Recycling and A Mothers Ramblings Week Five

Having been doing this for a month now, I can see where we have made huge improvements and where we need to improve still. We have doubled the amount of recycling that we have each week and have educated ourselves on just how much can be recycled (Cadbury Creme egg wrappers for example!) and how easy it is. In fact we even looked back at a trip to Wales where we went to the Centre for Alternative Technology (where I took the photo below) and discovered about recycling across the world and what we could be doing at home to reduce our carbon footprint!

Recycling Board at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales

Daddy even admitted that my idea in Week Two of bringing the recycling bin in from the garden could be adapted so that we use our main bin in the kitchen as a recycling bin and buy a second smaller bin for other waste as we now have more recycling than we do general rubbish.



We are really lucky in this area as we have some great recycling facilities and the weekly pickup includes recyclable materials. I know that I generalised before but it really is a good system that allows a lot to be recycled without any effort;

There are pink sacks which we can put the following in;

Paper
Cardboard
Envelopes
Aerosol cans
Aluminium and steel food and drinks cans
Plastic bottles
Plastic food packaging
Aluminium foil and packaging
Tetrapak and waxed cardboard cartons

There are Green Bins which we can put the following in;

Food waste including:
All Meat, Poultry and Fish, cooked and uncooked
All Dairy Products
All Fruit and Vegetables
Bread and Pastries
Tea Bags, loose tea and coffee grounds
Paper and card packaging soiled with food
Garden waste including the following:
Grass Cuttings
Branches - under 15 cm or 6 inches in diameter
Plants and Weeds and Leaves
Bark, Straw and Hay

There are blue boxes which we can put the following in;

Glass jars without lids
Glass bottles

The one thing that I seem to have a never ending supply of is Clothes Hangers, but I have discovered that my council don't accept these. A little search on this later and I found out that Tesco (of all places!) have a national campaign to recycle them and you may see a bin in your local store... I'm going to have to check in the three stores local to me to see if they have one!

Tesco Hanger Recycling Poster

But the big thing for us is that we have realised that we have now been using canvas bags every week for our weekly shopping for two years! And so in celebration of this here is the wonderful (and handsome and mine if he ever decides that he will give away his wife because someone has proved religion or psychic abilities to him) Tim Minchin singing Canvas Bags;



And I know that I have a couple of Australian Readers and so as the lovely Mr Minchin is technically yours (being Australian and all, but he lives over here) and is on tour this month in Australia go and buy a ticket to watch him perform!