Following on from my last post “What can’t we recycle?” We’ve decided The Nappy Lady family are going to do a rubbish bin experiment and see how long it takes us to fill our main wheelie bin. Last winter due to all the snow it wasn’t emptied for 6 weeks and it wasn’t even half full. Since then we can recycle huge amounts more. So far this week my kitchen bin contents are less than half a carrier bag of rubbish and if i compacted it down it would be even smaller. All the waste in there is plastic food wrapping or clingfilm mainly from all the Children in need cake sales i’ve been too (yummy there were too!) This isn’t bad for a family of 5.
The only rubbish i’ve emptied direct into the outside wheelie bin has been the contents of my vacumn cleaner. I suppose this could have gone on the garden (any gardeners know if this would be ok?)
I don’t know if we’ll be as good as the Strauss family but i’d like to give it a go.
So rules of the challenge:
All waste bins will be emptied this Monday ready for our final rubbish collection Monday morning.
No big clearout before the experiment begins.
No cheating and putting waste in other peoples bins.
No cheating and putting unrecyclable products in with the recycling.
I’m not going to change my purchasing patterns or lifestyle. I will continue to shop at the same places (Tescos and Sainsburys) and buy the same products as i normally would.I’d love to go as far as the Strauss’ have and take containers to my local butchers or farm shop but quite simply i don’t have time to be able to shop like this. I’d also like this challenge to be something other people could easily do without having to dramatically change their shopping habits either.
I’ll keep you updated on our progress.
Wendy Richards
