Waste and environmental issues
Probably sounds very small in the great scheme of things, but I'm contented at this present moment because... I've managed to order a compost bin for us and get us a new blue bag for recycling. We've been trying hard for the past few months since I moved in here, because of our political and spiritual principles, to reduce the amount of waste we're producing.
Our local council (and Derbyshire County Council as a whole) have a scheme whereby they alternate the weekly collections between the green bin for garden rubbish and cardboard and the normal black household waste bin. They also give you a blue box for cans, glass jars and bottles, aluminium foil and empty aerosols and a blue bag for newspapers, magazines, telephone directories, the Yellow Pages & junk mail recycling. They list places locally where you can get plastics, batteries etc. recycled, because they aren't able to recycle those. They also provide compost bins at a reduced cost (though they are all out of the largest ones - 600 litres - at present, it seems). The last time we had to buy compost to repot the plants in the container gardens we have, we ended up buying over 300 litres! I think we're going to need one of the 330-litre bins here, and our garden isn't enormous! Any junk mail in our house gets shredded to use as bedding for our pets and plastic carrier bags get used as rubbish bags or re-used at the supermarket.
I know some have their doubts about recycling, but we both learned while living in Germany how easy it can be to separate your rubbish and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill sites. I also had the good fortune to know one of the conservation staff at Epping Forest when I lived in Watford, who was very passionate about environmental issues and she taught me a lot about how to cut household waste. Her and her partner only had one bin bag of rubbish a fortnight! She'd also planted their garden as a wildflower meadow, using native British species. They were about to put solar panels up when I moved away from the area.
Rather a prosaic subject, household waste... but just something I thought worth sharing here. If it means even one other person on my Flist starts thinking along the same lines and working to reduce their waste output, then I'd be happy. If it means others locally have new information on what's happening in our area, that's good news too as far as I'm concerned :-)
I'm about to go do some sewing. I'm going to try and finish the dress I've been working on so I can start soon on the next practice frock!
Our local council (and Derbyshire County Council as a whole) have a scheme whereby they alternate the weekly collections between the green bin for garden rubbish and cardboard and the normal black household waste bin. They also give you a blue box for cans, glass jars and bottles, aluminium foil and empty aerosols and a blue bag for newspapers, magazines, telephone directories, the Yellow Pages & junk mail recycling. They list places locally where you can get plastics, batteries etc. recycled, because they aren't able to recycle those. They also provide compost bins at a reduced cost (though they are all out of the largest ones - 600 litres - at present, it seems). The last time we had to buy compost to repot the plants in the container gardens we have, we ended up buying over 300 litres! I think we're going to need one of the 330-litre bins here, and our garden isn't enormous! Any junk mail in our house gets shredded to use as bedding for our pets and plastic carrier bags get used as rubbish bags or re-used at the supermarket.
I know some have their doubts about recycling, but we both learned while living in Germany how easy it can be to separate your rubbish and reduce the amount of waste going to landfill sites. I also had the good fortune to know one of the conservation staff at Epping Forest when I lived in Watford, who was very passionate about environmental issues and she taught me a lot about how to cut household waste. Her and her partner only had one bin bag of rubbish a fortnight! She'd also planted their garden as a wildflower meadow, using native British species. They were about to put solar panels up when I moved away from the area.
Rather a prosaic subject, household waste... but just something I thought worth sharing here. If it means even one other person on my Flist starts thinking along the same lines and working to reduce their waste output, then I'd be happy. If it means others locally have new information on what's happening in our area, that's good news too as far as I'm concerned :-)
I'm about to go do some sewing. I'm going to try and finish the dress I've been working on so I can start soon on the next practice frock!