Zero waste week update

In fulfilment of my pledge for Zero Waste Week, I had planned to hem the offcuts of my new dress to make hankies and find or make a couple of pouches for keeping clean and dirty ones in my handbag. But I didn't get round to it. There was much foraging to be done (which I'll tell you about shortly), and though that's a fairly lame excuse, it's all I've got.

I did make some progress, though. Commenting on my post, Eco Cat Lady advised that old T-shirts are easier because they don't need hemming. This was very useful information! I have a big heap of old T-shirts reserved for gardening, as they're not fit for wearing in public (actually, some of them probably are these days, as my standards have slipped somewhat). I fished one out from the bottom of the pile, set to with the scissors, and made myself a heap of washable tissues.

Next, I found a plastic box that used to have fruit in it, and a little plastic pouch in which underwear were sold. These became my new tissue box and dedicated bin/laundry bag for the used hankies.

Replacement for box of tissues and bin

The theme of this year's Zero Waste Week was Reducing waste away from home. Hmm. Replacing the tissue box is very much at home. Well, I did go out a few times, and I stuffed one of my new tissues into my pocket, so that when I needed to blow my nose, that was what I used. I didn't quite do what I intended, but I succeed in reducing waste and I can say that I have used no disposable tissues since making the pledge.

Pledge for Zero Waste Week

Next week is National Zero Waste Week, and Change the World Wednesday has adopted it for this week's challenge, making it a truly international event! The idea is not, in spite of the name, to avoid producing any waste at all for one week, but to take steps towards producing zero waste in the long term. In other words, don't do something just for the week, make a change in your habits that you can keep up all the time. Even if that change is quite small, the cumulative impact will be greater than making a big effort for a short period of time.

I do try to make changes like this on an ongoing basis, the most recent example being the way I store cold meat. When we've had a roast dinner, I cut the remaining meat off the bones, boil down the bones for stock, and put the meat in the fridge. I've always put the meat on a plate and covered it with foil, but I realised that I could avoid using that piece of foil each time if I just use one of my extensive stock of plastic boxes instead of the plate.

Making use of a box saved from a chinese takeaway had with friends about a year ago.

However, the theme of this year's challenge is Reducing waste away from home. This really is a challenge for me, because I spend most of my time at home these days. These means that when I'm out it's not part of my daily routine. Making changes to my habits that apply in non-habitual situations takes a bit more effort. Then the other day, I was looking at my dressing table and thought, I must put that back in my handbag, shortly followed by, That's a wasteful thing I could tackle. What was the offending item?

Wasteful packet of tissues

It was a small packet of tissues. These are particularly wasteful as not only is each tissue thrown away after use, but for every ten tissues there's a plastic packet that is also thrown away. I confess I have a weak spot for disposable tissues, both at home and away, and I really need to address that. Now is the time! I pledge that for National Zero Waste Week, I will replace the packet of tissues in my handbag with washable hankies (and some suitable containers to keep both fresh and used hankies).

Cutting down on waste, one thing at a time

I've been reading a few blogs recently in which people record all the rubbish, particularly plastic rubbish, that they dispose of in a week, or maybe in a day. I thought about doing this myself, then wondered what the value of such an exercise would be to me. I could pile up all my rubbish, document and photograph it, and think, Whoa! That's a lot of rubbish! or alternatively feel smug and think, That's not as bad as I thought it would be. Either way, what do I acheive?

If I ended up feeling smug, that obviously wouldn't be a very constructive outcome, but the other alternative is far more likely, and presumably this is the point of doing it. Would I then be motivated to cut down on how much stuff I throw away? Ignoring for a moment the fact that my main problem is bringing myself to throw anything away, ever, I'm not sure it would make that much difference. I'm already aware of the issues of excess packaging and I already have an almost pathological aversion to waste. However, we do still buy things that have some packaging, and a lot of this gets thrown away.

I think that rather than looking at packaging as a whole, a more productive approach for me is to pick on one item at a time and find an alternative way of doing things that doesn't involve throwing that thing away regularly. A little while ago, I switched from disposable sponge scourers for the washing up to homemade, washable discloths.

I make my own bread and I've been bothered by the piece of oiled cling film I use to cover the dough while it's rising, which gets thrown away with each loaf. I've long been aware of what they did in the days before cling film - they used a damp cloth - but I was a bit nervous about this method. What if I couldn't dry it out quickly - wouldn't it get smelly? What if it stuck to the dough - wouldn't it be horrendous to get the sticky dough out of the cloth? Recently I decided to get over these worries and just try it.

Rising bread dough under damp cloth

It actually sticks less than the oiled cling film, and when it does stick it's easier to peel off, so that's an improvement. As for drying it out, whenever I need to dry it, I have the oven on, almost by definition, so I can always hang it over the warm air vent at the top of the oven and it always dries. No doubt this is the way it's always been done.