries are good too, especially as they introduce exciting flavours.

3. Smoothies and milkshakes are a great alternative for picky fruit eaters.

4. And have you discovered Fruity Pasta? Use up grapes, apples and even chopped up orange segments to add to pasta. Grate over some cheddar cheese and you'll have yourself an instant taste explosion that even adults will like.

5. Finally, be creative and follow in the footsteps of the marketeers, which can be particularly helpful for the younger ones. Pirate Island - featuring mash, gravy and a variation of veg and diced meat - was always more appealing to our younger diners than the more unadventurous sounding 'Sunday Roast'.

We still get some plate waste but much less than I think we would if we didn't move with the ebb and flow of their changing appetites. I also think it's important for them to know why what they eat is so important.

While my husband reminds them about the importance of the 'five-a-day' message, I will occasionally throw in the economical and moral issue of food waste - not in a nagging parental ambush kind of way, but in a way that enables them to at least understand the wider context.

So, yes, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids - or rather the one who helped himself to a sandwich - I wouldn't have had any food waste this week. That Toasthenge would have been eaten, as planned and without grumble.

But thankfully stuff like that doesn't go to landfill. Oh no! I made a sad attempt to rescue the cold beans when I returned from a late meeting that evening, but I couldn't bear the soggy cold toast, so I've since fed that serving of Toasthenge to my wormery, along with a couple of slices of defrosted bread that suddenly developed a case of mouldy measles in yesterday's humid heat.

And of course, that bread would have been used up for Beans on Toast, if Mr C had welcomed that for lunch.

So, I suppose I can't put all the blame on the kids.

And as for that bread, I should have just left it in the freezer just that little bit longer.

When it comes to our food waste tally, we are definitely all in it together.

____________________________

More information about Zero Waste Week 2013 can be found at www.zerowasteweek.co.uk. Do sign up and make your pledge. In return, you'll get some great tips.

I don't waste food because I want to. No-one does.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 09:48:00 +0000

Naturally, as it's Zero Waste Week, I've been thinking a lot about food waste and yesterday delved into my cupboards and fridge-freezer to see what I needed to rescue from being chucked away this week.

Not that we waste a lot of food these days, However, I know that I can still be a tad careless.

After all, I don't buy things thinking, 'Oh, that'll end up in the bin.' I don't like wasting food and I've never met anyone who does.

For me, food waste is mainly an accidental consequence of my busy and chaotic life.

And with four different appetites in the house with their different routines and culinary dislikes, it can be tricky to find a balance to provide a healthy diet and reduce the amount of stuff that ends up in the bins.

The trick that I've begun to use when shopping for perishable produce is to actually ask myself about the likelihood of that item going to waste. If I can't categorically say there's less than a 10% chance, I won't buy it. This is so different to the way I used to shop, when I never actually gave it a single thought.

Consequently, I've avoided hundreds of BOGOFs, hundreds of wasted yoghurts and countless slices of unused ham

And although I still use it in emergencies, I try not to depend on the freezer as a back-up, because I am never that organised to benefit from it - except for storing sliced bread before it goes on the turn as well as unusual flavoured ice-cubes (more on that later).

My technique to fresh produce is normally to have a back-up plan, knowing for example that any fruit that ends up looking worse for wear can be brought back to life as a smoothie, just like the one I made yesterday from a dodgy looking banana, some veteran melon, squishy strawberries, blackberries & last week's apple juice.

It's a five minute job that requires no faff. I'm far too busy for faff - and if I dare confess, I can sometimes be a total lazy-arse too.

But to think I just used to bung that stuff in the compost.

It's a far cry from how I now look at a banana and almost egg it on towards the dark side so I can bash it up in the blender. Until you've tried it, you won't know how satisfying such fruity alchemy can be.

Now back to my chaotic side - which is my normal setting. You can see what my perishables are up against. Even with the best laid plans to use up the open pot of greek yoghurt with some dollops of mango chutney and tomato puree, to create a base source for a sweet and sour Balti Chicken, I totally forgot to set free the coriander from the fridge to add to it.

I only made it so I could use the bloody coriander!

So to avoid it becoming fodder for the compost, I'd now better freeze it with some water in the ice-cube tray to create what Jamie Oliver has turned to calling a 'Flavour Bomb'!

It can sit alongside the juice that I squeezed from an aging rock-hard lime.

One day, I may become a zero food waste genius.

I hope so.

I don't waste food because I want to. No-one does.

____________________________________________________

More information about Zero Waste Week, can be found at www.zerowasteweek.co.uk. There are also lots of tips on shopping, storage and cooking at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com.

Zero Waste Week 2013. Preparing for a bountiful feast.

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 10:50:00 +0000

And here it is. Zero Waste Week 2013 has finally begun.

And I'm joining in, starting with a Monday morning excavation of my fridge, freezer and cupboards in a mission to use up the contents and create zero food waste.

Many like to call it an audit - but for me it's more like an archaeological dig, especially when it comes to the freezer. For instance this morning's expedition uncovered a leg of lamb, chicken breasts, fish steaks and a mysterious lasagne whose packaging I used for a radio broadcast earlier this year and accidentally recycled afterwards - oops.

And as for the fridge, as you can see my haul has revealed a cacophony of pleading fruit & vegetables, wailing at me to use them up first to create a veritable feast.

But the most miserable looking felons that have been imprisoned in the fridge for far too long are those poor fruity yoghurts - still unopened and, ahem, past their use-by date - and all because their biggest fan has gone off them. In other words, he's become yoghurted out and being too busy, I hadn't noticed.

But I refuse to waste them without further investigation, and with my disclaimer of 'Don't try this at home' and looking all 'innocent-faced', I shall be delving deep with my exploration tools, i.e. a spoon. I will of course take full responsibility for my actions.

It's also probably time to confess too that even after 5 years of talking rubbish, I am still absolutely crap at planning. All that food hasn't been bought for a recipe. Instead I shop with my imagination, buying things that I know I can make use of and blend with various herbs and spices.

So when I look at the ingredients above, I can already see a sweet and sour chicken balti, a fish pie, fruit smoothies, roasted vegetables and possibly a green salsa.

But that's all very well when my imagination is working on full power, However when you're tired and busy, culinary creativity can be buried deeper than that leg of lamb in the freezer. Then Beans on Toast becomes the highlight of the day.

That's why Zero Waste Week provides a good kick up the backside to put great food back on the table of priorities. And after dragging the contents of my kitchen out into the open, I can already see that I won't need to go shopping this week, except for perhaps a top-up of cereal and some bagels.

Well that's a turn-up for the cook book.

So are you joining in the latest chapter in this Rubbish Revolution and committing to feed your belly not the bin?

Yes? Oh goody! See www.zerowasteweek.co.uk for more info.

And if you tweet, don't forget that #zerowasteweek is the hashtag. Wouldn't it be great if we could get that trending this week.

Well here's to the launch of Zero Waste Week.

I'll see you later, well that's if I survive the yoghurt and those dodgy looking plums that accidentally froze at the bottom of the fridge.

And as for that month-old leek, I shall be asking Mr C exactly what his intentions were when he bunged it in the trolley.

That one's his responsibility.

Suffolk - Join me in a virtual flashmob!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 07:52:00 +0000

Ahoy there Suffolk!!!

Yes YOU, over there.

Your Rubbish Blogger from Bury St Edmunds needs you!

Yes, that's me over here - whispering at you from my garden shed - not too quietly, just loud enough for you to hear.

I want to create a surprise virtual flashmob for a very important cause that is extremely close to my heart.

Suffolk still has a huge problem with food waste. This Easter I read that it costs Suffolk residents £3.14 million to dispose of 35,000 tonnes of the stuff. Shocking stats, I know - and figures like this can make you feel quite impotent, especially when you think of all the embedded energy and water in growing that stuff, only for it to end up in bins and carted off to landfill.

But we can do something about it and this is where you come in, even if you don't create much food waste yourself.

And it all starts with Zero Waste Week, which just as it happens, is taking place next week: 2-8 September.

So where do you come in?

The theme of Zero Waste Week this year is "Use it up", with lots of tips to cut down on food waste, with the key message to "Fill your belly not your bin".

And I'd love you to sign up, take part. All you need to do is visit www.zerowasteweek.co.uk, click a couple of buttons, select a pledge and you're in!

But don't just let the buck stop with you, encourage your friends and family too.

After all, our corner of the UK is aiming to become Greenest County and what a way to show our mettle, by creating a virtual flashmob on the Zero Waste Week site! Oh yes, let's parachute in with pledges from wherever you are in Suffolk

Even if you prevent just a block of cheese from being bunged in landfill, that's a result. For you it might be some cheese, but for others it could be £10 of shopping that would otherwise have ended up in their black bin.

Now I haven't told Rachelle Strauss, the organiser of the campaign - or indeed any of the team behind Zero Waste Week - of my plans.

I want it to be a right good old virtual flashmob surprise.

So remember, bellies not bins. Show your support now at www.zerowasteweek.co.uk

_________________________

National Zero Waste Week, now in its 6th year, takes place 2-8 September. No matter where you are in the UK, you can join in too. So if you care about food waste, please sign up, pledge and tell your friends. There's also a Facebook Events Page that you can join too.

Don't let the summer end without seeing this

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 10:50:00 +0000

The Clean Bin Movie: Coming to the UK - 23-30 August

Meet Jen and Grant, who have just arrived in the UK from Canada and are getting ready for a five-day tour of their documentary: The Clean Bin Project.

Forget the big budget Hollywood blockbusters that are hitting the screens this summer. Whether you want comedy, drama or even a touch of horror - in parts - this is the film for anyone who wants to be inspired to reduce their waste.

I first came across the Clean Bin Project blog in 2008, not long after starting The Rubbish Diet. Jen Rustemeyer provided the running commentary to the challenges that she and her partner Grant Baldwin faced with entertaining accounts as they attempted a consumer free year to see who could create the least rubbish.

This was not your 'holier than thou' blogging, more a combination of escapades, frustrations and ingenuity at overcoming some of the regular hurdles that face us all.

And thankfully, they also captured it on camera, creating a very entertaining documentary, which is being screened at five venues across the UK, with a post-screening Q&A with Jen & Grant.

Launching in Brighton this Friday, the full tour list is as follows:

Fri 23rd Aug - Brighton - Brighthelm Centre. Open from 6pm. Starts 7pm.
Tue 27th Aug- Stowmarket, Suffolk - John Peel Centre for Creative Arts. Open 7pm. Starts 7:30pm
Wed 28th Aug - York - City Screen, Picturehouse. 6:15pm
Thu 29th Aug - Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The Old Post Office. 7pm.
Fri 20th Aug- Warminster, Wiltshire. Baptist Church Hall. 7pm.

Entry is either free, or with a small donation/ticket price depending on local arrangements and sponsorship. Huge thanks go to Freegle, Mid Suffolk District Council, City Screen & John Cossham, Transition Shrewsbury and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for making these events possible.

It would be really great if you could make it to one of the screenings. If you can't and would still love to see the documentary, copies can be purchased at www.cleanbinmovie.com. There are also details of how you can host a screening for your local community.

The Clean Bin Project screenings are happening in time to whet the appetite for Zero Waste Week which follows the week after. Taking place,2-8 September, the theme this year is "Use it Up" and focuses on food waste. Please do sign up at www.zerowasteweek.co.uk. There'll be more on that from me soon.

Meanwhile, I hope that you enjoy the Clean Bin Project events, where you'll also get to meet some of the local waste-busters who are running some great projects around the country.

10 million items of furniture are thrown away each year in the UK – let’s change that with Give it for Good

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 05:15:00 +0000

Some of those clever people at Freegle are setting up a new project to increase the reuse of goods and materials around the UK and want to make it easy for people to NOT throw out usable stuff.

Currently in prototype stage for the Brighton & Hove area, Give it for Good offers an easy-to-use search facility showing all reuse options for any item, connecting members of the public with local facilities, including Freegle, social enterprises, charity shops, council sites, community projects, licensed recyclers, businesses. Once you've entered your item, you can decide if you want to give to a charity, to an individual, join a group, pay a collector and so on. Give it for Good will do the research, so you can do the giving.

This isn't a replacement for Freegle or other online groups - it's an opportunity to attract new members. Neither is it in competition for reuse organisations – it's a chance to drive more people to them all, all helping to encourage people who currently just throw things away to re-home them instead by other means. And if you've been watching Kirstie Allsopp's Fill Your House for Free recently, you'll know there's a growing appetite for reuse.

I think it's a fantastic idea but to get the project off the ground Give it for Good needs your help, in the form of a little bit of crowdfunding. I've dug behind my sofa and scrabbled together some coinage and if you're able to help too, that would be great. They are trying to raise £15,000 by 30th August so they can run a pilot, which they will then expand more widely around the UK. More info is available on their crowdfunding page: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/give-it-for-good

Please do have a look at the short video below and check out their prototype page at http://giveitforgood.com/

The project team can also be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GiveItForGood and Twitter as @GiveItForGood

For more info, email Cat Fletcher at GiveItForGood@gmail.com.

The end of an era and the start of a new chapter

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 12:31:00 +0000

Well, there had to come a point when I pulled my finger out, pulled up my socks and opened my laptop to finally write a blogpost.

I know I've been utter pants over the last few months.

It's not as though I've had no news to share. I've probably had too much and I never even blogged about the impromptu moment I asked the legendary Michael Parkinson about his rubbish.

But now that the school holidays are upon us, this is the first occasion I've had to properly slow down since September last year and stay at home instead of gallivanting around the country.

And this holiday feels like a period of transition in more ways than one.

On a personal level, our youngest has just left primary school and is getting ready to start middle school in September. Yes, that little man who was only 3 when I started this blog has just turned 9 and is growing up. To watch him confidently leave one school and be ready to embark on the next stage of his life feels like a real milestone.

Elsewhere, I've spent the last 8 months coming to terms with my mother's unexpected death in December. Nothing can prepare you for losing a parent and I'm very aware that the constant flow of activities and deadlines this year have kept me very distracted, so much so that when we completed the sale of her house last week, it kicked me so hard that it felt like she'd died all over again. My mother taught me lots about what's important in life and much of that teaching was in her death. One day, I hope to share her wisdom - not yet but soon - the wisdom of an average woman who would never have expected to have been considered remarkable but in many ways truly was. I really wish she was still here to see what's around the corner. I know she'd be one of the first to laugh at my misadventures and then, without me knowing, quietly share her pride.

For things are changing on The Rubbish Diet front and at a rate of knots too. Remember that Nesta competition I entered last year in partnership with Cwm Harry and Rachelle Strauss from My Zero Waste? We're still right in the middle of the challenge and following the success of running the Rubbish Diet in Suffolk and Shropshire (which even saw 22 households in one street taking part in Shrewsbury), the novel bin slimming action is spreading to Ludlow and very soon Powys, the latter of which will be launched during this year's National Zero Waste Week, 2-8 September. If you haven't checked out Zero Waste Week yet, go and have a peek at its new website and do get involved, especially if you need to get tough with your food waste.

But there's lots happening between now and then. Don't miss 'yours truly' helping a family slim their bin as part of the Throwaway Britain Tonight documentary, which is being broadcast this Thursday 1st August (9pm, ITV1). Without giving away the final reveal, I can't wait for you to see how Sandra and her family tackled their waste.

And to give you even further inspiration to reduce waste, I've been pulling together the first UK tour of the Clean Bin Project documentary, which will see my old Canadian blogging friend Jen and her partner Grant travelling around the UK, to attend screenings of their movie in Brighton, Suffolk, York, Shrewsbury (tbc) and Wiltshire. The official dates and venues for late August will be published soon, but if you'd like to know more please email me.

But coming back to the most major thing that's happening in my life right now, although I'm taking time out to enjoy the events of the summer holidays and pause for reflection, it's also a time for significant change, especially as the success of The Rubbish Diet trials featured in the Nesta competition has led to much interest from a range of local authorities.

The Rubbish Diet has already travelled a long way from being just a random housewife with a blog. In the last year, it has developed into a website and a team to support the Nesta Waste Reduction competition. And now, still in conjunction with the 'Do Think' Tank Cwm Harry (the people who are also behind the People's Design Lab), we are preparing for the next stage, which will see The Rubbish Diet becoming a social enterprise, developed to help households and communities reduce their waste by 50% within as little time as eight weeks. More info on the next stage will be available soon, as will the final results of the Nesta competition later in the year. Meanwhile if The Rubbish Diet challenge launches in your neck of the woods, do join in and say hello.

With so much happening it really does feel like the end of an era and the beginning of an exciting and potentially nerve-wracking new chapter.

Thank you for sticking with the rubbish adventures of this Almost Mrs Average over the last five years. I know there are lots more adventures to be had yet, but from now on it will be in a very different context.

I just hope I will still have time to blog about them.

Tagging along with Hadleigh HWRC to the Awards for Excellence in Recycling & Waste Management

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:05:00 +0000

The team from Hadeigh's HWRC, FCC Environment & Suffolk County Council with BBC's Susanna Reid

Yesterday, I had the real pleasure of tagging along with the Suffolk's Household Waste Recycling Centre team to LetsRecycle.com's Awards for Excellence in Recycling & Waste Management.

The awards, now in their 10th year, and presented by the BBC's Susanna Reid, were held at the Landmark Hotel, London, a beautiful setting to mark the successes and excellence of the recycling and waste management industry, the kind of things that go on behind the scenes that help the UK recycle more and reduce wasted resources.

I've been singing the praises of Suffolk's recycling facilities as part of the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, so it was great to hear that the Hadleigh HWRC was in the running for the category of Community Amenity Site of the Year,

With composting and recycling rates that exceed 90%, Hadleigh HWRC, managed by Suffolk County Council and FCC Environment, has been identified as Suffolk ’s top performing site, with successful and effective day-to-day operations providing an enhanced service to users.

Both Suffolk County Council and FCC Environment have engaged with local third sector organisations including the Ipswich Furniture project and ‘Re-cycle’ both of which are charities that have diverted items from landfill. Ipswich Furniture Project provides an outlet for furniture and crockery, with ‘Re-Cycle’ giving unwanted cycles a new life. This has enabled improvements on the recycling performance within the existing site footprint and moves more of the materials up the waste hierarchy, with almost no environmental impact.

The site only has two members of staff during the week and three at weekends to manage all waste streams and maintain the high recycling rate and excellent customer service. Much of the success of the site's recycling rate is attributed to the site staff and their relationship with the public.

But these awards always bring stiff competition and this year the team was up against the Witchford HRC, in Cambridgeshire and Witley Community Recycling Centre in Surrey.

And the winner was...... well... sadly not the team from Hadleigh HWRC on this occasion, but another worthy winner, Witley CRC, which is part of a network of 15 facilities managed by Sita, and which has been redesigned with sustainability at its heart and strong community engagement in its development.

Ooooh, so close! They may not have won at yesterday's event but being a finalist in the awards and one of the top performing Household Waste Recycling Centre's in the UK, Hadleigh HWRC is most definitely a winner in my eyes and it was great to chat to Mel & Terry (pictured above with Susanna Reid) about their stories of what it's like being on the ground at one of our county's facilities. The passion for what they do is so easy to see.

Once again, in a good way, it felt like I was a bit of a recycling groupie following the band, and a very successful one at that. Seriously, when you witness how the awards' nominees are changing the future of waste, their efforts, successes and enthusiasm really does rub off.

With wide-ranging categories such as High Street Recycling Champion, Commercial Recycling Champion, Best Community Recycling Initiative and Recycling Businesses of the Year, I wonder if next year, we'll see more entries from Suffolk. After all, from our own Greenest Suffolk awards and some of the great things coming out of the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, I reckon our county could offer up some stiff competition for next year's awards.

Huge thanks to Letsrecycle.com for letting me come along to support our fantastic team from Suffolk. There were some great winners and finalists, all which can be seen either on the website or by following the updates on Twitter, using the hashtag #awardsforexcellence.

Please vote for The Rubbish Diet in celebration of reaching the Brilliance in Blogging shortlist. #BiBs

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:44:00 +0000

Click the BiB badge to vote.

I am absolutely chuffed to bits to hear the news that The Rubbish Diet has been shortlisted in this year's Brilliance in Blogging Awards, organised by BritMums, and especially so because it's been included in the Commentary category.

This category features blogs that highlight causes, either through raising awareness or funds, and which are a force for positive change. Topics might be global, local or personal. Whatever the cause, the bloggers shortlisted in this category have been chosen for doing more than their bit, and helping others get involved too. So to have been nominated alongside so many great bloggers is a real honour.

This news comes at a particular exciting time, having just launched the extension to this blog, i.e. The Rubbish Diet Challenge website, which finally gives people a toolkit to reduce their waste wherever they are, and properly pulls together the learning and experiences of blogging about waste over the last five years. With over 190 online sign-ups to the challenge (and another 80 offline) in the first 10 days of what has been very much a soft launch, the new site has quickly become the official new home of The Rubbish Diet.

And it's also become a portal for tracking localised Rubbish Diet projects that are taking place around the country, starting with Suffolk, Shropshire and very soon Powys, sharing skills and local knowledge that can help householders reduce their waste by on average 50% in just eight weeks. With Wiltshire Wildlife Trust having successfully rolled out the Rubbish Diet as part of their waste reduction campaign and the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet recently launched in my neck of the woods, this year feels like a real milestone. It's no longer just me anymore and that makes me feel like doing a happy dance.

So, if you like what we're doing in helping to put waste higher up the agenda and empowering households and communities to pull-together to slim those bins, please vote for the Rubbish Diet in the Commentary category. That really would be smashing!

And on behalf of my new team, i.e. my merry band of Bin Doctors, I'd like to thank you for your support.

Of course, should we win... we'll be sure to recycle the celebratory Champagne bottle as well as the metal cap, the twisty wire thing, the aluminium wrapping, cork and all!

Voting closes on 12th May.

The new Rubbish Diet Challenge website is now LIVE!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 13:38:00 +0000

After much hard work from a dedicated team, the Rubbish Diet Challenge website is now live and kicking and ready as an online toolkit for anyone who wants to take the 8 week challenge to slim their bin!

You'll find all you need, including an overview of how it works, some great diagrams and a sign-up form. Once signed up, you'll receive a series of weekly tips, introducing different themes over the eight weeks.

So if you've been itching to take up the challenge but haven't got around to starting it yet, there's no better time. Do pop over to the new website and have a gander. You can find it at www.therubbishdiet.org.uk. And if you live in Suffolk, Powys or Shropshire there are even 'Bin Doctors' on hand to tell you about their county-wide campaigns which are launching next week, offering extra assistance to help slim those bins.

Talking of which, it will come as no surprise that I'm rolling up my sleeves to help out in Suffolk, along with Kate Kelly, who took the challenge last year. And we're getting ready to support presenter Mark Murphy, who is championing the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet Campaign. It's going to be HUGE and kicks off on Monday.

That's eight weeks of waste-busting fun in our own county. We'll be covering all the latest news via a new local blog www.rubbishdietsuffolk.blogspot.com. So, if I suddenly go all quiet here, you'll now know where to find me!

I hope you like the new website, and if you do, please tell your friends. Here's to a very exciting new phase of The Rubbish Diet and an ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who's supported it so far. The next few months are going to be great!

SLIMMER BINS, HERE WE COME!

__________________________________

The calm before the great excitement!

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 10:11:00 +0000

Taking a brief Easter break before the big stuff happens!

Regular readers of the Rubbish Diet will probably recognise that nervous grin by now. It's the one that says 'oh heck, it's too late now, it's happening and there's no going back now'.

A bit like this one, taken in January 2008, when I signed up to St Edmundsbury's Zero Waste Week, agreed to become their community champion, panicked and then set up this blog.

Yes, this old blog, with just me and my bin!

Then you and your bins....

It really has been fun and I am truly grateful for everyone who has followed and interacted with the blog over the last five years.

But things are about to change bigtime!

So, please hang onto your seats for the next stage of The Rubbish Diet adventure, because very soon it's not going to be just me and this little blog anymore. There's a whole team of people behind the scenes, who have been working hard to take the bin-slimming experience to an all new level.

And over the next week, we will be announcing a brand-spanking-new Rubbish Diet website (yep - a proper website - at long last!) and the very exciting launch of The Rubbish Diet challenge which will soon be taking place across three counties (Shropshire, Suffolk and Powys).

I would love you to be a part of that too, whether it's following the story, tweeting the new links or encouraging your friends to get involved. There will be lots of stuff happening with some fantastic local projects, including teaming up with BBC Radio Suffolk to launch the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet in my own area, which is both very exciting and equally daunting.

We are really just days away from the launch of the new website, followed by the actual Rubbish Diet challenge which launches on 15th April, inviting participants to slim their bins over 8 weeks. There will be new blogs too, enabling local followers to keep up with stories from their respective counties.

But there's no rest for the wicked! There's much to do between now and then - including another visit to landfill, delving into some prestigious bins around the county.... and judging by that photo, I'd better fit in another haircut as it looks like a spider has landed on my head!

Well there's definitely no going back now! So do watch out for imminent announcements and all those luscious bin-slimming links coming VERY SOON!

Meanwhile, if you are on Twitter, do follow @TheRubbishDiet, which will feature all the latest news as it happens. Local updates will also be available via @RDShropshire, @RDSuffolk @RDPowys.

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In Norfolk? Fancy going Gleaning?

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:05:00 +0000

Recently, Martin Bowman from Feeding5K (one of my fellow finalists in the Nesta Waste Reduction Challenge) got in touch to invite me to join their next Gleaning Day in Norfolk, which is taking place at the beginning of April. Sadly, I can't make it but I think the idea is so fab I wanted to extend the invitation out to anyone else who may be available locally. Martin explains more in detail below:

Gleaning day coming up on Saturday 6th April

On Saturday 6th April, the Gleaning Network will be heading down to a farm in Norfolk to harvest tonnes of parsnips and save them from going to waste, redistributing them to food poverty charities. We need volunteers to help harvest the tasty produce! Contact martin@feeding5k.org to find out more, sign up to volunteer, or help coordinate. The day will be roughly 10am-4pm (TBC), and travel expenses are covered for those travelling from Cambridge and nearby- the farm is near Kings Lynn station. If you can't join us this time, sign up to our gleaning list and we'll let you know of all future gleaning days. Join the Arable Spring!

What is Gleaning?

Gleaning Network UK, recently featured on BBC Radio 4's Food Programme and Al Jazeera, and organised by Tristram Stuart and Feeding the 5,000, is an exciting new initiative to save the thousands of tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables that are wasted on UK farms every year. Farmers across the country often have no choice but to leave tonnes of their crops unharvested and get ploughed back in the soil. These crops often cannot reach the market either because they fail to meet the retail strict cosmetic standards or because of overproduction.

We coordinate teams of volunteers, local farmers and food redistribution charities in order to salvage this fresh, nutritious food and direct it to those that need it most, such as homeless hostels and charities. To date, we have salvaged several tonnes of excellent unmarketable British produce, including apples, cabbages, cauliflowers, spring greens and kale, and redistributed them to charities such as FareShare and the Best Before Project. Here's some more info, our video, and pictures of our last gleaning day. The movement is gathering pace, and we're rapidly expanding into a national network, with a hub now launching in Cambridge and Norfolk.

Here's more info in this video here:

Zero Waste standards, tours & a party for good measure

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:10:00 +0000

The last few days of the international Zero Waste convention in San Francisco and the East Bay area have been very hectic with much debate and learning taking place. It has become evident that this part of the world is very justified in having such high standards in its expectations regarding the future of zero waste initiatives.

Standards

On Thursday, there was much heated debate in Oakland City Hall, led by Gary Liss, on defining a Zero Waste standard for business certification.

It was clear that Zero Waste certification is already being carried out on some major international businesses and is currently being managed by a range of organisations, including UL, NSF-ISR and the US Zero Waste Business Council who, in consultation with the Zero Waste International Alliance, are preparing an American standard for Zero Waste for submission to ANSI. Even though the current programmes are working towards high standards for Zero Waste (without landfilling or burning), it was debated that they aren't yet high enough and there could be a range of loop holes. Also there needs to be clarity of a standard for businesses that have very minimal wasted resources.

Pigs & Peacocks

Following the day's debate at City Hall, it was back on tour again, this time for dinner at Marin Sanitary Service, a family-run waste management company that serves Marin County in the East Bay area.

I've now been to a wide range of MRFs but I've this is the first time I've ever visited a site that keeps pigs or even peacocks, not to mention the chickens, which feature as a popular and unexpected item on their educational tours.

The philosophy of Zero Waste is at the heart of the company's activities and I love this poster where our host Devi Peri outlined how once you've harvested the low-hanging fruit, it is possible to incorporate other services to a point where the only things left are Extended Producer Responsibility, including redesign.

Mattress Recycling

On Friday we visited a mattress recycling company in Oakland, which is now processing 150,000 mattresses per year with only 10% of its waste ending up in landfill.

Mattress Recycling is a great example of how recycling is progressing but if manufacturers designed products for better deconstruction at end-of-life, waste reduction achievements could be even better.

The company's landfill stats may appear to be minimum but there still needs to be a push for products such as the one below, which cannot be disassembled, to be redesigned for disassembly.

However, for the majority that can be separated, the company is able to deconstruct the mattresses into good quality components, including metal that is sold onto metal dealers, wood that can be used in mulch, compost or energy production and cotton & fabrics that are sent onto the textile markets.

Dual Stream Bins & Buy Back

Having stayed in Berkeley this week, it was interesting to have a peek behind the scenes at Berkeley Recycling, the city's waste management company that serves residents and businesses locally.

One of the key points I drew out of the tour was the success of the company's dual stream collection, i.e. collecting recycling in split wheelie bins.

This allows for better quality of materials as plastic & metal packaging can be kept separate from paper and cardboard, which means easier and more efficient sorting at the MRF and maintains their ability to create one of the cleanest streams of recycling the the Bay Area. Currently Berkeley Recycling's MRF maintains just a residual rate of only 2-3% and thanks to the quality of its recycling streams doesn't experience any rejections.

It was also interesting to see how there are different service levels of participation to engage the public. Residents have a range of options for recycling, which include the kerbside service through the dual-streamed bins and a front-end recycling centre at the MRF.

The bins shown above cater for all the kerbside materials plus hard plastic, but as you can see below there is also a Buy Back service, where visitors can get paid separately for bottles, cans, paper and scrap aluminium, incentivising those who want to earn some extra dollars either for themselves or a community initiative.

I was intrigued to know the amount of materials collected through these different service levels. The figures are as follows:

Bring back: 100 tons per month
Buy back: 250 tons per month
Kerbside: 650 tons per month

It was also interesting to note that 'Buy back' services are an integral part of recycling services, not just in Berkeley but across California.

Innovations in Reuse

Throughout the week I have seen many examples of how Reuse has been an important feature in this area's waste hierarchy but it was the visit to El Cerrito's recycling centre which really demonstrated how this can be made not only visible to the public but also integral to a local culture.

The El Cerrito site underwent a major redesign in 2012 and has fast become one of most attractive recycling sites I have ever seen. Its popularity amongst local residents is such that it restricts visitors to two hours onsite. Two hours? Most people I know are in and out of a recycling centre in just 20 minutes.

The attraction of El Cerrito is that it is not just a recycling centre, it is also an exchange centre, featuring an onsite book 'store', where you can pick up items of interest for free and those who are registered can also pick out various items from some of their deposit bins. As well as managing a range of recycling streams on site, it also supports local community reuse organisations such as Urban Ore and the Goodwill charity.

For anyone interested in modelling reuse and community exchange facilities into their own recycling centres, it really is worth looking closely at the El Cerrito model and more information can be found on its website.

Party Time at Urban Ore

On the topic of reuse, one of the most amazing centres in this part of California... or indeed anywhere else that I've had the pleasure to visit is Urban Ore, which is a huge reuse and building materials exchange operation in Berkeley. It is also an active contributor to the Zero Waste programme and its website is really worth a visit for anyone who want to push activities further up the waste hierarchy in their own localities.

Urban Ore was also the venue for the end-of-week party and with the opportunity to browse around the store, I couldn't think of a better place to be.

This place is cool with a capital C!

It's not even afraid of reselling electricals and electronics. The onus is simply on any interested purchasers to test them out onsite first!

But when I say that Urban Ore is huge! It really is! Even this photo of 'party central' doesn't do it justice. And in fact, the outside is even larger than the inside.

The Urban Ore party really was a fitting venue for the end-of-week celebrations. It has been a great study tour of some of the best practice Zero Waste practices that are taking place in the world right now and if there are any local innovators, great thinkers and aspirational leaders in the UK's waste sector who want to be connected up to what I've seen this week, I would be delighted to make those connections.

I know waste management and working towards Zero Waste to conserve resources isn't easy, but it starts with rethinking the impossible and realising its potential towards a new reality. We should never be scared of these levels of innovation but should be excited about the technological, economic and social opportunities that they bring.

What I've witnessed this week have been communities that care about making the impossible actually possible, forging ahead with their vision and working together with City officials, service providers and strategists who are not daunted by moving away from old models of thinking.

This is something that is worth celebrating big time! So thank you San Francisco, leading the way with your 80% diversion rate, and to all the organisations from the Bay Area that shared their experiences this week. I feel very privileged to have been here with many of my International friends.

Folk, I think it's now time to watch this space. Meanwhile, here's another photo from the coolest party I've been to in a long time... and most probably ever!

California rocks! And so does its path to Zero Waste!

Zero Waste - The international scene

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:02:00 +0000

So, my adventures in Zero Waste continue in California and on Wednesday I attended the Zero Waste International Alliance Dialog, which brought together representatives and interested parties from the USA, Canada, British Columbia, Brazil, Colombia, Sweden, UK, Italy, the Philippines, Bhutan, India, Australia, China and Hong Kong.

Rick Anthony, Chair of the ZWIA, (pictured above), opened the conference with a history of how the Alliance was developed and how things have moved on from what started as a passion to protect resources from landfills through recycling facilities, to a multi-action programme of now diverting those resources from incineration and reducing waste at source through redesign. The international Alliance now provides a sound umbrella group for supporting national programmes through the sharing of knowledge and solutions that demonstrate Zero Waste in its true form (i.e. without the alternative of burning) is possible.

The programme of presentations featured experts who have embedded successful solutions in their own countries, working with communities, politicians, manufacturers and technologists to ensure the development of waste management solutions that protect the resources for recycling back into the system.

This is a great slide from Ruth Abbe, from the US, which simplifies the keys to achieving better resource management to a rate of 90% though physical & social infrastructure, with the remaining responsibility for the journey towards Zero Waste in the hands of the manufacturers and legislators to redesign products and ban those materials that cannot recycled or broken down through organic treatment.

Paul Connett, a chemist and international speaker on the topic of Zero Waste, who many now know from his contribution in the Trashed Film, explained in more detail the 10 steps to Zero Waste, which are summarised as follows:

A key theme that I've picked up from the success stories in Paul Connett's presentation and the those that have been highlighted in my trips to San Francisco and Europe is the significance in making waste visible. i.e. to really find out what is being burnt or buried.

Once communities have a handle on that and the associated volumes, debates can then lead to solutions, whether through front end source separation, better community communications, waste hierarchy interventions or feedback to manufacturers for redesign. It was reinforced again that if there is a political will to adopt this pathway towards Zero Waste, it is possible to embed alternative solutions to those that involve burning resources.

According to Paul Connett, the three international areas that are leading the way with embedding the true Zero Waste goals are Italy, Spain and California.

Again, like the NCRA conference, there was much to learn from the information exchange and here are some of the key points I picked up.

1. Canadians create the most municipal waste in the world, with only 33% being diverted through recycling and composting, but they are tackling it and Zero Waste Canada was created in January 2013. As well as the challenges of developing its infrastructure, it looks like Canada will also have to protect one of the great things that already exists which is its deposit-based bottle reuse programme, which is currently at risk from centralised recycling schemes. Elsewhere there are some great collaborative consumption schemes being implemented, including Toronto Toolshare. Also Canada was the first place to declare BPA as toxic.

2. Great strides are being made in South America, including Bogota's Zero Waste plan, which has fought for its 20,000 waste pickers to be an official part of the recycling value chain. Zero Waste Brazil has made significant progress too, creating a community based take-back model for recycling that pays participants in credits. At a higher level, Zero Waste Brazil was invited by the UN peacekeeping force to find solutions for solid waste during the 2010 earthquake disaster in Haiti. It will also be involved in pushing plans through for the Zero Waste Olympics in Rio.

3. Reports from the US showed how far Zero Waste commitments are spreading around towns and cities across the States and how the Solid Waste Association of North America has now changed the focus of its annual conference from 'Beyond the Blue Bin' to 'The Road to Zero Waste', following the Alliance's guiding principles.

4. From Europe, we saw the great examples once more coming out of Italy with 123 towns and cities that have now signed up to become Zero Waste communities. It was also highlighted how business and government strategies in Europe have been heavily weighted towards the 'Zero Waste to Landfill' goal, which risks taking away the focus and opportunities for a future down the line that is actually Zero Waste. Fellow trustee of the Zero Waste Alliance UK, Jane Green, highlighted the development of the Museum of Bad Design as an action-based research response to the need to design out waste. Elsewhere, Mal Williams warned that whilst planning future models in consumerism and wastage, we also need to prepare for economic shrinkage and make communities more resilient in managing the potential of their resources in a way that also develops social capital.

5. Froilan Grate of the Philippines spoke of how their strategy for Zero Waste was born out of a terrible tragedy in Payatas in 2000, where over 200 wastepickers died during a sudden landslide on a landfill site. Since then his organisation has been instrumental in creating over 1000 MRFs to better manage the resources and have developed Zero Waste programmes for management of waste and environmental issues at community level. The Philippines was the first country to commit to a ban on burning resources and is hence committed to striving high for zero waste goals, so much so that the Minister for Environment was also in attendance.

6. With Hong Kong facing an end to landfill in 2029, Lisa Christensen of Hong Kong Cleanup, called for the need for a Zero Waste Hong Kong strategy to be developed and has committed to sharing the ZWIA expertise locally.

As well as the need for managing rubbish from a resource perspective, various speakers at the conference on Wednesday highlighted that it is a human rights issue too, striving to change infrastructures that move from a world where practice is many areas is simply dangerous to local communities and those who work with with waste.

Examples from Mexico showed how much work has been done to stop the practice of burning waste in cement kilns and from China we heard an urgent call for better management of recycling where evidence has seen untreated plastic medical waste being recycled into poor quality children's toys.

This conference certainly taught me how there is still so much we don't know about the global problem of waste. It was most definitely an eye-opening event that demonstrated not only how many amazing solutions there are out there if only we take time to look, but also if we look for long enough we realise too how many issues still need resolving.

However, what I saw on Wednesday was a room full of experts including resource managers, chemists, designers, technologists, campaigners and professionals who are now Zero Waste managers, all sharing their expertise to address these issues.

One of the key initiatives also announced at this year's Dialog was the development of a new Zero Waste Youth organisation, which held a successful conference of its own in San Francisco on Sunday. It highlights that the issue of waste is also inter-generational and that the innovation of graduates and young people are needed too to help develop the research and technical skills to implement solutions now and in the future.

And of course, I welcomed the opportunity to share my very own Rubbish Diet story and the details of the forthcoming Rubbish Diet challenge. It was a real privilege to have the opportunity to profile this blog and my projects on an international platform and hear the amazing responses that followed. Something tells me that once my Nesta Waste Reduction challenge is over and having the right support in place for the UK programmes, I'd better get ready to roll up my sleeves to help support Rubbish Diet communities internationally. With interest already coming in from the US, Canada, Hong Kong, it looks like life could get very busy!

But the week's not over yet, and there's still much more to learn and report back on, including the development of international and national zero waste standards and a visit to a MRF that has its own pig farm.

But first, breakfast!

US impressions. Recycling updates in California

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:55:00 +0000

Well, it's 5am Californian time and I've realised that the only chance of keeping this blog up-to-date is to wake up this early. I guess it's not too much of a hardship though because the whole jetlag thing that I'm experiencing for the first time is making sure I bob in and out of sleep at the end of the working day until the early hours of the morning. I'm sure I'll get used to it by the end of the week, in time for the Friday night party!

But even yesterday's conference the NCRA Recycling Update felt much like a party. It was certainly much more relaxed than any conference that I've attended before. Still as professional, with representatives from federal and state departments, waste management companies, independent consultants etc, yet it felt like it was a large group of old friends getting together for a catch up. As it turned out, many of the the people in the room were old friends, who have strived together over the last 20 years. I loved the atmosphere of in-jokes and celebratory applauses during the event yesterday as well as the fact that attendees were encouraged to bring their own reusable coffee cups.

But what did I learn?

Perhaps the fact that shouted most loudly yesterday was that San Francisco, with just 20% of its waste going to landfill is most definitely a shining light in the US recycling sector, with the rest of the US landfill rates currently at 54%. And as for the value of wasted packaging materials in the US, that currently stands at a whopping $11,402,020,357.

(Source: As you Sow)

Elsewhere, according to food waste awareness project Food Shift, $165 billion worth of wasted food is thrown out each year, with the US spending $750 million on its disposal.

These are huge problems and naturally very similar to those that we have to tackle in the UK. And just like us, there is much strategising to resolve the issues at all levels of the waste hierarchy, with particular pushes to introduce single use bag bans/taxes, development of Anaerobic Digestion plants, managing construction & demolition waste, pushing for extended producer responsibility, standardising packaging labelling, developing reuse opportunities and pushing food waste further up the hierarchy.

So for anyone sat in the UK, pondering the impact of their own actions and thinking 'what's the point of me doing something, when we look at how much America wastes', from what I've seen so far my message is 'it's time to wake up and smell the coffee' because this huge continent is busying itself with solutions and action plans to sort it out. It is also leading the way with zero waste ambitions while adopting good practice that's emerging from other countries too.

It would take me all week to feature all of the great things that came out of yesterday's conference, so being in no position to do that, I'm going to leave you with just a few of the highlights and links for you to ponder.

1. Even when food waste collections are brought into place, examples from Portland and San Francisco show that home composting is still very much encouraged and adopted. Stats from Portland reveal that 50% of Portlanders still home compost.

2. Across the States, there is still much work to do in improving the recycling infrastructure, as many residents still don't have access to easy recycling facilities.

3. Reuse is a growth industry. Oregon's St Vincent de Paul provides a great example of how a thrift store, which once contributed much of its donations to landfill, now has a diversion rate of 95%. The charity's Terry McDonald gave examples that despite competition from sites such as Amazon, its book retail charity brings sales of $1.2b per year. In recent years, it has also found opportunities in the mattress sector, both in rebuilding mattresses for reuse and reselling components for recycling. It imports dark oak furniture from Europe, which has a better resale value here, whereas in places such as the UK and Belgium such furniture could have been scrapped for wood recycling/landfill/recovery. Other examples of innovative processing include creating tumbled glass for reselling to the floristry and creative industries, remelting candle wax to create fire-bricks and collecting single shoes to help amputees.

4. A great scheme that is piloting the reuse of what are normally defined as Hazardous Waste Products, is Tehama County's REAP project (Reuse of Available Products), which redistributes cleaning products, stains, paints, polishes, automotive fluids and more to the public free of charge. More information can be found about it here.

5. There is still much to do with overcoming confusing packaging labelling, especially as the US has similar problems to the UK where the recycling facilities vary across counties and states. However, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition is trying to consolidate and standardise messages to help consumers. The website www.how2recycle.info shows how new labelling has been developed, following the lead of the UK's own On Pack Recycling Label (OPRL). There is also a list of organisations that are now adopting it.

6. Food Shift's Dana Frasz is a leading light in the area of food waste, campaigning to push food waste management further up the hiearchy, so that it is distributed to the hungry way before it ever becomes treated as a waste material and using it as an opportunity for job creation. More details can be found at www.foodshift.net.

7. Eric Lombardi of Eco-cycle and Dr Jeff Morris of Sound Resource Management Group presented one of their latest analytical models comparing MBT (which they've redefined as MRTB - Mechanical Recovery Biological Treatment) Landfill and Energy from Waste solutions, in relation to treating differing percentages of residual/solid waste. Their tools model data against Climate Change impacts, Acidification, Respitory Diseases, Ecotoxity and much more. Further information about this kind of work can be found at www.zerowaste.com/pages/MEBCalc.htm.

I feel guilty about leaving so much out, but as soon as links to the presentations are available, I will include them here. Meanwhile, here's a link to the movers and shakers who featured in yesterday's jam-packed programme.

So with yesterday's California/US focus, today's conference moves towards the international scene, hosted by the Zero Waste International Alliance, where we look forward to hearing some of the challenges, opportunities and fantastic initiatives from around the rest of the world.

Please excuse me, while I head for breakfast, grab some much-needed coffee and get cracking on another busy day. I promise, I will be back to respond to the emails, comments and tweets later.

Zero Waste greetings from California

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:26:00 +0000

So here I am, thousands of miles away from home, following in the footsteps of Jeremy Irons and his recent movie Trashed. Except, I've not ended up in Hollywood. I'm somewhere far more exciting! Yep, as part of this year's international Zero Waste conference, I'm 'on location' in San Francisco, visiting Recycle Central, which was featured in the documentary, and exploring how the city and county of San Francisco is so advanced in its journey towards Zero Waste.

And that trash truck that you see there, is one of the few that can be seen heading for landfill, taking less than 5% of waste from Recology's recycling MuRF/Recycling Depot, after the paper, plastic, cardboard and cans have been baled for processing. Overall, thanks to its well-streamed organics and recycling facilities, San Francisco's diversion rate from landfill is 80%, not only placing it high on the Zero Waste league table, but well on its way to its goal of 100% Zero Waste by 2020.

And that's Zero Waste to landfill or incineration!

Now that's a very high ambition indeed and gives many of the best Zero Waste goals of even the UK a run for their money, but judging by what I've seen on my first day, I would bet my bottom dollar (see how I threw in that local colloquialism there) that San Francisco is going to achieve it, or at least get pretty damn close.

And this stems from the fundamental belief that the rubbish generated by San Francisco's visitors, businesses and residents is too valuable to bury or burn and has much higher economic, social and environmental value being reused or recycled as a resource. Consequently, San Francisco's municipal Environment Department and business community have overcome many of the perceived barriers and hurdles, working together to introduce alternative solutions that benefit their zero waste agenda and its local community.

As we drove away from Recycle Central yesterday, these solutions were pretty easy to spot, with the piles of demolition rubble that now has to be processed for construction reuse instead of being buried in landfill. Further afield, but close to the city, organics (including all forms of food waste) are also diverted out of the landfill thanks to composting and AD facilities, creating a product that is now highly in demand by local vineyards, farms and recreation facilities.

But to achieve this, high levels of participation are needed and during our tour around the very popular Fisherman's Wharf, it became clear how re-education, attitudes and the right financial leverage tools are helping to realise San Francisco's Zero Waste culture, especially within the business sector.

Take Scoma's Fish Restaurant for instance. According to one of its executive chef's Kelly, who gave us a behind-the-scenes tour, it now diverts 97% of its waste from landfill, saving an estimated $1100 per month.

Scoma's is one the top 20 grossing restaurants in the United States, with 170 staff on its books, serving up to 2000 people a day. Its corporate philosophy is heavily linked to sustainability and embraced by its staff and thanks to the supporting waste collection infrastructure, diverting restaurant waste from landfill has become very easy.

As Kelly says "it's not hard, it's just using a different coloured garbage can".

But businesses in Fisherman's Wharf don't just stop at recycling goals. There are some great examples of waste prevention too, and one of these is the lead being shown by fish supplier Tw o X Sea, which has redesigned their distribution packaging from disposable cardboard boxes to reusable hotel pans.

Owner Kenny Belov took us through how his company's one off investment of $8,000 in the streamlined reusable system, which integrates with the storage facilities of his customers, not only saves his company huge amounts of money from being wasted through disposable packaging, but it also saves his customers time and cash too as they don't need to process or repackage the fish at the other end.

While all this is happening 'behind-the-scenes' in Fisherman's Wharf, there is also more visible change on the streets too.

Our guide for the day, Lisa Lukacs, a Zero Waste consultant who's working closely with the wharf, demonstrated how the port authorities are changing their management of recycling through the application of the Big Belly solar recycling bins on Pier 45.

With facilities for passers-by to fully separate compostables and recycling, the system also has a solar-powered compacting system to manage the residual trash, alerting the authorities electronically when it's ready to be emptied. With a leasing agreement of $230 per month, this method has already demonstrated a reduction in labour costs associated with emptying regular bins.

The day's tour ended with a presentation from San Francisco's municipal environment department, which addressed a whole range of topics from the 10c single use bag charge, the significance of the food hierarchy in diverting usable food to the San Francisco food banks and the promotion of home composting. Also covered were the success of the Green Apartment programme as well as links to schools.

As the county progresses further down the path towards zero waste, there will now be a focus on extended producer responsibility, including redesigning waste out of the system and greater financial contributions for disposal.

You can find more about department's Zero Waste programme here at www.sfenvironment.org.

Of course, a day of introductions to San Francisco's Zero Waste initiatives wouldn't have been complete without a screening of Trashed at the Aquarium of the Bay, which is itself closely connected to the ZW goals. The avid applause and whoop-whoops from the audience at seeing the achievements of San Francisco featured in the documentary were entirely appropriate, enjoyable and very well deserved.

It was inspiring enough to have seen these examples from afar as an audience member in the UK, but to have witnessed them in person has been even more of an eye-opener to the opportunities that are available to work towards zero waste efficiently and effectively.

There are great lessons to be learned from San Francisco and over the next few days week, I hope to find out more as well as discover news of what's happening from across the world at the zero waste conference that is bringing together experts from countries that include the US, Sweden, Italy, Wales, Brazil, Columbia, India, Bhutan, the Philippines, Italy, Canada and Australia.

It will be a real privilege to find out about some of the best practice from across the world and also share my experience of The Rubbish Diet with them too. My thanks go to the Zero Waste Alliance UK and Zero Waste International Alliance for providing me with this fantastic opportunity.

More news will be shared soon.

____________________________________

Postcard from Corsham: Celebrating the Rubbish Diet in Wiltshire

noreply@blogger.com (Almost Mrs Average) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:23:00 +0000

Back row L-R Sarah, Jen, Emma & Pip

Taken at the Pound Art Centre, Corsham's screening of Trashed

Dear all,

Well, I'm back from Wiltshire, having spent a great night out with some of the Rubbish Dieters and Emma Croft from Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, who have been working through their Rubbish Diet Challenge over the last 8 weeks. Initial feedback? According to Emma and the participants, it's been a great success in more ways than one. Check out their great blogposts at www.wiltshirewildlife.org, which includes some of the examples from the 15 households have taken part. Please also visit Sarah's blog at Everyday life on a shoestring and Jen's Make do and mend year and keep your eyes peeled for the results of their current Zero Waste Week. I had a great time staying over with Pip from Transcoco's Zero Waste group. I reckon every town should have one (a Pip and a Zero Waste Group)! Weather was fine, food delicious and the Q&A at the Trashed screening was very much of the positive kind! Wish you were there. Next stop - the Zero Waste conference in San Francisco! I'll send a postcard very soon.

Lots of love,

Me. x