Category: Reducing Rubbish

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Pikelets and Popcorn

One of our usual Sunday activities is going out to the local bakery for breakfast. In a no takeaway zone Sunday’s have had to change a little. So today I whipped up pikelets in a few minutes – my first made from scratch pikelets since my cooking classes at school when I was 11 yr old. (Actually I think I may still have that recipe – I remember making pikelets with yoghurt, I’ll have to search for it). Previously I have always made my pikelets from pre-prepared pikelet mix or bought pikelets already made but I am trying to cut down on manufacuring, packaging and cost if I can. A few more weeks of practice and I should be perfect hopefully!

 

Recipe: 1/4 cup sugar and 1 egg beaten together. Add 1 cup sifted self-raising flour, 1 pinch salt and about 3/4 cup milk.     

 

 

 

One of the best things about writing is that it makes you stop and think about the decisions you make in your day to day life. I know for me sometimes things are so busy that lots of decisions especially my purchase of items just happen on autopilot.

 

So how does the popcorn fit in to the story? Well looking at my pantry this morning while getting my ingredients out for pikelets I noticed my box of microwave popcorn. I remember clearly buying the popcorn, I wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or anything when I bought it! I just didn’t think about it. Looking at it now, however, I’m asking myself what on earth was I thinking? Why would I buy a product that is shipped all the way from the USA, has each bag individually wrapped in cellophane and when you make the popcorn the bag itself has to be thrown away because it is covered in this revolting yellow looking butter substance that coagulates very quickly. On top of that it costs $4.38 for a box of three popcorn bags. Why haven’t I just being buying plain popcorn and putting it in my popcorn air popper? It would be considerably less cost and less packaging.  

OK – one of my projects for next week, get my popcorn situation sorted out. And keep looking at the products I ‘automatically’ buy just from habit and keep questioning my purchasing of them!

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January Paper Towel Challenge

A week ago I wrote about one of my small projects which was trying to reduce my use of paper towels  Informed Consumer | Small ‘projects’. Today I came across a green website http://www.greendaily.com/category/green-challenge/ with a monthly challenge. Kelly’s monthly challenge for January is reducing her paper towel consumption. I’m glad to read that my husband is not the only one who can’t comprehend such a concept as no paper towels!!  

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Takeaway Free Zone (Part 2)

Yesterday I wrote about how our home at the moment is working on a grocery budget. I was thinking about this again this morning and came up with some more positive aspects to this change we have made.

 

  • I noticed this morning that this was the first time I had to empty the rubbish in 4 days J. The rubbish bin in the kitchen is a very small bin so our efforts to reduce food wastage by planning meals better is having a noticeable reduction on our rubbish production.
  • This reduction in waste has an economic spin off as well. In a few months time when our wheeli bin contract expires I will be able to look for a much more money efficient option as at our present rubbish production rate it will take us weeks to fill up a bin!
  • Our freezer is packed to the seams with food which energy wise (and therefore cost wise) is the best way to have it. I’ve always known this but have not ever really thought why this is the best way. Here is a good explanation below

“The first and easiest step is to ensure that the refrigerator is as full as possible. This initially seems counter-intuitive. However, every time the refrigerator is opened all the cold air in it falls out of it towards the floor and it is replaced with warmer air from the room.

This means that the temperature inside the refrigerator rises sharply and it has to work extra hard to cool the new air. You will have heard the refrigerator start humming after you have opened it; this is the reason why.

For every cold, space occupying object in the refrigerator there is less cold air to be lost when the door is opened. So putting the potatoes in the fridge rather than in the cupboard will help reduce the energy cost of running the machine. The same goes for fruit, drinks and so on. While these objects take a while to be cooled, this is easily offset by the energy you save by not losing extra cool air each time the door is opened. Even if you do not regularly drink cold water, placing full bottles of water inside the refrigerator when there is spare space will lighten the load on your electricity bill.”

Source: http://www.green-planet-solar-energy.com/energy-efficient-refrigerator.html

(I now have to go and get my fridge sorted out also! It will reduce some of my cupboard space which is great as some areas are a little packed)

 

  • Old recipes from childhood are starting to come out again to be used. It made a nice holiday activity to read through the old recipe books and reminisce about how amazing some recipes used to taste. I won’t ever be the kind of person who makes preserves etc but my organic blueberries this morning were stewed with apple and frozen in reused plastic containers ready for desserts over the next few weeks so I’m quite proud of myselfC.
  • And of course there has to be health advantages to eating a good balanced home cooked meal rather than a takeaway!
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Small ‘projects’

One of the side effects of saying ‘no’ to plastic bags has been that I am running out of plastic bags in the house. On reflection I decided that rather than getting biodegradable bags to line the bin it would seem more sensible to use newspaper. We have lots of newspaper as my husband insists on getting the paper daily ( non – negotiable!). With purchasing biodegradable bags there is the manufacture of the bags, transport from the manufacturer to the internet company and then delivery of the bags to me. So one of my projects last week was to try out lining my bin with newspaper. I have just emptied it and everything worked well, no leaks, the bin is clean – success!

 

One of my other projects has been to reduce the amount of paper towels I use. I noticed during my record of my trash week that there were too many paper towels in my rubbish. So I have created a rag bag from old cut up t shirts. I can now do many of my cleaning and wiping tasks using rags. These then go into a bucket in the laundry and get washed when the bucket is full – they are all out fluttering in the wind at the moment. I still have a way to go though on reducing my use of paper towels – I will need to continue to work on more strategies to stop myself reaching for paper towels so often.

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Trash Challenge (2)

Well I’ve completed my trash challenge for a week. I’m not sure how Dave (365daysoftrash) managed to do it for a whole year keeping all his rubbish in his basement! By the way Dave is keeping his old site but also has another site sustainable dave now that he has finished his challenge.

 

I think keeping track of your rubbish and recording it is a bit like keeping a food journal. It just keeps you aware of what you are consuming and makes you realise at the end of the day how much waste you have created. Each day you have a reminder of how much rubbish you have created the previous days which inspires you to keep trying to reduce your rubbish consumption. A group of Chico university students did a zero waste challenge a bit more radically – for two weeks carrying around a clear plastic bag which could be no more than 5 feet from them at all times and into which they had to put all their rubbish that wasn’t recyclable, reusable or compostable. Have a read about the initiatives some of the students are carrying out at the university – it’s inspiring.   

 

There are 2 things that stand out the most to me after my week of trash collecting and recording. The first is that I need to sort out this year some sort of compost system for my household as I presently have nowhere for food scraps to go. The second is a bit more depressing – I live with a very committed meat eater so every day we have to have meat, that’s a lot of polystyrene meat trays and plastic wrap over a whole year. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about that part of my rubbish really – I’ll have to do some thinking about that one.  

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Trash Challenge

Dave of 365daysoftrash fame has today finished his year of storing and analysing his trash. I bet his family will be glad to get the basement back. His challenge to others is to do for a week what he did for a year so I thought I would give it a go starting today. I will collect and record the rubbish that I and the cats create over the next week (I’ll leave my husband out of the equation as all this kind of stuff isn’t really his thing although he is sort of improving in the recycling area). I’ll see how it goes for a week and what I can learn from the exercise. It seems as good a way as any to start a new year, reflecting on possible changes I can make to my lifestyle in order to reduce the amount of stuff that ends up in the landfill.