A brave new kitchen bin!

So this lonely looking bin is our new kitchen bin for the week!  Am I mad, or are we up for the challenge?  (Note to self: find an empty bucket for next week, so we don't even have to waste a plastic bag...and source an outside dustbin, so we can just transfer any waste to that for the bin men to empty directly in to the truck.)

Update: Did a terry nappies wash today with the ecoballs and they've come out looking just like they normally do....in fact they are possibly slightly softer!

Jam & Washing

I never imagined how impacting this journey would be, and we're only 4 weeks in, but my whole mindset has changed to so many everyday habits already.  So far it's been stimulating, fascinating, exhausting and lots more beside.  So tonight I thought I'd write about jam and washing, and a small link between the two that occured on Friday.

A couple of weeks back I bought some ecoballs.  I had come across them before, but had been very sceptical as to whether they would work for a family with young children, but I thought I should at least give them a go.  They suggest that they will last for 1000 washes, and cost £15.99, so at less than 2p a wash they are certainly cheaper than the laundry powder that I currently use.  You also don't add conditioner, and if we had a washing machine that allowed you to dodge the rinse cycle, we could save on our water bill too (a feature I'll be looking for if/when our machine gives up).  They also provided a sample of a stain remover which you rub on stubborn stains 10 mins before washing.

So I've now done two weeks worth of washing with them (you just pop all three in the back of the machine and set it running).  And I've been really impressed with the results.  We always dry our washing outside, so there is the added bonus of sun (although not a great deal in the past 2 weeks), but the clothes have come out as clean as ever.  And this week I made some jam and some of it ended up on a white tea-towel.  I put a bit of the stain remover on, and it was all gone by the time it came out of the machine.

So the verdict?  I'm surprised, impressed, and we'll continue using them.  I may even attempt a nappy wash with them (they're just night nappies, and so just wet, rather than highly soiled)...will report back later.  And yes, for those eagle-eyed amongst you, they are made out of plastic.  But you can get refills and they should last forever, I may even be able to pass them onto the next generation :-)  Sadly the packaging they arrived in was a cardboard box (fine), but then they were each wrapped in small plastic bags :-(

And now onto the jam.  A couple of years ago I started making marmalade using my stock pot, but I spotted a preserving pan in Oxfam last weekend,
so picked it up and defrosted some red and black currants that had been in our freezer since the summer from someone's allotment and added to some apples and jam sugar.  It has turned into the best jam I've made yet, even both kids love it!  And a lot less effort in the preparation than marmalde or the wild pear jam that I made in the autumn from some of the fruit on our city's street trees.  So thank you Oxfam! 

I used this recipe, although minus the cassis as we didn't have any, and I doubled all the other ingredients.  http://www.blackcurrantfoundation.co.uk/recipes_apple_blackcurrant.html  

What's this got to do with plastic?  Well not that much really, as there was no plastic involved, but it does mean I've reused jam jars, and although the glass is recycled if we don't reuse them, the lids always end up in the bin as they don't accept them, so again, one less thing in the bin.  I may have to set a new challenge and see if we can survive the rest of the year just on homemade jam :-)

P.S.  I've decided not to make butter at the moment, as you need cream to make it, and that comes in plastic cartons which are considerably bigger than the paper/plastic/foil stuff that butter comes in.  But we are converting to butter, which my husband is very happy about!

An alternative to crisps?

So tonight I'm attempting to make some Roasted Red Kabocha Squash snacks, as a possible alternative to crisps from time to time.  The kids sometimes have crisps in their lunchboxes, and I thought this might be worth a try.

However, my husband has just tried one and said they would be perfect for a beer snack!  Not sure I can get away with adding that beverage to their lunchboxes.

Off to trial them on a group of friends this evening, so will let you know the verdict.

Recipe available here: http://flowtoxcleanse.com/roasted-red-kabocha-squash/

The other thing that has sneaked into the photo are some Apple-Oat Bars (another snack option).  Recipe available here: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/apple-oat-bars/

(And a final hooray!!  Waitrose appear to have at least one organic cheddar available at their cheese counter, so watch this space to find out how they react when I bring in my own box for them to put it in, rather than wrap it endlessly in plastic bags.)

UPDATE: the veg snacks went down very well on those tested, as well as the carrot hummus (with carrots for dipping :-)  Sadly the apple oat bars weren't as successfull....need to try a new recipe for that next time.

Dairy - Milk, Yoghurt & Butter

MILK
So as I mentioned in my last post, I've changed our milk so that it's supplied by our local

Find your local milkman

milkman (our neighbour) and there is something ridiculously lovely about popping to the front door, early in the morning, to get in milk bottles.  Thankfully Dairy Crest do organic milk, and it's just a matter now of working out how many bottles to get on Tues/Thurs/Sat...but think we're getting there.  (And being able to change the order until 9pm the night before is definitely helpful.)  The glass bottles go back to be reused, and I'm collecting the foil tops to go to St Mary's that apparently collect it and make some money out of it.

Time wise: quicker as no trips to the supermarket on the bike twice a week

Cost wise: more expensive, 93p per pint vs ASDA at 37.5p (ouch!)

YOGHURT

I use a yoghurt maker from Lakelands

I've also managed to hunt my yoghurt maker out of the back of the cupboard.  I think I got it pre-kids and simply didn't get through enough yoghurt to make it worthwhile.  I'd forgotten just how simple it is to make.  You basically stick 2 tablespoons of fresh yoghurt in, with 900ml of milk, and 8 hours later you have a big pot of yoghurt.  So far I've made two batches....one with a carton of UHT that was at the back of the cupboard (apparently makes the best yoghurt) and one with milk from the milkman.  The challenge with the UHT milk is that I think it's only available in unrecyclable cartons, so no use to me.  However, the biggest challenge is convincing the kids, but I'm hoping with a variety of flavour experiments over the coming weeks, that they'll forget what the shop bought yeo valley yoghurt tasted like, and learn to love mine.

Time wise: if you don't use UHT milk, you need to boil it first, 

so about 10 mins, then leave it to do it's own thing for 8 hours.

Cost wise: £1.40 for the 900ml organic milk from the milkman, to make 600g 

Yeo Valley used to cost me £1 for 450g 

(so 1p more expensive per 100g, although with no flavours added) 

MARGARINE/BUTTER

So currently we buy a variety of margarines (depending what's on offer) for our sandwiches etc, and I also have butter in the house, but mainly for baking.  The latest food advice seems to be to use butter instead of marg, so I had been thinking of changing to it.  However, it seems impossible to buy either without it being in plastic, or plastic covered paper.  So I'm considering an attempt at making butter myself, although a quick google says you need to use cream to make it, and I'm not sure I can source that in glass (more research!), and making cream (I'll become the milkman's best customer) seems to take a lot of time. Watch this space, and if you have any experience or tips, please do share them.  (Or equally know of anywhere that sells organic butter in paper or foil.)
Found this useful article as a starting point: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/24/how-to-make-butter

This Week's Waste Diary

Yes, it's a pretty boring image....let's face it, it's a pretty boring list, and hasn't told me much that I didn't know.

And the week has been quite stressful, considering all the things that will need to change to reduce the plastic!  But the lovely thing is other people's interest in the journey and their ideas/thoughts/research/help in finding solutions. 

The other stressful thing has been research.  As soon as you google anything, you get conflicting reports and research on just about everything.  And the reality is that I generally like to keep things simple, and life is too short for me to analyse the carbon footprint of every different variable in the packagings journey.  So I guess my main principles are that as little involvement with plastic that can't be used a lot of times is best for our future, our children, the air, the oceans..,..  And if I can find a way to reduce it from our lives, I'll attempt to give it a go.  (I've heard 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle so much in my lifetime, I'd pretty much forgotten the importance of the order of the words.  It's so often the logo on recycling things that it is the last word that my brain seems to have fixed on, but actually that's really the last resort....we should be looking to reduce, and reuse way before we give in to recycling.)

So back to the list.  Below I've typed it out, and in brackets I've put my initial thoughts on things I might explore/attempt in the year ahead.  My desire is to go full gusto and get it all done tomorrow, but that's not reality....so let's see what energy levels I can keep up on the journey and have changed by the end.

(The list is just what went into our black sack, and helpfully my 5 year old decided to start her own list of things going into our green bin (recycling) and nursery's junk modelling bag...so I'll also include those at the end.)

THE LIST!

• The black sack itself x 1 (not bother with a black sack, just put out a dustbin each week, and take the time to wash the bin each week)
• Tissues x too many to mention (go back to the old fashioned world of hankerchiefs, and try to make them out of some old bed linen I have stored for a rainy day)
• Chocolate biscuit wrappers x 5 (stop buying them, and make cakes, biscuits and flapjack for snacks at work)
• Cereal inner packets x 2 (try and find a local weigh and save? bulk buy, to at least minimise?)
• Napkins x 3 (don't give them to guests....use our fabric ones we got when we got married)
• Crisp packets x 4, plus outer large bag (stop buying them, attempt to make our own?)
• Kitchen paper sheets x 3 (just use cloths that we can wash...get a stash of them)
• Margarine cover x 1, plus there will be the tubs in future (?????)
• Pie packaging x 4 (don't buy them...make them)
• Cucumber wrap x 1 (find somewhere that sells them without, that are organic)
• Horlicks pot x 1 (had been in the cupboard unused for 6 months and gone rock solid anyway, so just don't bother buying again)
• Small bag from sweets x1 (given in a party bag, so can't change what people give us, but do need to think about homemade sweets/treats for the kids and their friends)
• CD wrapper x1 (ever possible to buy without them?  Just use downloads in future?)
• IKEA Shelf system packaging x lots (make own shelves in future?)
• Pasta packet (source pasta in bulk to minimise?)
• Screw packets x 2 (see if possible to buy them without packaging, although certainly our small DIY local store where I got them from don't sell them that way, and I'm sure the big boys don't either)
• Pop corn bag x 1 (leftover from Christmas...should source popping corn in future, and see if we can get in paper or at a weigh and save type place, or in bulk and share with others, or just live without)
• Risotto rice box window x 1 (the box was card, but had a tiny plastic window...try and source in just card and ideally larger)
• Frozen pea packet x 1 (I think we're going to have to eliminate freezer food, and we don't have much, peas, sweet corn, chips and ice cream....have to see if it's possible to get in another way, or just not have it?)
• Cling film x 1 (bits left from wrapping half an orange in daughter's school lunch...not sure of the solution as think the little compartments will leak in her existing lunchbox)
• Tea bag packaging x 1 (see if our local tea company will sell to me in bulk and directly into my tea caddy....or even an old biscuit tin, so it's a bigger stash?)
• Envelope windows x 3 (mail that I've been sent, and had to remove the window before putting the paper in recycling....could reuse the envelopes by sticking a label on top of the window....however, don't use that many envelopes personally...share them with anyone else?  And try and get removed from as many mailing companies as possible to stem the flow.) 
• Disposable nappies x 7 (since just having nappies at night I got lazy and changed from terry nappies to disposables, but at the end of this pack, I'll dig out the terry nappies from the loft and do one wash load a week...might even spur him out of nappies at night :-)
• Washing ball wraps x 3 (have bought the ecozone bales that do 1000 washes....they are made of plastic, but you can refill them, so in theory should last my lifetime and be passed onto my children's children...will be testing them out and feeding back in a later post)
  
  

So obviously that's just one week's worth and other weeks' items would add to the list, but gives an idea of the types of things I'm up against.

Other than paper and tins, we also put milk packaging into the recycling bin, and as of tomorrow we're changing to our local milk man (literally our neighbour) and organic milk in 1 pint glass bottles.  http://www.dairycrest.co.uk/  And we've also put a large Yeo Valley Organic Yoghurt pot in the junk modelling bag...so I'm going to attempt to make my own and get the kids to love it?!?!?!

It's exhausting just thinking about it all, let alone finding the time and money to change it all...but here goes!

 

What's this all about then?

Some of you will remember my blog from 2012, entitled 'Finding Richness in Less'  I attempted to journal my year of trying to be less of a consumer and trying to challenge myself and where I put my trust.  The year had a great impact me, and I can honestly say that lots of my day-to-day life and thoughts changed during that time.  2013 has been a year for consolidating a lot of that, and as we start 2014 I felt the need to take one of the issues further.

During 2012 one of the things I focused on was our household waste, and I spent time

weighing our bin sack before trying to make some big changes.  The result was a bokashi system which is now deeply embedded in our household's life, so much so that my 2 year old always wants to help me with compost and a month or so ago his daily catchphrase was 'Mummy, I love bokashi & minis'.  (People could understand the mini fascination, but often thought he'd made up the word 'bokashi' :-)

We've also greatly reduced what we buy, so naturally have less waste, and we recycle as much as possible.  But recently I realised we appear to have reached a plateau.  I reckon that our sack is now half to two thirds full each week, and the majority of what remains in it is plastic related.  So little can be recycled in our city, and I don't blame our council for that, but the manufacturers and packagers, and us for being happy to have the convenience of the shrinkwrap, tidiness, hygiene, presentation etc.

So one of my challenges for 2014, and the subject of this blog, is to see how we can reduce the plastic that goes into our rubbish bin each week.

I'm pretty terrified of where it's going to lead and how frustrated I will get at times.  Over the past few evenings as I've pondered it, I've realised the irony is that even the black sack, and the bins around the house are all made of plastic!  I did an online food shop earlier this week and realised that probably 95% of it came in plastic.  Where am I a going to find toilet roll that doesn't get packaged in plastic?  Squash, marg, cheese.....the list goes on.  And how am I going to reconcile these hunts and inevitable decisions in relation to my other objectives of fairtrade, organic and local.  Let alone the time involved and the cost.

So let me be straight with you from the start!  Nothing is going to change over night.  My aim is to make one change every fortnight and update this blog with the journey of researching that, and the additional (or not) cost implication of the alternative, as well as the time involved in sourcing it.  I am also not going to get rid of anything that we already have and use that is made of plastic, e.g. storage containers, the laptop upon which I type this!  Some plastic can be recycled, but is can only be downgraded in it's use, so while it's still got life in it, we'll be using it.)

And for those of you reading this and interested in following the blog, I'd really apprecaite your help & ideas.  I've already had one lovely friend deliver some homemade yoghurt for us to try, with the promise of the recipe to follow and the revelation that it's cheaper than the product we currently buy, involves no plastic, and pretty importantly, tasted delicious!!!  So all ideas and knowledge appreciated.

Plan for Week 1: I'm putting a large piece of paper above the bin and will make a tally of exactly what gets put in it over the week.