Greenfieldsite (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} greenfieldsite) wrote,@ 2007-08-22 21:03:00 |
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Delving into My Kitchen Bin
My local council (NHDC) are about to introduce alternate weekly collection of waste. Thinking that I already recycled everything that can be recycled, I thought I'd investigate what was left.
For a week I separated out my non-recyclable waste into that which needed to go into the bin immediately (for hygiene reasons) and that which could wait. I washed everything that could be washed and included it in the latter pile.
I won't go into the details, but food packaging comprised the bulk and I confess that there were more kitchen towels than there needed to be. In total, it took up about three cereal boxes in volume and (I estimate, by comparison against full cereal packets!) weighed about 650g. As usual, there was no discarded food (I bury my vegetative kitchen waste and only buy exactly as much meat as I will eat).
I could do better. I had thought that it was not acceptable to recycle glossy cardboard (such as cereal packets) in my brown bin. The NHDC website is not clear on this (stating simply that cardboard may be recycled), but most other local authorities operating similar schemes do explicitly state that cereal packets are acceptable cardboard and I was not able to find one which explicitly prohibited it.
So how could I do better?
- In future I can recycle glossy cardboard food packaging, but wouldn't it be better still if the cardboard were plain? Then I could happily bury it, as I do the cardboard from toilet rolls.
- Over the past few years I have reduced the amount of food packaging that goes in my bin through taking it into account when choosing what to buy. However, I can still make a choice to reduce it further.
- I can reduce the number of kitchen towels I use (for example, by leaving a tea-towel hanging from a hook to dry my hands).
I think this week was fairly typical. Perhaps on average I generate slightly more (say, 750g?). I was pleased to note that I could easily fit at least ten times the amount of rubbish I generated into my black bin. That means that most families of five or six living in a house should be able to survive two weeks without a bin collection.
750g per week is about 40kg per year. Perhaps I need to allow another 10kg for exceptional items so I'd estimate my contribution to landfill is about 50kg per year. My recycled waste is much heavier than this (mainly newspapers, glass and garden waste), although I haven't weighed it. I could reduce my carbon footprint from recycled waste if I bought fewer newspapers and drank even less beer and wine than I already do.
A DEFRA report states that in 2005/06 municipal waste collected from households was 505kg per person per annum of which 26.7% was recycled or composted. That means about 370kg per person per annum is not.
The point of this post is not to show how well I am doing - there is still much room for improvement. It is to reflect on the massive potential that there is in the UK to reduce our waste.
My local council (NHDC) are about to introduce alternate weekly collection of waste. Thinking that I already recycled everything that can be recycled, I thought I'd investigate what was left.
For a week I separated out my non-recyclable waste into that which needed to go into the bin immediately (for hygiene reasons) and that which could wait. I washed everything that could be washed and included it in the latter pile.
I won't go into the details, but food packaging comprised the bulk and I confess that there were more kitchen towels than there needed to be. In total, it took up about three cereal boxes in volume and (I estimate, by comparison against full cereal packets!) weighed about 650g. As usual, there was no discarded food (I bury my vegetative kitchen waste and only buy exactly as much meat as I will eat).
I could do better. I had thought that it was not acceptable to recycle glossy cardboard (such as cereal packets) in my brown bin. The NHDC website is not clear on this (stating simply that cardboard may be recycled), but most other local authorities operating similar schemes do explicitly state that cereal packets are acceptable cardboard and I was not able to find one which explicitly prohibited it.
So how could I do better?
- In future I can recycle glossy cardboard food packaging, but wouldn't it be better still if the cardboard were plain? Then I could happily bury it, as I do the cardboard from toilet rolls.
- Over the past few years I have reduced the amount of food packaging that goes in my bin through taking it into account when choosing what to buy. However, I can still make a choice to reduce it further.
- I can reduce the number of kitchen towels I use (for example, by leaving a tea-towel hanging from a hook to dry my hands).
I think this week was fairly typical. Perhaps on average I generate slightly more (say, 750g?). I was pleased to note that I could easily fit at least ten times the amount of rubbish I generated into my black bin. That means that most families of five or six living in a house should be able to survive two weeks without a bin collection.
750g per week is about 40kg per year. Perhaps I need to allow another 10kg for exceptional items so I'd estimate my contribution to landfill is about 50kg per year. My recycled waste is much heavier than this (mainly newspapers, glass and garden waste), although I haven't weighed it. I could reduce my carbon footprint from recycled waste if I bought fewer newspapers and drank even less beer and wine than I already do.
A DEFRA report states that in 2005/06 municipal waste collected from households was 505kg per person per annum of which 26.7% was recycled or composted. That means about 370kg per person per annum is not.
The point of this post is not to show how well I am doing - there is still much room for improvement. It is to reflect on the massive potential that there is in the UK to reduce our waste.
