Reducing Our Rubbish: Challenge Update

The challenge to reduce my family's rubbish, down to only one wheelie bin for an entire year is going pretty well.

After three weeks, we have managed to produce only three carrier bags of landfill rubbish.  This is miles better than the one bin bag of rubbish we were producing four weeks ago!

I am confident that I might be able to reduce this even further, as I have found out that we can recycle plastic tub lids and bottle tops at JW's work, as well as the plastic tray recycling I discovered there the other week.  Which is great news!

I would stop buying this plastic stuff, but with No.1 Son this is very tricky!  However, I am working on finding a milk man who delivers glass bottles...so watch this space.

My latest addition to my waste reduction strategy is good old fashioned cloth hankies, to replace my constant supply of paper ones. 

I use about 1/2 box of hankies per week, which I was previously putting in the bin.  Three weeks ago I started putting them in the compost bin, but quickly realised I was going to stodge-up my compost bin with hankies!  So, I am now on to washable ones. 

I have started to use soap-nuts and bicarb of soda to wash clothes in, so there won't be any additional detergents going into the environment.  And as my hankies are small, they are designed for one use, and then to be popped into a seperate cloth wash-bag.  When the bag is full, I will put on a full load of hankies (I might add some lemon or thyme oil to the wash too). 

So there aren't any hygiene issues (honest :)  In fact, for me they are probably more hygienic, as I tend to stick multiple paper hankies up my sleeves and in all my pockets before they finally reach the bin! (yuck!  I know!)

You could argue about the use of water and energy to wash the cloth hankies, but then thinking about it, the energy and water used to produce paper hankies must be really high too.

It took me a while to build up to using my first cloth hanky, having never used one before.  But you won't believe how comfy they are on your nose until you try them! 

I made my hankies from old linen sheets and have been having fun embroidering my surname initial on them, thanks to an old book of children's embroidery my mother-in-law gave me, (along with tons of old threads!)  So, all in all, my new hankies haven't cost me a thing.  In-fact in the long run they should save me a little bit of money, as I won't be buying any more paper tissues.

My new box of reusable hankies :)

In fact, I have been so confident in our waste reduction plans that I have got rid of the large household kitchen bin for good.  It has found a new home at JW's workplace (they needed a new bin anyway).  Hurray!