Cutting Down On Waste

May 30, 2008 – 9:30 pm

I’ve recently been working on cutting down the amount of waste I create.  One major way of doing this is to cut down on the waste that I bring into the house in the first place.

I started this by going through the post I recieve, even the junk mail, and every time something comes through which I don’t want to recieve again, I contact the people who sent it, and tell them to remove my details from their mailing list.  In this way I’ve substantially cut down on the amount of junk mail, brochures, catalogues etc. that come through my door and end up virtually straight in the bin or the recycling bag.  Obviously most of what I’m cutting down on is paper, but there are all the windows from window envelopes and plastic wrappers from catalogues and magazines etc. as well.  I’ve put up a sticker on my letterbox to say I don’t want to recieve any unsolicited mail or advertising too, so no more ‘free’ local paper - well I rarely looked at it, and no more leaflets put through with the post in the morning either - again 99% of the time I didn’t do more than glance at them.

My other big way of cutting down the waste that comes in to my home is to look at what I am buying when I do my weekly shop.  It’s been my practice for a while now to get my fruit and veg loose, and to bake my bread at home so I’ve already eliminated bread wrappers fruit nets and veg bags from my shopping (flour, sugar, and oil can all be bought in recyclable containers, and salt and dried yeast I buy in bulk so as to create as little waste as possible), so what else could I look at.  I did my regular weekly shop, and then when I got home I looked at it closely and decided what had to change. 

Meat was the first area where there was a lot of waste, all those prepackaged bits of meat from the supermarket that sat in plastic trays or worse still in polystyrene trays with plastic wrap around them. 

So change one… Buy my meat from the butcher to try to eliminate a lot of the packaging. This worked really well, even to the point of me taking along my own containers and getting the butcher to put my Chicken, Mince, Pork Chops etc. into my own containers as he went instead of bags so I can just get them home and throw them in the freezer as they are.  Zero waste achieved!

Cold meat and cheese was the other area where there seemed to be more waste than I thought was reasonable, so how to deal with this… Delicatessen’s aren’t easy to come by in my town sadly (If you have one locally, shout for joy, hug the owner and buy from them to make sure they don’t go out of business, you’re very lucky!).  There are however delicatessen counters in most of the larger supermarkets here.  The biggest problem I encountered here was a total lack of understanding on the part of the people working the counters, and the managers of the shops. 

Change two… I decided to try taking my own tubs in when I went and asking them to put the sliced cold meat, and the lumps of cheese into these containers rather than wrapping them in their plastic sheets and then bagging them.  This met with some rather odd reactions.  Most of the counters near me look at me oddly, but do as I ask, even if they secretly think I’m cuckoo so again zero waste achieved here too!  One or two however have refused point blank and made me have to call on management to try to get them to see that there is not a problem with putting my meat or cheese into my tubs and then sticking their price label onto the lid.   The worst store I had a manager who also refused to see any sense - apparently in that store, the staff HAVE to use pieces of plastic because it’s their store policy that they don’t touch the produce with their hands. (And they don’t use gloves because…?!) - eerrrr yeah ok and they think I’m cuckoo?!  

Overall it’s been successful though, and I’m now producing less waste because I’m bringing less in.  I’ve still got to figure out how to cut out the non-recyclable packaging on a few items, plasticised paper that cereal comes in - as well as a box!  I still can’t work that out, why on earth do I need both for goodness sake.  The few frozen items I still buy also come in plastic bags like peas - I could buy tinned, which would mean that the container would be recyclable, but they just don’t taste the same to me.  Tea is another issue, I can only drink decaf, and whether I buy loose leaf, or teabags locally I seem to have to buy them in a box which comes wrapped in plastic to seal it.