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Household Waste Recycling Tips

admin — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:21:00 +0000

Over 50% of most people’s household waste can be recycled, and this includes glass bottles, drinks cans, plastic food wrapping and paper. Kitchen and garden waste such as vegetable peelings and hedge clippings can also be made into compost, and if you don’t have a garden yourself then many councils are now offering garden waste collection (for a small additional fee), which are then fed onto the councils compost heaps used for municipal gardens and borders.

Here a few tips on how to recycle more effectively and reduce the amount of waste your household produces:

All UK councils now provide recycled collections every fortnight, but some of these can exclude items such as glass or aluminium. Set up an extra bin or box for those items that are not collected from your door, and take them to your local recycling centre yourself once a month.
Kitchen Waste – shopping every day can reduce food waste by as much as 50%, as you will only buy what you need for that day, and vegetables and fruit will not go off. Weigh everything you cook carefully, to avoid leftovers that
could be thrown away and wasted, and try to cook craftily and use up foods that maybe going out of date such as bread, which can be made into a breadcrumb topping or bread and butter pudding.
Junk Mail – nearly 80% of junk mail gets thrown in the bin without being read, so contact the Mail Preference Service and get your name taken off the marketing mailing lists, to reduce junk mail to your address.
Buy recycled packaging and paper whenever possible, as this supports the recycling chain and helps to save materials such as wood and fuel.

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Growing Food at Home

admin — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:00:03 +0000

A lot of the food in our local supermarkets has had to travel a long way to reach the shelves, and this all adds up to your own carbon footprint when you purchase these products. Even if you do not have a big garden, (or no garden at all) you can still grow basic vegetables, which will not only reduce your carbon footprint, but will also save you money.

For example you can grow rocket leaves in a pot on a sunny windowsill, and when you cut them they will grow again. Seeds and compost will cost you under a £4 and will give you a whole summer’s worth of salad leaves, which is a great saving compared to a bag of rocket from the supermarket, which costs over £1.50 and can only be used for a few days.

If you are planning to grow your own food to be more eco friendly, you will need to try and avoid using chemicals, either as pesticides or fertilisers. Here are a few tips on how to go about this:
* Slugs are a huge pest for vegetable gardeners, but chemical slug pellets can be ineffective, and also poison other beneficial wildlife in your garden. Try watering the garden, or waiting until a shower and then patrolling the lawn and
borders, picking up slugs as they come out in the damp weather.
* Hoe the ground around your plants regularly to prevent weeds from forming, but leave some spaces a little wild to encourage wildlife into your garden.
* Research about plants that complement each other, and those that discourage pests. For example marigolds are known to put off pests, and their bright colours and strongly scented pollen attracts a number of useful pollinating insects.

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