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!!

Smug Satisfaction

In our house the rubbish is Matt's job. Pretty much everything to do with rubbish is all him, taking out the bag, putting the bins on the curb, bringing them in, you know the drill. Everything except putting a new bag in, why is that? (for what it's worth, we reuse plastic shopping bags to line the bin. I think we probably use 2-3 a week. We are always walking a fine line between having no plastic bags for the bin because I absolutely refuse to buy bin liners and most of the time take reuseable bags to do the groceries.) Anyway, I have little to do with the rubbish and that is the way I like it!

This morning however I made a mad dash out to the wheelie bin that was already on the curb, with the last bag from the kitchen. Monday is our rubbish day and Matt normally puts the bins out the evening before. He had done this, but hadn't taken out the last bag from the kitchen because we were up all night with a certain 15 month old who thinks sleep is an optional extra.

As I hurled that last bag in I had to double check that the bin hadn't already been collected. I looked across the road, bin full to overflowing. Same next door. And down the street a bit. The truck had definitely not come, but our bin was less than 1/5 full! The bottom was lucky to be covered! I knew we didn't make much rubbish, but until this morning I hadn't actually seen how little our family of four actually produces! I asked Matt later if today's bin was a 'normal' amount for us, his response "I don't know, the bin is always really light though".

Today was such a validation of one of the reasons why we choose to do what we do. Why making as much of our own food from scratch is a good choice. Why making many of our own cleaning products is a good choice. Why using reuseable products over disposable is a good choice. Why buying in bulk and choosing products with as little packaging as possible is a good choice. Good choices for our health, the environment, our budget, the education of our boys.

I couldn't help but feel proud, and a teeny bit smug! :)

Homemade Spray and Wipe

I have been on the homemade journey for a while now and one of the first cleaning products I started to make myself was this recipe to replace commercial spray and wipe. To be honest, we never really used that much spray and wipe anyway, we'd usually just wipe the benches over with hot soapy water from when we did the dishes. Once Elliot started solids and there was food everywhere, some of which was sticky and gluggy, I realised we needed something that could be used more often than just when we did the dishes!

For most cleaning I simply use bi carb and vinegar but that was really not cutting it on the kitchen benchtops and I wanted something that was simple to use. Sprinkling the benches with bi carb and then spraying the vinegar is too much mucking around (not to mention difficult on a high chair)! I needed something as easy to use as the commercial stuff, easy to make, better on the environment, cheap and that used household ingredients.

After some googling I found this recipe but to be honest, I now can't remember where I found it. I wrote it down on a piece of paper that has been stuck to the noticeboard in the kitchen for about two and a half years. When we moved I packed it in a really special place because I have tried to find on the web since and have failed.

So, this is not my recipe. If it is yours, thank you for sharing it! If it is someone's that you know, can you let me know so I can thank them and give them the kudos they deserve. Other than that I'd like to share it with everyone so we can all be part of the home/green revolution together.

Homemade Spray and Wipe

4 l hot water (just tap is fine, it doesn't need to be boiling)
2 tbls cloudy ammonia
125 ml white vinegar
2 tbls bi carb soda
2-3 drops of essential oil (I use a lot more than this, just a good
glug of Eucalyptus or Tea Tree Oil)
2 tbls dishwashing liquid

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl.
Stir to dissolve bi carb. It will fizz up a bit so make sure the bowl is a bit
bigger so the fizz is contained.
Decant into bottles for storage and spray bottle for immediate use.

Use in place of commercial spray and wipe.
Will keep indefinitely.