Reducing the Waste

After reading this post about how little rubbish we had in our wheelie bin a friend sent me a text message asking me to share some tips on reducing the amount of rubbish.

So over the past few days I've been making a list lof what we do. Here goes!!

We:

# make as much food from scratch as possible. I make all our stock, bread, bread rolls, pasta, pastry, pizza dough, pasta and pizza sauce, cakes, muffins, desserts, sweet biscuits, ice cream, grated cheese, dried apple, dried banana, hommus etc

# buy in bulk. Every couple of months I go to a bulk whole foods store in the next town and get big lots of nuts, seeds, rolled oats (5kg at a time), and I order in 20kg bags of organic wholemeal flour. I then store this (except flour) in our chest freezer. I put the bag of flour into the freezer for a couple of days but then decant it into a big storage container to save room in the freezer. I also buy 1kg blocks of cheese, 1kg tubs of yoghurt, the biggest packets of sugar etc from the grocery store.

# don't buy prepacked, individual or convenience foods. My one regular exception to this is a treat for the boys, the individual Babybell cheeses. They absolutely love them and are fairly healthy too. We go through 1-2 packs every fortnightly shop depending on how much we go out. They are only for snacks when we go out, not at home.

# try and buy foods with as little packaging as possible. I hate that some foods come in a package within a package (the rice cakes I buy from Aldi do and it drives me bananas) or like cereal in a bag in a box!

# try and avoid putting fruit and veg in those plastic bags they have for you to use. It probably drives the checkout people crazy when I put my big pile of bananas or 5 loose avocados on the belt, but it saves a bag! The bags I do get I reuse later.

# buy meat in bulk from the butcher. They use the same bag for 500g of mince as 1-2kgs so I get more and then freeze it, generally in a reused fruit or veg bag. If we don't have any of them I use a reuseable plastic container.

# shop for fruit and veg at the farmers markets. I take our reuseable bags and just load up the pram. It's not unusual for Elliot to be holding a pumpkin or two or a watermelon in season! He refuses to hold pineapples though, they're too spikey!! I also don't get things indiviually bagged unless they're fragile or I'm buying a lot of something ie 2-3kg of apples. I'm also mindful that many people I buy from are farmers local to the area and that every bag I use, they have to pay for it. It saves me rubbish and them money if I don't get a bag!

# buy things in reuseable packaging ie glass. Then we wash it well and put it in a box in the laundry to be reused to store something (cable ties, loose screws etc) or bottle something (jam, chutney etc). Moccona coffee jars are great for storing food in the kitchen (sugar, dried fruit, nuts etc) because they seal so well! It is an expensive brand of coffee, but whenever it's on sale I get a couple of bottles. Also an op shop in town quite often has the jars for sale for a dollar or two.

# reuse other packaging eg storing homemade washing liquid and spray & wipe in old vinegar bottles

# make some of our cleaning products, or use general household/kitchen items for cleaning eg vinegar, bi-carb. Then I just top up spray bottles or shakers in the bathroom, kitchen and laundry.

# compost all of our fruit and veg scraps

# feed most of our food scraps that can't be composted to our dog. She is very tiny and doesn't eat a lot though so we do chuck some out, especially bread crusts!

# give our egg cartons to friends with chickens. We are often gifted yummy free range eggs too! Yum!

# use boxes for craft activities

# collect newspapers to use as weed control in the garden or tear them up into the compost

# use paper on both sides for shopping lists etc

# recycle envelopes (mostly for when we go to the dairy and leave money in the box)

# use cloth nappies and cloth wipes. We do use some disposables too, very few through the day 2-3 a week and one every night.

# use face washers to wipe the boys hands and faces after meals

# put leftovers or things to store in the fridge in a container with a lid instead of glad wrap or alfoil

Most of our rubbish is tins from tomatoes, chickpeas, beans etc and milk and cream bottles that I don't like to reuse. It doesn't matter how much I wash them they still smell like sour milk! We also get junk mail delivered. My days of devouring the catalogues for bargains is over but I still haven't gotten around to putting up a "No Junk Mail" sign. We'll have to wait and see if the junk mail gets delivered to our new house out of town. Lots of my friends that live out of town don't get junk mail, and I'm sure it is one thing we won't miss!!!

I hope this list helps give people one or two new ideas on how to reduce their rubbish. If we all do a little (or big) bit, it can only help our precious planet Earth.

If you do other things to reduce your rubbish, please let me know in a comment below. I'd love to get a few new ideas!!