What do we throw away and where?
Not quite as gruesome as it sounds this is actually about the things we throw away.
Throwing away stuff is easy where we live. The local Council has been running a kerbside recycling scheme for some time so we have 2 wheelie bins, one brown, one black one and some large green recycling bags.
The Brown "Pig" Bin
Known in our house as the "Pig" bin, is for compostable garden waste. As we don't have a large garden we don't get a lot of grass cuttings, leaves and other such garden guff so this bin isn't used that much.
Originally we were allowed to put kitchen waste in it. However this soon got stopped, presumably because people (us included) started getting maggots in the bins when the weather got hot.
Green Recycling Bags
These large bags are used for recyclable stuff like card, paper, plastics and glass.
When the scheme started everyone got 3 bags. Sadly a lot of them have blown away, when empty they don't weigh anything! Its not unusual to come home, having left them out for collection, to find that either yours have completely disappeared or all your neighbours bags are gathered in your garden.
The Black Bin
Anything that doesn't make it into the pig bin or a green bag gets thrown in here. Therefore it contains all the stuff that ultimately ends up in the landfill site.
What can we recycle?
Through out 2007 we have been subconsciously recycling more and more as we became more "eco-mental". To increase the amount we recycle we went down the "lets learn what we can recycle" route.
The thinking was that if we became more aware of what we could recycle, and how, then we would recycle it rather than just chuck it straight in the bin. As ever the internet was used, as was our Councils Recycling website and some books in particular Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Nicky Scott.
Recycling Station
In an attempt to get a bit organised we created a recycling station in the garage to make it easier to sort things out.
This wasn't just for things that get thrown away, we started saving things like padded envelopes and bubble wrap to reuse. We also stopped throwing away dead batteries, broken light bulbs, water filters and that stretchy plastic that covers things like magazines.
This sounds sad we know, but we have been weighing how much we throw away since the beginning of 2007. Armed with a set of Salter “Super Samson” hanging scales every time a bag goes into the black bin, or a green bag gets put out for collection we weigh it.
In 2007 we generated very nearly 1 ton (990kg in fact) of rubbish. Of which we recycled 269kg of paper, 249kg of glass and remaining 472kg went to the landfill. We therefore recycled 62% of our rubbish.
What's interesting is you can clearly see the amount we sent for recycling steadily increasing as the year went on but the amount sent to landfill dropped dramatically.
Some of the reasons are
Our Wormery
Bought back in April but taking a month or two to kick in, our wormery is fed a constant diet of tea bags, left over food scraps, veg peelings and other food waste that was once put in the black bin. This accounts for quite a lot of weight if you add it all up.
Freecycle
We joined the local Freecycle group. Its a web forum where you can tell people what you are giving away or what you want. All of it is given for free.
The idea is that people may have a use for the stuff you are giving away or you may have something lying around that someone else can use.
Its amazing what you can give away, which for us included some bathroom cabinets, a toaster, an old lamp, a laundry basket, a bag of felt nails, a cat scratching post, a tree mug, 2 metal tool boxes and a single mattress to name just a few of the things we got rid of this way.
Clothes
Any clothes we no longer want are put out to which ever Charity has shoved one of their plastic bags through our letterbox. This year we gave away 15 black bags of clothes to various Charities.
Dead Batteries
These are no longer thrown away but end up in our custom made "Dead Battery" storage facility.
Sadly there is nowhere to recycle these near us so it looks like they will stay in our custom made "Dead Battery" storage facility.
Water Filters
Are now sent back to Brita where they are separated into different parts and recycled. Best bit is that they can returned by Freepost to BRITA RECYCLING, FREEPOST NAT17876, Bicester, OX26 4BR.
Plastic wrapping
Admittedly this stuff doesn't weigh much but all that stretchy plastic wrapping you get round magazines etc takes up a lot of space. We have been keeping it and when we get enough we will send it to a Company called Polyprint for recycling. We currently have 2 large bin bags of the stuff.
Stamps
These don't actually weigh anything but if you send them to the RNIB they can make a bit of money out of them.
Our council
Just recently we have been asking our Council if certain items, Tetra-pacs and crisp packets where the last things we asked them about, can be put in the green bags in an attempt to recycle more.
What else do we plan to do?
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Look at ways to off set the CO2 produced by our cars.
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Look at ways to reduce our gas consumption.
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Look at ways to reduce our electricity consumption.
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Look at ways to reduce our water consumption.
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Work out what our Carbon Footprint is after we have done the above.
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Find out how to recycle more and monitor just how much we do.