As an update this will not happen this month,lol.
Towards the end of February I was gearing up for this challenge but then my back gave out again. Well I say again, it just got a lot worse than normal pain so being in agony and bearly being able to lift my arms let alone do anything else my loving wife went shopping for me but being spaced out on pain killers or as I refer to them pain relievers as they never totally kill the pain but being spaced out I never conveyed to my eife in legible tones anyway what i was planning. She "got a few bits to tied us over " and spent £90 quid !!!
I take full blame for this but i'll try the £75 challenge later in the year as April sees holidays and from May our son decends on us from Uni and he is like a plague of locusts all in one go....
... but we love him to bits.....
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Electric tarrifs
As we all know it's often cheaper to switch suppliers now and then for our gas and electric.
I used to do this religeously every 4 months but have become a bit slack over the last year only changing twice but since Ebico put their prices up they are not the cheapest now and if you need to save money then it is necessary to look around and change as the needs arise.
I've said before I don't trust the comparison sites which stems from the time i was a door knocker salesman for British gas and Eon. I always look at the companies own website to find the details of the lowest tarrif and often you may find that the power companies offer a two rate tarrif which can be hard to work out for your home.
My tip is to always take daily meter readings and then you will know what you are using. It's no good blaming the power companies for taking to small a D/D when you are using the power.
A person on another computing board i visit wrote out this formular for me to work out the cost of two tarrif electric bills.
=IF(SUM(A2:L2)<901,SUM(A2:L2)*0.1826,(900*0.1826)+((SUM(A2:L2)-900)*0.0796))
It can be cut and pasted into the top line of an excell spreadsheet in column M2. The first row is labeled jan, feb, march, april etc, one month in each cell A1 through to L1.
In ROW " column A you write your monthly electric useage figures. For me it was 230kwh. so I'd put 230 in cell A2 240 in Cell B2 260 in cell C2 all the way along for each month.
In the formula above you will see the numbers 901 and 900. These represent the first tarrif. For many companies it is a higher price for the first 900 units of a year then cheaper for all the rest. British Gas has 500 units at a high price then the rest at a lower price. Some use 182 units which IS FOR A QUARTER so should be multilpied by 4 idf usig the above calc. If your power company uses a figure then this 901 / 900 will need to be altered to suit your tarrif. The last bit you need to alter is the 0.1826 and 0.0796 in the above formula. These figures represent the actual cost in pence of your tarrif. The 0.1826 is the higher tarrif ( for the first 900 / 728/ 500 units etc) and the 0.0796 is the lower figure for the remaining units you use in a year.
If any of you good followers have any problems then leave a comment or better still email me and I'll do a spreadsheet for you if you give me your company and figures etc.
I'll be experimenting with this formula over the next few weeks to see if it works for gas. It should as the gas is also in KWH but there needs to be a conversion process first to get it to KWH if you have an old meter like me,lol.
I used to do this religeously every 4 months but have become a bit slack over the last year only changing twice but since Ebico put their prices up they are not the cheapest now and if you need to save money then it is necessary to look around and change as the needs arise.
I've said before I don't trust the comparison sites which stems from the time i was a door knocker salesman for British gas and Eon. I always look at the companies own website to find the details of the lowest tarrif and often you may find that the power companies offer a two rate tarrif which can be hard to work out for your home.
My tip is to always take daily meter readings and then you will know what you are using. It's no good blaming the power companies for taking to small a D/D when you are using the power.
A person on another computing board i visit wrote out this formular for me to work out the cost of two tarrif electric bills.
=IF(SUM(A2:L2)<901,SUM(A2:L2)*0.1826,(900*0.1826)+((SUM(A2:L2)-900)*0.0796))
It can be cut and pasted into the top line of an excell spreadsheet in column M2. The first row is labeled jan, feb, march, april etc, one month in each cell A1 through to L1.
In ROW " column A you write your monthly electric useage figures. For me it was 230kwh. so I'd put 230 in cell A2 240 in Cell B2 260 in cell C2 all the way along for each month.
In the formula above you will see the numbers 901 and 900. These represent the first tarrif. For many companies it is a higher price for the first 900 units of a year then cheaper for all the rest. British Gas has 500 units at a high price then the rest at a lower price. Some use 182 units which IS FOR A QUARTER so should be multilpied by 4 idf usig the above calc. If your power company uses a figure then this 901 / 900 will need to be altered to suit your tarrif. The last bit you need to alter is the 0.1826 and 0.0796 in the above formula. These figures represent the actual cost in pence of your tarrif. The 0.1826 is the higher tarrif ( for the first 900 / 728/ 500 units etc) and the 0.0796 is the lower figure for the remaining units you use in a year.
If any of you good followers have any problems then leave a comment or better still email me and I'll do a spreadsheet for you if you give me your company and figures etc.
I'll be experimenting with this formula over the next few weeks to see if it works for gas. It should as the gas is also in KWH but there needs to be a conversion process first to get it to KWH if you have an old meter like me,lol.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Feed the hungry 2 for a month on £75
Well, my month of reducing plastic in the shopping went well in January and continues to this day but with the deppression, (sorry worldwide resecion that had nothing to do with Gordon brown,) we are now in I thought it might be worthwhile doing another month long experiment. For the month of March I will attempt to feed my wife and I plus the occasional visit from our son from uni on £75 in total.
I've done it before on £120 but it was a skimp to do it and that was before the resent price rises in food etc.
I'll be utilising a full stock cupboard of which i'll list the contents here when I decide what will be in it.
I've done it before on £120 but it was a skimp to do it and that was before the resent price rises in food etc.
I'll be utilising a full stock cupboard of which i'll list the contents here when I decide what will be in it.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Will this depression be all bad
I call this downturn a depression rather than a recession because I think the present incumbent at Number 10 doesn't want to own up to the truth. I'm not a political supporter of any of the parties believing that all of them will fill their own pockets then let the rest of us fight over what's left. Cynical yes, sad, even more so but who wants to be remembered as the prime minister who took us into a depression?
The current track is that "it's a worldwide recession that was started by the Americans so it had nowt to do with me guvnor... honest"
The sad part is that many people will suffer in this depression, mainly those who have lost their jobs and cannot keep up the repayments on the new beemer or jaguar, the credit card payments, the various loans and the purchases of T%&*0 Finest shopping basket.
But ask yourselves this question. Will it really be that bad ? I was one of the consumer is king brigade until my financial crisis in 2005 - 2008 when I eventually ended up escaping bankruptcy by the skin of my teeth but that focused my mind to ensure i never again had any credit cards, loans, debts i "might not" be able to repay etc.
I spent the first 3 months of 2005 in denial, then the next 3 months blaming everyone else then finally I owned up to it being my fault and my responsibility regardless of the fact banks and building societies kept offering me more money. Of course i took it and spent it but hell life's too short to worry isn't it? well isn't it ?
After a lot of Internet searching and reading, often in the early hours as I couldn't sleep with worry I eventually got to grips with the problems and started to sort them out. Only one of the 14 creditors ha ranged me but I got the better of them in the end and stuffed them well and truly which makes me smile even now.
I had to live on less than £75 a month on food for 3 of us... which we did, I had to be housebound as being disabled I couldn't afford petrol so couldn't use the car and it got so bad I resorted to scrounging the allotments for veg to make soup.
We cut back on everything, the creditors were king and got their money first before anything else bar the mortgage and council tax. I learnt to bounce Direct debits without incurring charges and running up debts on the electric and gas in order to buy food and stay warm as well.
We learnt to grow veg, make our own bread, butter, cheese, jams and pickles, sausages and burgers whilst also making do and mend with clothes and furniture etc. Many of the things we still have now would have been long gone had we had more credit cards or access to loans etc. We would sell anything we could but also demanding a fair price and thus not used eBay and the likes. We cancelled birthdays and Christmases, holidays and even chocolates from the corner shop.
We paid off a ver big debt in a little over 3 years through cutting back to the bare bones of an existence and making the best use of what we had. I say this as it has made me a much stronger person and also a stronger family. It's taught s to be a lot more cynical of society and government, to be helpful but not at our own expense and above all to be realistic and trade in cash. If we have the cash we can make a purchase.
So to the initial question, will this depression be a bad thing? I think not for the simple answer that it will make a lot of people sit up and look at what they buy, what they do and the way they do these things in a similar way our financial troubles made us. It will be most uncomfortable but it will make a lot of people come to terms with their predicament and never again will they buy into the consumerism that this "world " economy relies on to make the rich richer and the less well off feel good by buying products they don't need or worse still want!
We are now on the way to self sufficiency. We still shop at food stores as we are still meat eaters and don't keep our own livestock... yet but we have reduced our reliance on the power companies, we store water and still grow and make food as above. We are happier and healthier now, less stressed but still wary of what government can and often will do that may not be good and we will take that as it comes.
In my opinion becoming more self sufficient is going to be the way forward out of this economic crisis and the way forward to help combat global warming, food and power shortages that will come in the future as sure as day follows night. So if self sufficiency in whatever guise that presents itself is the answer where do we start? Everyone could install, or have installed micro generation for electric and hot water, even harvest rainwater and grey water but at what cost? £100,000, £200,000 ??
What we need to do is start of in the garden.
Simple as it seems but to grow a bit of your own food is a step that puts you in control, gives you a bit of time to be "at one with nature" and help you relax and unwind after a hard day at the work place but also it saves you money and the planet food miles. Obviously is you have a couple of acres as a back garden you can do an awful lot of growing your own food but you don't need much space, anything from a plant pot on the windowsill to grow a few herbs up to a full farm. If you have a back yard you can grow food in pots, if you have a bit of soil you can grow quite a few food plants in as little as a square meter of space. The native Americans used to grow three crops together. They grew sweetcorn and as it grew they under planted this with beans and used the sweetcorn as a climbing frame. After the beans were away they planted squashes or today we could plant courgettes as well. This became ground cover and so reduced the time spent weeding the ground. This method of planting is very hungry on the soil and attention needs to be given to the amount of water needed and also replenishing the soil with fertilizers.
Water harvesting
Which then neatly comes onto two other aspects of providing your own. Water harvesting and fertilizers. Water harvesting need not be grand sunken chambers the size of houses which cost £1000's of pounds but a few water butts in the garden. Having water butts is one thing you can't do on the windowsill but an average house roof is about 60 sq m and an average rainfall is about 1 metre of water per year so you could in theory harvest 60 tonnes of water per year or 60,000 Lt's. This water can be used to water your veg and fruit and also wash your clothes... and no they don't turn out grey and also you can flush the toilets and wash the car with the rainwater. If you go further you can filter the rainwater with a simple box of sand and there are many designs out there for this. Many offer purity of water in the 90% to 99% free of bacteria and germs but for even more safety you can use a set up of ultra violet scrubbers and then you can use this water to drink and bath in but please do your own research for the exact specifications of these methods.
Fertilisers As the cropping above is fertiliser intensive then you can use chicken pellets if you are going to grow organic but why not keep a few chickens in a small space in the garden and keep the guano or chicken much for a couple of years to mature then use this as a fertiliser.
The ideas keep coming from one leading to another and over time you can get a great deal of satisfaction out of being a bit savvy on where your food comes from and don't forget this all started with an idea to grow some herbs in a plant pot on the kitchen windowsill and costs nowhere near 100s of 1000's of pounds.....
Of course if the government really had their heads screwed on (proper like) instead of throwing billions at the banks they should offer free interest loans for environmentally friendly micro generation projects such as solar PV, solar Thermal and water harvesting but what do they know.........
The current track is that "it's a worldwide recession that was started by the Americans so it had nowt to do with me guvnor... honest"
The sad part is that many people will suffer in this depression, mainly those who have lost their jobs and cannot keep up the repayments on the new beemer or jaguar, the credit card payments, the various loans and the purchases of T%&*0 Finest shopping basket.
But ask yourselves this question. Will it really be that bad ? I was one of the consumer is king brigade until my financial crisis in 2005 - 2008 when I eventually ended up escaping bankruptcy by the skin of my teeth but that focused my mind to ensure i never again had any credit cards, loans, debts i "might not" be able to repay etc.
I spent the first 3 months of 2005 in denial, then the next 3 months blaming everyone else then finally I owned up to it being my fault and my responsibility regardless of the fact banks and building societies kept offering me more money. Of course i took it and spent it but hell life's too short to worry isn't it? well isn't it ?
After a lot of Internet searching and reading, often in the early hours as I couldn't sleep with worry I eventually got to grips with the problems and started to sort them out. Only one of the 14 creditors ha ranged me but I got the better of them in the end and stuffed them well and truly which makes me smile even now.
I had to live on less than £75 a month on food for 3 of us... which we did, I had to be housebound as being disabled I couldn't afford petrol so couldn't use the car and it got so bad I resorted to scrounging the allotments for veg to make soup.
We cut back on everything, the creditors were king and got their money first before anything else bar the mortgage and council tax. I learnt to bounce Direct debits without incurring charges and running up debts on the electric and gas in order to buy food and stay warm as well.
We learnt to grow veg, make our own bread, butter, cheese, jams and pickles, sausages and burgers whilst also making do and mend with clothes and furniture etc. Many of the things we still have now would have been long gone had we had more credit cards or access to loans etc. We would sell anything we could but also demanding a fair price and thus not used eBay and the likes. We cancelled birthdays and Christmases, holidays and even chocolates from the corner shop.
We paid off a ver big debt in a little over 3 years through cutting back to the bare bones of an existence and making the best use of what we had. I say this as it has made me a much stronger person and also a stronger family. It's taught s to be a lot more cynical of society and government, to be helpful but not at our own expense and above all to be realistic and trade in cash. If we have the cash we can make a purchase.
So to the initial question, will this depression be a bad thing? I think not for the simple answer that it will make a lot of people sit up and look at what they buy, what they do and the way they do these things in a similar way our financial troubles made us. It will be most uncomfortable but it will make a lot of people come to terms with their predicament and never again will they buy into the consumerism that this "world " economy relies on to make the rich richer and the less well off feel good by buying products they don't need or worse still want!
We are now on the way to self sufficiency. We still shop at food stores as we are still meat eaters and don't keep our own livestock... yet but we have reduced our reliance on the power companies, we store water and still grow and make food as above. We are happier and healthier now, less stressed but still wary of what government can and often will do that may not be good and we will take that as it comes.
In my opinion becoming more self sufficient is going to be the way forward out of this economic crisis and the way forward to help combat global warming, food and power shortages that will come in the future as sure as day follows night. So if self sufficiency in whatever guise that presents itself is the answer where do we start? Everyone could install, or have installed micro generation for electric and hot water, even harvest rainwater and grey water but at what cost? £100,000, £200,000 ??
What we need to do is start of in the garden.
Simple as it seems but to grow a bit of your own food is a step that puts you in control, gives you a bit of time to be "at one with nature" and help you relax and unwind after a hard day at the work place but also it saves you money and the planet food miles. Obviously is you have a couple of acres as a back garden you can do an awful lot of growing your own food but you don't need much space, anything from a plant pot on the windowsill to grow a few herbs up to a full farm. If you have a back yard you can grow food in pots, if you have a bit of soil you can grow quite a few food plants in as little as a square meter of space. The native Americans used to grow three crops together. They grew sweetcorn and as it grew they under planted this with beans and used the sweetcorn as a climbing frame. After the beans were away they planted squashes or today we could plant courgettes as well. This became ground cover and so reduced the time spent weeding the ground. This method of planting is very hungry on the soil and attention needs to be given to the amount of water needed and also replenishing the soil with fertilizers.
Water harvesting
Which then neatly comes onto two other aspects of providing your own. Water harvesting and fertilizers. Water harvesting need not be grand sunken chambers the size of houses which cost £1000's of pounds but a few water butts in the garden. Having water butts is one thing you can't do on the windowsill but an average house roof is about 60 sq m and an average rainfall is about 1 metre of water per year so you could in theory harvest 60 tonnes of water per year or 60,000 Lt's. This water can be used to water your veg and fruit and also wash your clothes... and no they don't turn out grey and also you can flush the toilets and wash the car with the rainwater. If you go further you can filter the rainwater with a simple box of sand and there are many designs out there for this. Many offer purity of water in the 90% to 99% free of bacteria and germs but for even more safety you can use a set up of ultra violet scrubbers and then you can use this water to drink and bath in but please do your own research for the exact specifications of these methods.
Fertilisers As the cropping above is fertiliser intensive then you can use chicken pellets if you are going to grow organic but why not keep a few chickens in a small space in the garden and keep the guano or chicken much for a couple of years to mature then use this as a fertiliser.
The ideas keep coming from one leading to another and over time you can get a great deal of satisfaction out of being a bit savvy on where your food comes from and don't forget this all started with an idea to grow some herbs in a plant pot on the kitchen windowsill and costs nowhere near 100s of 1000's of pounds.....
Of course if the government really had their heads screwed on (proper like) instead of throwing billions at the banks they should offer free interest loans for environmentally friendly micro generation projects such as solar PV, solar Thermal and water harvesting but what do they know.........
Monday, February 2, 2009
A month without plastic.... conclusion.
February 2ND
The month of January has come to an end and as such the challenge of no plastic also ends.
It was quite clear from the first day of shopping that this would be a Plastic REDUCTION CHALLENGE because an enourmous amount of plastic is used in todays food industry.
All along this challenge i aimed to reduce, reuse THEN recycle but my first dissapointment was milk. We drink a lot of milk and as such I looked for a doorstep delivery but the this was a no no from the first phone call. The milk had to come from the next town at least 15 to 30 miles or so away as our local depot was no longer viable many years ago and closed down so there was an issue of food miles. Secondly the cost of milk in proper glass milk bottles was 62 pence per pint. I mean come on, no bloody wonder the poor milkman is no longer doing so many doorstep deliveries. In a previous post I said we drank 3 pints a day but on counting we actually drink on average 3.8 pints a day. If our son is home from uni that will go to 5. So an average of 4 pints a day is 28 pints a week or 10220 pints a year. For doorstep deliveries the cost would be £6336. For poly cartons from the shops it would be £3654 !! I know I wanted to reduce my purchase of plastic milk cartons but come on spending an extra £3000 to do it is madness.
Thus I aim to reuse as many of my poly milk cartons as I can. I've got a lot of sugesstion for this but some to help on the way are making butter in them, cutting up and using for plant labels, making funnels out of them, bird seed fillers etc, etc.
My second dissapointment was the use of plastic for my dogs minced steak. He has a dodgy stomach and so we need to be careful of the amount of fat in his food. We found minced steak in 500g bags for £1.98 then it went up to £2.00 a bag. This is less than 8% fat so to reduce my use of this plastic, A grade 6 I'd need to mince my own which would be no problem but I'd need to find a supply of meat for less than £4 a kilo.... If you know of anywhere that sells steak at less than £4 a kilo let me know please.
Other than that there were no major dissapointments and it doesn't take long to "train" butchers, grocers, fishmongers etc that you don't want plastic bags. I mean it took me a week to actually buck up the courage to ask my fishmonger but then it was cool for all the rest. Within the second week I'd trained them to expect me to hand them a box marked beef, fish or pork etc and often one lass on the butchers stall would actually ask for the box to tare it out on the scales so I didn't even have to have greaseproof paper which I thought was cool.
Over the 4 weeks I had a total of approximatly 823g of plastic that I couldn't find a re use for, mainly the dog food wrappers but also the odd plastic tray from bacon because we wanted a bacon sarnie when only the Asda type shops were open.
Which is another point. In days of yore we shopped on a daily basis if there was a non working(outside the house)housewife or weekly on a saturday if the women were working. How on earth did we manage with shops only opening until 5 pm or 10 pm if it was the local corner shop. I mean, you couldn't get a pound of bacon at 9 pm on most nights could you... And maybe this is a way forward in this depression we are in now. To plan a weeks meals and stick to it. Buy all the ingredients and no more then either prepare daily or weekly and freeze. Maybe this will help cut down on the waste thrown away each week and the amount that comes out of our purses and wallets each week.
One other point is that it takes more time, effort and money to shop locally as opposed to doing one big shop at the likes of ASDA. It takes planning and time management. These are skills of which I need to hone and hone a lot but I'll get there in the end al being well.
On the whole I'd implore everyone to try the reduction of plastic for a month experiment. It certainly changed my views and I am one who already does an enourmous amount of environmental friendly shopping anyway.
This reduce plastic ethos will be continued from now on and even stepped up to badgering local shops to stop supplying plastic bags for fruit and veg. After all paper bags have done us proud for many a year before plastic arrived.
The month of January has come to an end and as such the challenge of no plastic also ends.
It was quite clear from the first day of shopping that this would be a Plastic REDUCTION CHALLENGE because an enourmous amount of plastic is used in todays food industry.
All along this challenge i aimed to reduce, reuse THEN recycle but my first dissapointment was milk. We drink a lot of milk and as such I looked for a doorstep delivery but the this was a no no from the first phone call. The milk had to come from the next town at least 15 to 30 miles or so away as our local depot was no longer viable many years ago and closed down so there was an issue of food miles. Secondly the cost of milk in proper glass milk bottles was 62 pence per pint. I mean come on, no bloody wonder the poor milkman is no longer doing so many doorstep deliveries. In a previous post I said we drank 3 pints a day but on counting we actually drink on average 3.8 pints a day. If our son is home from uni that will go to 5. So an average of 4 pints a day is 28 pints a week or 10220 pints a year. For doorstep deliveries the cost would be £6336. For poly cartons from the shops it would be £3654 !! I know I wanted to reduce my purchase of plastic milk cartons but come on spending an extra £3000 to do it is madness.
Thus I aim to reuse as many of my poly milk cartons as I can. I've got a lot of sugesstion for this but some to help on the way are making butter in them, cutting up and using for plant labels, making funnels out of them, bird seed fillers etc, etc.
My second dissapointment was the use of plastic for my dogs minced steak. He has a dodgy stomach and so we need to be careful of the amount of fat in his food. We found minced steak in 500g bags for £1.98 then it went up to £2.00 a bag. This is less than 8% fat so to reduce my use of this plastic, A grade 6 I'd need to mince my own which would be no problem but I'd need to find a supply of meat for less than £4 a kilo.... If you know of anywhere that sells steak at less than £4 a kilo let me know please.
Other than that there were no major dissapointments and it doesn't take long to "train" butchers, grocers, fishmongers etc that you don't want plastic bags. I mean it took me a week to actually buck up the courage to ask my fishmonger but then it was cool for all the rest. Within the second week I'd trained them to expect me to hand them a box marked beef, fish or pork etc and often one lass on the butchers stall would actually ask for the box to tare it out on the scales so I didn't even have to have greaseproof paper which I thought was cool.
Over the 4 weeks I had a total of approximatly 823g of plastic that I couldn't find a re use for, mainly the dog food wrappers but also the odd plastic tray from bacon because we wanted a bacon sarnie when only the Asda type shops were open.
Which is another point. In days of yore we shopped on a daily basis if there was a non working(outside the house)housewife or weekly on a saturday if the women were working. How on earth did we manage with shops only opening until 5 pm or 10 pm if it was the local corner shop. I mean, you couldn't get a pound of bacon at 9 pm on most nights could you... And maybe this is a way forward in this depression we are in now. To plan a weeks meals and stick to it. Buy all the ingredients and no more then either prepare daily or weekly and freeze. Maybe this will help cut down on the waste thrown away each week and the amount that comes out of our purses and wallets each week.
One other point is that it takes more time, effort and money to shop locally as opposed to doing one big shop at the likes of ASDA. It takes planning and time management. These are skills of which I need to hone and hone a lot but I'll get there in the end al being well.
On the whole I'd implore everyone to try the reduction of plastic for a month experiment. It certainly changed my views and I am one who already does an enourmous amount of environmental friendly shopping anyway.
This reduce plastic ethos will be continued from now on and even stepped up to badgering local shops to stop supplying plastic bags for fruit and veg. After all paper bags have done us proud for many a year before plastic arrived.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Life goes on
Sadly my neighbour of 17 years died on the 18th of January after a short illness. She was one of the most kind and gentle people you could ever hope to meet. She could see the good in everyone even those who couldn't see it in themselves. She made the most wicked potato and leek soup you could ever eat and her recipe, one of many has been passed onto me so each time I make P&L soup I will remember my neighbour.
Her lovely daughter scattered her ashes yesterday and just as she did there was a massive rainbow in the sky, no rain, no sun just an overcast sky with my neighbour smiling down.
But this gets me thinking about life and things. We are so wrapped up in material goods like posh cars, fine foods, expensive holidays, all probably paid for on the never never that one day, in fact now there will be a depression not a recession. My family and I will be ok as we have nowt of value, no posh cars, no rich foods and certainly no holidays. So for us life will go on as normal until we come to the end and become another rainbow in the sky. For many others angst and depression, loss of houses and lifestyles will cost the NHS a lot more than anything else.
Hopefully this blog, and my main site http://www.bselfsufficient.co.uk/(when it's sorted) will become a bigger source of info for others to get through the crisis that is upon us and also looms in the next decade with the loss of oil / fossil fuels etc.
Her lovely daughter scattered her ashes yesterday and just as she did there was a massive rainbow in the sky, no rain, no sun just an overcast sky with my neighbour smiling down.
But this gets me thinking about life and things. We are so wrapped up in material goods like posh cars, fine foods, expensive holidays, all probably paid for on the never never that one day, in fact now there will be a depression not a recession. My family and I will be ok as we have nowt of value, no posh cars, no rich foods and certainly no holidays. So for us life will go on as normal until we come to the end and become another rainbow in the sky. For many others angst and depression, loss of houses and lifestyles will cost the NHS a lot more than anything else.
Hopefully this blog, and my main site http://www.bselfsufficient.co.uk/(when it's sorted) will become a bigger source of info for others to get through the crisis that is upon us and also looms in the next decade with the loss of oil / fossil fuels etc.
Friday, January 23, 2009
A Month Without Plastic Week 4 / 5
January 22ND
Very little to say now as I'm well into the plastic reduction mode I've come to the conclusion that it is not possible nor feesible to eradicate plastic totally so it's going to be as much as possible a gradual reduction with the eventual aim of zero plastic but that will mean drastic changes such as no milk.
We had the bin emptied on Wednesday as my neighbour put it out for me whilst I was out but it was only about 4" in the bottom. For what was in there you could have put it in a dog poop bag I guess let alone a plastic carrier, heaven forbid. I've even trained my local veg shop to continue to provide the paper bags but my real objective is to get him to remove the plastic bags on a roll he has. I will keep whinging until he does.
As I say nothing has happened to report to the world against plastic. I haven't bought anything in plastic except milk since the last posting and when I went to the butchers yesterday I had my plastic boxes in my bag and was being served by a new staff member who was going to put some chops into a plastic bag to the cry of "No he does't use plastic bags" from another staff member. This was before I had the time to get my pork box out of the bag... canvas bag that is.
January 26TH
Still not a lot to report except bought two bags of mince for the dog so that's another 40g of plastic to add to the bin as it's type 6 and our council don't recycle it at present.
I really must find some meat to mince up myself as we use one bag of mince a day for our dog so that works out at an amazing 7.3 kg of plastic each year. The trouble is that at one bag a day you don't realise the impact on the plan but the greater yearly picture is quite astounding.
January 28TH
Been on a big shop tonight for the next two weeks and spent £70 including £14 for minced meat for the dog. Sadly this was the only things in plastic but that's my target to focus on now and buy meat and mince it myself. I'll have to fine it at a cost of less than £4 a kilo to make a saving in cost. I say saving in cost over saving in plastic because I can't buy stuff that is more expensive just for the fact it's not in plastic. Sad as it seems but I don't have a choice.
Speaking of choice, Lush, the cosmetic body products shop uses only recycled paper in their bags and the last one I got at Christmas had 3 spaces on so that if you get three stamps on it for reusing it you get a free soap or something.... The previous carrier I had from them had the date of 2006 written inside by me so I reckon it must have been reused at least 12 to 15 times in the intervening years.... Sad i know but hey it keeps me out of mischief.
January 30TH
Seems sort of sad now as the sparkle has seemed to go out of this trial now as I regard it as "normal" to reduce the use of plastic. Stil no cheaper versions of milk bottles.
Very little to say now as I'm well into the plastic reduction mode I've come to the conclusion that it is not possible nor feesible to eradicate plastic totally so it's going to be as much as possible a gradual reduction with the eventual aim of zero plastic but that will mean drastic changes such as no milk.
We had the bin emptied on Wednesday as my neighbour put it out for me whilst I was out but it was only about 4" in the bottom. For what was in there you could have put it in a dog poop bag I guess let alone a plastic carrier, heaven forbid. I've even trained my local veg shop to continue to provide the paper bags but my real objective is to get him to remove the plastic bags on a roll he has. I will keep whinging until he does.
As I say nothing has happened to report to the world against plastic. I haven't bought anything in plastic except milk since the last posting and when I went to the butchers yesterday I had my plastic boxes in my bag and was being served by a new staff member who was going to put some chops into a plastic bag to the cry of "No he does't use plastic bags" from another staff member. This was before I had the time to get my pork box out of the bag... canvas bag that is.
January 26TH
Still not a lot to report except bought two bags of mince for the dog so that's another 40g of plastic to add to the bin as it's type 6 and our council don't recycle it at present.
I really must find some meat to mince up myself as we use one bag of mince a day for our dog so that works out at an amazing 7.3 kg of plastic each year. The trouble is that at one bag a day you don't realise the impact on the plan but the greater yearly picture is quite astounding.
January 28TH
Been on a big shop tonight for the next two weeks and spent £70 including £14 for minced meat for the dog. Sadly this was the only things in plastic but that's my target to focus on now and buy meat and mince it myself. I'll have to fine it at a cost of less than £4 a kilo to make a saving in cost. I say saving in cost over saving in plastic because I can't buy stuff that is more expensive just for the fact it's not in plastic. Sad as it seems but I don't have a choice.
Speaking of choice, Lush, the cosmetic body products shop uses only recycled paper in their bags and the last one I got at Christmas had 3 spaces on so that if you get three stamps on it for reusing it you get a free soap or something.... The previous carrier I had from them had the date of 2006 written inside by me so I reckon it must have been reused at least 12 to 15 times in the intervening years.... Sad i know but hey it keeps me out of mischief.
January 30TH
Seems sort of sad now as the sparkle has seemed to go out of this trial now as I regard it as "normal" to reduce the use of plastic. Stil no cheaper versions of milk bottles.
Monday, January 19, 2009
A Month Without Plastic Week 3.
January 15th
Went to the butchers where I got the meet wrapped in greaseproof paper the other week and asked for some bacon. Real thick cut Ayrshire roll bacon fit for kings and the young woman went to put in a plastic bag after wrapping it in greaseproof paper. I said I didn't want the plastic bag so got a blank look and so I repeated myself, I don't want a plastic bag thankyou.... So she pulled a plastic carrier of the hook and put the greaseproofed wrapped bacon in it. Whilst waiting for my change i took the bacon out of the carrier bag and left it on the counter to the cry of Excuse me you have forgot your bacon.... no i haven't holding it aloft. Well the look of puzzlement on her face was a real picture. My son commented... "Dad you can't help it that she's thick" ... Got him trained already,lol.
The reason I went there for my bacon was because I went to Asda, Tesco and Morrisons to see if the bacon was available without plastic. These so called shops of convenience proudly exclaim that they have fully trained butchers in their shops but I wonder what these butchers do when all their work is out of sight of the public and all the meat is pre packed. Matbe they are the packers or maybe they are just a picture you see in the adverts...
Having said that it was "less convenient" to me to go to the butchers as it was a special journey today that I could have done without if I was looking at food miles....
Still here is half way through the month and it is becoming increasingly easier to shop without plastic, you just have to think about it and if need be spend a little more time thinking, planning and executing your plan. By doing so you are supporting local businesses, (maybe)getting a bit more exercise walking around more shops but above all you are being part of the community. I often feel that we are a nation selfish singles who get up, go out to the car, drive to work and then drive home on a night locking the door behind us until it is time to do it all again the next day. The problem for me with this is that you lose the conection with society and your neighbours. How many times have we read that a body was discovered in a house and it had been there x number of weeks and nobody knew of the death until the stench alerted them.
If we walked a bit more, took a few minutes extra to enable usa to talk to our neighbours or smile at a stranger you pass by or sit next to on the bus the world would be a better place. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for a bygone era, maybe it never existed but I know in my street people know who I am and that they can count on me to offer help if needed.
January 19TH
4 days since the last update but all is going to plan. I bought some bacon from Asda on Friday Saturday and it was packed in the usual plastic packaging. The sad part of this, and a salutory lesson was that it was about 10 pm that we went shopping so I couldn't go to the local butchers for the bacon. The sad part was that it reenforces the idea of these shops being "convenient" stores because for many reasons I couldn't get to the local butchers before it closed. I guess i could have waited until today, monday but we wanted a cheese and bacon toastie that night not waiting until mMonday morning for one. The local butcher lost business because of this and I gained a bit of plastic in the process. All in all my plastic so far this month is very much reduced and weighs around 230g if my maths is correct... yes i have weighed every bit of plastic on digital scales but the actual amount is far smaller in volume than previous months. A normal 2 weekly bin emptying cycle would see the wheelie bin stuffed full of all sorts but mainly plastic that couldn't be recycled.
By selective shopping and thinking about my shopping habits, by thinking of alternative uses if I have to buy plastics I've reduced this down to about 4 " in the bottom of the bin. We are approaching the empty week this wednesday so i'm well chuffed at that Because it means that the bin will not need to be emptied this fortnight. If this is a way forward then my bin will only need to be emptied, I guess about every 6 months but like everything it takes effort to continue this but certainly for a month this is the goal.
After the month I feel that I will be sufficiently "trained" in my habits to continue with the reduce not recycle pledge for plastics.
Went to the butchers where I got the meet wrapped in greaseproof paper the other week and asked for some bacon. Real thick cut Ayrshire roll bacon fit for kings and the young woman went to put in a plastic bag after wrapping it in greaseproof paper. I said I didn't want the plastic bag so got a blank look and so I repeated myself, I don't want a plastic bag thankyou.... So she pulled a plastic carrier of the hook and put the greaseproofed wrapped bacon in it. Whilst waiting for my change i took the bacon out of the carrier bag and left it on the counter to the cry of Excuse me you have forgot your bacon.... no i haven't holding it aloft. Well the look of puzzlement on her face was a real picture. My son commented... "Dad you can't help it that she's thick" ... Got him trained already,lol.
The reason I went there for my bacon was because I went to Asda, Tesco and Morrisons to see if the bacon was available without plastic. These so called shops of convenience proudly exclaim that they have fully trained butchers in their shops but I wonder what these butchers do when all their work is out of sight of the public and all the meat is pre packed. Matbe they are the packers or maybe they are just a picture you see in the adverts...
Having said that it was "less convenient" to me to go to the butchers as it was a special journey today that I could have done without if I was looking at food miles....
Still here is half way through the month and it is becoming increasingly easier to shop without plastic, you just have to think about it and if need be spend a little more time thinking, planning and executing your plan. By doing so you are supporting local businesses, (maybe)getting a bit more exercise walking around more shops but above all you are being part of the community. I often feel that we are a nation selfish singles who get up, go out to the car, drive to work and then drive home on a night locking the door behind us until it is time to do it all again the next day. The problem for me with this is that you lose the conection with society and your neighbours. How many times have we read that a body was discovered in a house and it had been there x number of weeks and nobody knew of the death until the stench alerted them.
If we walked a bit more, took a few minutes extra to enable usa to talk to our neighbours or smile at a stranger you pass by or sit next to on the bus the world would be a better place. Maybe I'm being nostalgic for a bygone era, maybe it never existed but I know in my street people know who I am and that they can count on me to offer help if needed.
January 19TH
4 days since the last update but all is going to plan. I bought some bacon from Asda on Friday Saturday and it was packed in the usual plastic packaging. The sad part of this, and a salutory lesson was that it was about 10 pm that we went shopping so I couldn't go to the local butchers for the bacon. The sad part was that it reenforces the idea of these shops being "convenient" stores because for many reasons I couldn't get to the local butchers before it closed. I guess i could have waited until today, monday but we wanted a cheese and bacon toastie that night not waiting until mMonday morning for one. The local butcher lost business because of this and I gained a bit of plastic in the process. All in all my plastic so far this month is very much reduced and weighs around 230g if my maths is correct... yes i have weighed every bit of plastic on digital scales but the actual amount is far smaller in volume than previous months. A normal 2 weekly bin emptying cycle would see the wheelie bin stuffed full of all sorts but mainly plastic that couldn't be recycled.
By selective shopping and thinking about my shopping habits, by thinking of alternative uses if I have to buy plastics I've reduced this down to about 4 " in the bottom of the bin. We are approaching the empty week this wednesday so i'm well chuffed at that Because it means that the bin will not need to be emptied this fortnight. If this is a way forward then my bin will only need to be emptied, I guess about every 6 months but like everything it takes effort to continue this but certainly for a month this is the goal.
After the month I feel that I will be sufficiently "trained" in my habits to continue with the reduce not recycle pledge for plastics.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
A month without plastic week 2.
January 7TH.
Probably one of the better days without plastic although I did fall at the last hurdle and it was costly on my health. As I was saying in the last post about the miles traveled to do the shops I tried today to use the bus and walk. I know I shouldn't as I'm quite ill when it come to walking but if you don't keep going then you may as well give up on life. It won't be long before I'm in chair so I may as well try a bit harder now.
Anyway....
So I got the bus from around the corner of my house into town. Well that started off with a dodgy driver finding all of the pot holes in the road and bouncing me all over the place. Now I'm no light little bunny but I got well shaken and stirred. Anyway got off the bus in town and I had a plan as I knew I wouldn't last long. Went to the butchers stall in our market hall and looked at the display. On the counter was a pile of greaseproof paper but hung up were a range of plastic bags and carriers. I asked if I brought in some resealable containers would they put the meat in them as I was trying to reduce plastic use age.
The butcher said it would be OK but they wrap everything in greaseproof paper as a start. I ended up with a good conversation about the environment and butchering and ended up with just under 4 pounds of fillet steak which 3 of us enjoyed as a going back to uni evening meal for our son.
So here I am carrying this fillet steak in my hands as I forgot to take my bags again and then I saw some lovely brambly apples, well an apple pie for afters just screamed out at me so £2.00 worth of apples in a paper bag and I refused the offer of a carrier bag and said why. The shop assistant, a 16 / 17 yr old replied "whatever" and threw it in the bin........ The chavs will destroy the future...
So I'm on my way back through the shopping centre and I'm really flagging now and the car is a good 100 yard away. I take a rest on a metal seat just in time as my legs start to give way and it looked as if i was sitting down but really it was falling down on the bench. Sat there for 10 minutes or so but the problem was I had had no food, a #1 cardinal sin if you go shopping and secondly it was right near subway's. Oh man do their sarnies taste and smell nice. Still my willpower was nearly broken but not totally as i got a 6" sub for my son after the pain had eased off but my head wasn't in the right place and the lady put it in a bag and handed me it. It wasn't until I got home after flagging a taxi down that I realised that I had the plastic bag.
After a good rest and some seriously strong pain killers my wife drove us to asda and for the first time I used one of their wheelchairs to my sheer disgust and embarrassment. Got some more dog meat mince and so that's another 5 plastic bags for the weigh in. I hope to get a metal mincer this month so that i can mince my own meat for dog food and thus know the fat content but also cut out on 30 odd plastic bags each month in the future as he gets one bag of mince per day. There will be food miles for that as i need to go to smogville for it but it is also a sausage making shop so I will get a sausage making kit at the same time.
As far as I can see it is going to be virtually impossible for me to not use plastic but at the same time I have only put 45g of waste in the bin this year which started yesterday after the first bin emptying day of the year although the 45g of waste includes the plastic where as by now it would have generally been well full and even emptied once.
January 8th
Took our son back to his flat today so took the opportunity to go to the Grainger market in Newcastle. Great place to shop for cheap bargains but all of the highest quality. In the old part it is row upon row of butchers and veg stalls, delli's and other little shops vying for your attention and money. I first went ther about 37 years ago and still love the place. I haven't been to Leeds in a long time to shop, only to see the scum leeds united take on my team but there used to be an indoor market there where you could buy like a whole pig or half a pig and have it jointed for you but it's been best part of 30 years since I was there... thankfully.
Bought a load of fresh fruit and veg [from Grainger market]and annoyed the line of customers as I had 4 large canvas bags full of F&F and took over 10 minutes to make the purchase. Poor son had to carry them all as well... all say awwww ! One woman was constantly tutting away and talking to the next customer about me taking time so to my sons dismay I made some really sarcastic remarks and she stopped whinging.
Went to the butchers and bought over the path from the veg stall and got some ox liver for liver and onions but sadly this had to be in a plastic bag as I didn't have any boxes with me. I love cooking and have done so for over 30 years now but didn't know until today that you cook ox liver in a slow cooker mode and lambs liver is fried. Liver came out lovely and tender after 4 hours slow cooking.
The secret to doing this plastic reduction thingy is to beome a boy scout and "BE PREPARED",lol. For me that means making a list, a route plan of shops, carrying cash and having the boxes and bags together.... Oh and the biggest thing... remembering to take it all out with me.
January 12TH
4 days since the last update so sorry for that. Been suffering from the dodgy back again which in a way is quite helpful for the reduction in plastic terms because I couldn't leave the house ,lol. Thankfully we had the basics in the cupboards so we didn't starve... we will never starve ! Before the back got a total grip on me I did manage to get to Smoggsville to buy a sausage making kit and a mincer.
I dropped so many hints before christmas it was unreal but did it turn up from Santa... no it didn't so I got one myself. It was expensive in that the mincer was a solid stainless steel one and a good size for £65 + vat and then the kit was £24.00 and a joint of pork shoulder and belly pork was a further £24.00 so the initial outlay was quite large but we got over 10 pounds of sausages made and have eaten about half of them. my neighbour, Bob is a self confessed sausage lover so he got some, wrapped in good old greasproof paper so he will report back soon. For me, my biggest critic is my wife. I don't mean critic in a bad way but she is honest in her advice so I take her council often and she loved them so I reckon we did ok.
Because the back kicked off I haven't been able to get out since Friday so the only plastic used was a 2 x 4 pint milk bottles. I managed to look in the wheely bin today and it's virtually empty with a couple of plastic / cellophane type bags from a pack of chilli's and some chicken. Also a tray that had chicken on. On the other hand there is about 9 plastic milk bottles in the recycling box but the rumour is that this credit crunch crisis has seen the bottom fall out of the recycling market so a lot of recycled gear is being dumped in land fill by local councils...
If this rumour is true then it is well worth doing the reduction in use first before the recycling bit.
Having said that I got a childrens wind turbine kit in the sales after christmas and used a plastic pop bottle to mount this on. Basically it's a Key Stage 2 kit where you make a turbine and as the wind turns the blades the small LED lights up. The reason I got one is that I'm a practical person rather than a reader and delegator so I needed to see in action the principles before having a go at a larger one to add into the grid. Anyway I stuck it out in the garden and was told the wind wouldn't be strong enough.... well last night we had 3 jumbo jets trying to land in our garden thinking this led was a runway light it was so bright.
I reckon we get enough wind so i'm looking for a non plastic set up of a wind turbine now....
January 13TH
Went shopping today but only to Asda. Remembered to take the shopping bags and my newest home made one, that's two now and it looks so much better than the first. Also recycled some brown paper bags from the local greengrocer to use in Asda and got funny comments from the checkout lass because she had to look in the bag to see what the produce was.... Don't worry a caustic reply is always on hand to put the infidels down,lol.
I was going to do chops and veg last night but changed it to ssausages and veg because the chops were in a plastic tray and clingfilm wilst the sausages were fresh home made pork and leek. I did buy some mince for my lovely Red Setter so that was two plastic bags but these will be reused to pick up his waste when out walking and 2 x 4 pint cartons of milk. I am finding myself becoming a bit of a zealot on this subject at the moment or really sad because there was an advert on the tv last night during big brother for a big store. Can't remember which one so I won't name any but it was advertising all the fresh produce and everything except the carrots were in plastic bags.... I'll be watching again as I feel a letter coming on....
January 14TH
I asked for some ideas for reusing the 4 pint cartons on another site I go on and so far there are about 20 ingenious sugestions. I'll copy them here over the weekend. Thank you my fellow ishers.
Got all the food for today so don't need to go out, thankfully as it's bitter cold and freezing ice up here.
Probably one of the better days without plastic although I did fall at the last hurdle and it was costly on my health. As I was saying in the last post about the miles traveled to do the shops I tried today to use the bus and walk. I know I shouldn't as I'm quite ill when it come to walking but if you don't keep going then you may as well give up on life. It won't be long before I'm in chair so I may as well try a bit harder now.
Anyway....
So I got the bus from around the corner of my house into town. Well that started off with a dodgy driver finding all of the pot holes in the road and bouncing me all over the place. Now I'm no light little bunny but I got well shaken and stirred. Anyway got off the bus in town and I had a plan as I knew I wouldn't last long. Went to the butchers stall in our market hall and looked at the display. On the counter was a pile of greaseproof paper but hung up were a range of plastic bags and carriers. I asked if I brought in some resealable containers would they put the meat in them as I was trying to reduce plastic use age.
The butcher said it would be OK but they wrap everything in greaseproof paper as a start. I ended up with a good conversation about the environment and butchering and ended up with just under 4 pounds of fillet steak which 3 of us enjoyed as a going back to uni evening meal for our son.
So here I am carrying this fillet steak in my hands as I forgot to take my bags again and then I saw some lovely brambly apples, well an apple pie for afters just screamed out at me so £2.00 worth of apples in a paper bag and I refused the offer of a carrier bag and said why. The shop assistant, a 16 / 17 yr old replied "whatever" and threw it in the bin........ The chavs will destroy the future...
So I'm on my way back through the shopping centre and I'm really flagging now and the car is a good 100 yard away. I take a rest on a metal seat just in time as my legs start to give way and it looked as if i was sitting down but really it was falling down on the bench. Sat there for 10 minutes or so but the problem was I had had no food, a #1 cardinal sin if you go shopping and secondly it was right near subway's. Oh man do their sarnies taste and smell nice. Still my willpower was nearly broken but not totally as i got a 6" sub for my son after the pain had eased off but my head wasn't in the right place and the lady put it in a bag and handed me it. It wasn't until I got home after flagging a taxi down that I realised that I had the plastic bag.
After a good rest and some seriously strong pain killers my wife drove us to asda and for the first time I used one of their wheelchairs to my sheer disgust and embarrassment. Got some more dog meat mince and so that's another 5 plastic bags for the weigh in. I hope to get a metal mincer this month so that i can mince my own meat for dog food and thus know the fat content but also cut out on 30 odd plastic bags each month in the future as he gets one bag of mince per day. There will be food miles for that as i need to go to smogville for it but it is also a sausage making shop so I will get a sausage making kit at the same time.
As far as I can see it is going to be virtually impossible for me to not use plastic but at the same time I have only put 45g of waste in the bin this year which started yesterday after the first bin emptying day of the year although the 45g of waste includes the plastic where as by now it would have generally been well full and even emptied once.
January 8th
Took our son back to his flat today so took the opportunity to go to the Grainger market in Newcastle. Great place to shop for cheap bargains but all of the highest quality. In the old part it is row upon row of butchers and veg stalls, delli's and other little shops vying for your attention and money. I first went ther about 37 years ago and still love the place. I haven't been to Leeds in a long time to shop, only to see the scum leeds united take on my team but there used to be an indoor market there where you could buy like a whole pig or half a pig and have it jointed for you but it's been best part of 30 years since I was there... thankfully.
Bought a load of fresh fruit and veg [from Grainger market]and annoyed the line of customers as I had 4 large canvas bags full of F&F and took over 10 minutes to make the purchase. Poor son had to carry them all as well... all say awwww ! One woman was constantly tutting away and talking to the next customer about me taking time so to my sons dismay I made some really sarcastic remarks and she stopped whinging.
Went to the butchers and bought over the path from the veg stall and got some ox liver for liver and onions but sadly this had to be in a plastic bag as I didn't have any boxes with me. I love cooking and have done so for over 30 years now but didn't know until today that you cook ox liver in a slow cooker mode and lambs liver is fried. Liver came out lovely and tender after 4 hours slow cooking.
The secret to doing this plastic reduction thingy is to beome a boy scout and "BE PREPARED",lol. For me that means making a list, a route plan of shops, carrying cash and having the boxes and bags together.... Oh and the biggest thing... remembering to take it all out with me.
January 12TH
4 days since the last update so sorry for that. Been suffering from the dodgy back again which in a way is quite helpful for the reduction in plastic terms because I couldn't leave the house ,lol. Thankfully we had the basics in the cupboards so we didn't starve... we will never starve ! Before the back got a total grip on me I did manage to get to Smoggsville to buy a sausage making kit and a mincer.
I dropped so many hints before christmas it was unreal but did it turn up from Santa... no it didn't so I got one myself. It was expensive in that the mincer was a solid stainless steel one and a good size for £65 + vat and then the kit was £24.00 and a joint of pork shoulder and belly pork was a further £24.00 so the initial outlay was quite large but we got over 10 pounds of sausages made and have eaten about half of them. my neighbour, Bob is a self confessed sausage lover so he got some, wrapped in good old greasproof paper so he will report back soon. For me, my biggest critic is my wife. I don't mean critic in a bad way but she is honest in her advice so I take her council often and she loved them so I reckon we did ok.
Because the back kicked off I haven't been able to get out since Friday so the only plastic used was a 2 x 4 pint milk bottles. I managed to look in the wheely bin today and it's virtually empty with a couple of plastic / cellophane type bags from a pack of chilli's and some chicken. Also a tray that had chicken on. On the other hand there is about 9 plastic milk bottles in the recycling box but the rumour is that this credit crunch crisis has seen the bottom fall out of the recycling market so a lot of recycled gear is being dumped in land fill by local councils...
If this rumour is true then it is well worth doing the reduction in use first before the recycling bit.
Having said that I got a childrens wind turbine kit in the sales after christmas and used a plastic pop bottle to mount this on. Basically it's a Key Stage 2 kit where you make a turbine and as the wind turns the blades the small LED lights up. The reason I got one is that I'm a practical person rather than a reader and delegator so I needed to see in action the principles before having a go at a larger one to add into the grid. Anyway I stuck it out in the garden and was told the wind wouldn't be strong enough.... well last night we had 3 jumbo jets trying to land in our garden thinking this led was a runway light it was so bright.
I reckon we get enough wind so i'm looking for a non plastic set up of a wind turbine now....
January 13TH
Went shopping today but only to Asda. Remembered to take the shopping bags and my newest home made one, that's two now and it looks so much better than the first. Also recycled some brown paper bags from the local greengrocer to use in Asda and got funny comments from the checkout lass because she had to look in the bag to see what the produce was.... Don't worry a caustic reply is always on hand to put the infidels down,lol.
I was going to do chops and veg last night but changed it to ssausages and veg because the chops were in a plastic tray and clingfilm wilst the sausages were fresh home made pork and leek. I did buy some mince for my lovely Red Setter so that was two plastic bags but these will be reused to pick up his waste when out walking and 2 x 4 pint cartons of milk. I am finding myself becoming a bit of a zealot on this subject at the moment or really sad because there was an advert on the tv last night during big brother for a big store. Can't remember which one so I won't name any but it was advertising all the fresh produce and everything except the carrots were in plastic bags.... I'll be watching again as I feel a letter coming on....
January 14TH
I asked for some ideas for reusing the 4 pint cartons on another site I go on and so far there are about 20 ingenious sugestions. I'll copy them here over the weekend. Thank you my fellow ishers.
Got all the food for today so don't need to go out, thankfully as it's bitter cold and freezing ice up here.
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