Waste...

[Arch]

I didn't know. I assumed that all this rubbish would have to be washed at the recycling plant anyway. I thought that to get the paper off the tin cans, they'd have to be soaked. Furthermore, I thought their use of water would be more efficient than people at home rinsing the tins and bottles out themselves.

I think it can vary depending on the method of collection. We issue a leaflet with each box (and repeat leaflets everyso often, like at Christmas with the timetable alteration), asking people to rinse, and crush where possible, and telling them what we take and don't take. Bear in mind, we collect and sort kerbside, by hand, so it's partly just to make our job a little more pleasant. Not so much of an issue when the stuff is tipped straight into a lorry and sorted later at a depot, although I suspect there's always still some element of hand sorting. There's also the issue of unwashed stuff left out in an open box attracting rats etc.

As RT says, different areas have different policies. So do whatever you've been asked to, and if you're not sure, find out...

We don't need the labels taken off tins or jars. The paper is simply incinerated at the recycling/melting process. Some people do remove labels, it's usually easily done in with the washing up, so no waste of water needed.

My frugal washing up tip is something I've developed to compensate for having an old hotplate cooker. The plates take a while to cool down (even when I turn them off a little early), so after I've dished up the pasta or rice, and sauce, I rinse out the pans quickly and refill with cold water, and bung them back on the hob. By the time I've eaten, I've heated some water to wash up in - my meals are rarely very greasy, so a lot of hot water isn't needed. I only have the hot water heater on when I need to do laundry.

 

[swee'pea99]

I am the child of an "older Mother", she was 38 when I was born, she was born in the early years of the second world war and so she was raised with rationing. As a result, she drummed into me the importance of waste not want not. For example, she absolutely hates it when people leave half a meal behind in a restaurant, as do I. She's of the school of thought that says, "you asked for it, you eat it!"

There's a whole generation of us. I call it being 'a child of a child of the blitz'. I grew up in a house of balls of string made up of 18" lengths knotted together, and christmas wrappings carefully folded up and put away for re-use. I am lightening up a little bit tho' - I can throw away a squeezy bottle of ketchup that still has smears inside, and I would never go to the extent of cutting up toothpaste tubes. But broadly speaking, yes, I loathe waste - and food waste most of all.

 

[Globalti]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned glass milk bottles - we still get our milk delivered by a milkman and we rinse and hand back the bottles for re-use. I'm amazed that people will even consider buying milk in once-only plastic bottles from a massive conglomerate, which rips off dairy farmers when they can get it delivered fresh every day by a dairyman for no effort on their part. Madness.

You must all be willing victims of the supermarkets' loss leader culture.

 

[thomas]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned glass milk bottles - we still get our milk delivered by a milkman and we rinse and hand back the bottles for re-use. I'm amazed that people will even consider buying milk in once-only plastic bottles from a massive conglomerate, which rips off dairy farmers when they can get it delivered fresh every day by a dairyman for no effort on their part. Madness.

You must all be willing victims of the supermarkets' loss leader culture.

So it's cheaper right? I'd hate to waste my money

 

[snakehips]

You must all be willing victims of the supermarkets' loss leader culture.

Victim or beneficiary ? Most of my purchases from my local Sainbury's are on some offer or discount. I organise my acquisitions to make it so.

Good to see so many like minded people on here with regard to waste.

I rinse cans and bottles in washing up water (no dishwasher obviously) just before pulling the plug.

Does anybody know a good way of getting the last drop of Mrs Ball's chutney out of the long thin jar other than standing the old jar on top of the new for ten minutes and hoping they don't fall over. Maybe I should boycott the product until they use a more sensible jar.

Snake

My Library

 

[Speicher]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned glass milk bottles - we still get our milk delivered by a milkman and we rinse and hand back the bottles for re-use. I'm amazed that people will even consider buying milk in once-only plastic bottles from a massive conglomerate, which rips off dairy farmers when they can get it delivered fresh every day by a dairyman for no effort on their part. Madness.

You must all be willing victims of the supermarkets' loss leader culture.

I have milk delivered in glass bottle, by a milk man (at 4am

There are excellent recycling facilities here, sounds the same organisation as Rhythm Thief has. I have a mini-compost bin for food, which is collected. A compost bin for garden rubbish and "brown" paper, ie paper, card etc contaminated by food.

Jars of sauce etc are stood upside down, and rinsed out when empty.
Aliminium foil goes to the Oxfam shop to recycle. Batteries to a container where I buy the new batteries.

I would like to find out how to recycle those beige coloured coffee cups.
Long story short, I end up with someone (who has asked) putting bags in my bin, and there are loads of those cups in it.

I draw the line at washing milk bottle tops, but now I know that the water used to rinse the bottles is good for plants, I will do that.

 

[Speicher]

Victim or beneficiary ? Most of my purchases from my local Sainbury's are on some offer or discount. I organise my acquisitions to make it so.

Does anybody know a good way of getting the last drop of Mrs Ball's chutney out of the long thin jar other than standing the old jar on top of the new for ten minutes and hoping they don't fall over. Maybe I should boycott the product until they use a more sensible jar.

Snake

My Library

Find a good kitchen ware shop, they might have a long thin spatula. (like a spoon but with a flexible blade at the end). Mrs Darlington's lemon curd is the same!

 

[Arch]

Does anybody know a good way of getting the last drop of Mrs Ball's chutney out of the long thin jar other than standing the old jar on top of the new for ten minutes and hoping they don't fall over. Maybe I should boycott the product until they use a more sensible jar.

Snake

My Library

I was tallking to my sister about this with regard to Sharwoods mango chutney, and she said she was mortified to discover on getting home one day that Oli had taken one of the long handled spoons from Cafe Nero, and it was still in the buggy. However, she hasn't quite got round to taking it back yet...

Good point about milk bottles, Globalti, but I don't know of any milkman round my way, and on a budget the price of a pint matters. My mum does still have a delivery, mainly because she wants to preserve the service, but it costs her and the milkman isn't the most reliable one so she sometimes ends up missing milk, and always has some in the freezer in a plastic bottle, in case.

A friend of mine prides herself on only buying milk from a local shop that has it in glass bottles, but it's not local for me, all my local shops sell it in plastic.

I also like to think I use Sainsburys quite well. Sometimes my shop consists entirely of Basics and reduced stuff - esp things like mince or sausages which I then parcel up in portions in the freezer, so the sell by date ceases to matter. Also, I can control my portions in advance, by putting sausages in pairs, instead of thinking "Oh, I'll have three". Which reminds me, I must just go and get some out for tonight.

 

[gbb]

I didn't know. I assumed that all this rubbish would have to be washed at the recycling plant anyway. I thought that to get the paper off the tin cans, they'd have to be soaked. Furthermore, I thought their use of water would be more efficient than people at home rinsing the tins and bottles out themselves.

In Peterborough you dont have to wash out containers for recycling (so i'm told) but i prefer to anyway..particually in the summer. I always worked on the principle that the recyclers have to wash and clean the materials anyway so it can enter the manufacturing process again...even so, i still rinse out containers.
But then, you realise the energy thats wasted just washing stuff thats going to get washed again anyway...you cant win.

I suspect we do throw more foodstuffs away than neccessary. SWMBO will buy a bag of carrots for instance. I will buy enough for particular meals.
SWMBO is of the thought that you prepare a plate full of food...irrespective of whether its likely to get all eaten or not...the result, more than enough gets binned.

Shampoo bottles/washing up liquid etc, i'll put a bit of water in when its getting low and shake it to get all the contents out.

Simple things help sometimes....last night i had baked potatoes and baked beans. Normally i used to microwave or cook the beans or on the cooker. Nowadays i just open the can and put it in the oven if its already on. No washing, no extra energy used to cook it.

Part fill the bath with cold water an hour odr so before you're going to have a bath...you use far far less hot water because the cold water has reached something like ambient temperature.

BOGOFs..use them carefully, many times you're spending almost double to save what ?...20, 50p
But then when you see the good ones....buy buy buy...but only non perishables. We got huge boxes of soap powder that were on a really good offer. Spent about £30, but saved about £20 and didnt have to buy powder for weeks and weeks.

 

[gbb]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned glass milk bottles - we still get our milk delivered by a milkman and we rinse and hand back the bottles for re-use. I'm amazed that people will even consider buying milk in once-only plastic bottles from a massive conglomerate, which rips off dairy farmers when they can get it delivered fresh every day by a dairyman for no effort on their part. Madness.

You must all be willing victims of the supermarkets' loss leader culture.

But is there another side to the arguement ?
Glass (i would imagine) is enormously more expensive to manufacture in the first place, there's also a cost in recycling.
Milk floats making relatively small deliveries...energy used. Compare it with a lorry load that can deliver tens of thousands of pints in one go. Is it really environmentally friendly to have a milk float.
I'm not saying it is or isnt...but working in an industry that supplies the supermarkets, the ultimate ain is to reduce packaging as much as possible so the load has as much of the goods being transported as possible...not the packaging. Maximising the amount of the actual product on the lorry, minimising uneccessary cost.

Even then, the supermarkets are responsible for poor decisions regarding packaging...you can pack fruit in a net, two staples and a small label, very cheaply for a supplier.
No, they want a welded pack (and all the energy needed to make that weld costs extra), film either side of the pack and one large, maybe two labels. The energy costs are massive compared to the first option. Why do they do it ?...because it looks nicer and they can have their logo more prominently placed. Who cares ?...not me.

 

[Arch]

But then when you see the good ones....buy buy buy...but only non perishables. We got huge boxes of soap powder that were on a really good offer. Spent about £30, but saved about £20 and didnt have to buy powder for weeks and weeks.

My sister did that once with tinned tomatoes and went a bit mad, every cupboard you looked in, there was a 4pk of tomatoes! I will look for the best offers on tins, and stuff with long dates, like teabags. You might as well store it unopened on your shelf, as have it sit on the supermarket shelf and go back up in price later.

And I'm like a terrier when it comes to the 'reduced to clear' shelf.

You know what really gets my goat, packaging wise - Actimel and similar. They could easily sell it in big bottle, and suggest a 'dose', but no, it has to be in those silly little individual bottles. For two reasons, I suspect. a) Since the whole thing stupid is based on the placebo effect, having measured doses makes that effect better, and just as lots of little bottles will use more plastic than one big one, so lots of little bottles will leave more stuff stuck to the inside than one big one, wasted, so you'll have to buy more often. Thankfully I haven't fallen for that particular guff...

 

[Campfire]

My Mum and Dad both were involved in war duties. Mum drove ammunition trucks at Risley Royal Ordnance Factory (actually I live on where the site is now!) and Dad was a Navigator in Lancaster Bombers.

I was brought up frugally too. I empty tins, jars packets to the 'nth' degree and wash them after I've done the dishes in the sink. Mr Campfire has become used to washing his baked bean tins too.

Last week went cycling with a friend down Middlewood way and had lunch at Marple. In the Turkish cafe a young mum with 2 lovely girls sat next to us. The two girls, not more than 6 were presented with meals that I would only have been able to eat half of. Naturally they left most of them. Why on earth did the mum not buy a meal to share? Think of the cost too! I've not got money like that to burn. It annoys me that meals in restaurants are judged not on the quality of the food but the amount given.

 

[Arch]

But is there another side to the arguement ?
Glass (i would imagine) is enormously more expensive to manufacture in the first place, there's also a cost in recycling.
Milk floats making relatively small deliveries...energy used. Compare it with a lorry load that can deliver tens of thousands of pints in one go. Is it really environmentally friendly to have a milk float.
I'm not saying it is or isnt...but working in an industry that supplies the supermarkets, the ultimate ain is to reduce packaging as much as possible so the load has as much of the goods being transported as possible...not the packaging. Maximising the amount of the actual product on the lorry, minimising uneccessary cost.

Of course, it's all a balancing act. The thing about glass is that we deal very badly with it in this country - apart from the milk bottles that go back to the dairy and are washed, we collect it, smash it up, melt it down and remake it - using energy and losing quality each time. Civilised countries like Sweden collect bottles whole, wash them and reuse them.

With the milk floats - good point, but of course once the milk is delivered to the shop, people have to go and get it. In cars, mostly, in single inefficient journeys - the same as the lorry/float dilemma, but the next line down. So that's something else to consider. Of course, they'd maybe be going anyway, but milk being relatively heavy, needing 4 pints might make most people get the car out. The more efficient you make one stage (one big lorry to an edge of town supermarket) the less efficient you make the next (lots of people driving to that supermarket). Making deliveries to local shops that people might walk to, means smaller lorries....

I don't know the relative figures for manufacturing glass and plastic, but factor in the cost of extracting and refining crude oil and plastic doesn't look so good.

 

[on the road]

I can't afford to waste food, I only get what I like and not what I don't like. On occasions I might get something I've not tried before, if I find that I don't like it then I'll throw it away, it looked good on the tin but tastes horrible but I won't know until I've tried it. I won't get it again so that's the only time I waste food.

 

[Davidc]

You can use both plastic milk bottles and tetra pak juice cartons as firelighters, if you have an open fire or a woodburner. I wouldn't use milk bottles myself, but a mate of mine swears that they burn cleanly and don't gunge up her stove.

Beware burning plastics at low temperatures. They produce dioxins.

No problem at industrial incinerator temperatures, all that comes out is water and carbon dioxide (and electricity) but just open burning isn't nice. Even if you get rid of the partial combustion products up the chimney they're polluting your neighbourhood.