Tag Archives: Household Waste

Get ready to upcycle!

Posted on by
Reply

Who doesn’t love a bit of upcycling? It’s fun, creative, often different and quirky, makes for great presents and could save you money. All that and I haven’t even mentioned preventing waste from going to landfill.

So what exactly is it? Well according to Wikipedia it is  

“The process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value”.

The aim is to prevent wasting materials by using them to create new, better products. This also means that we are using less raw materials and probably less energy, reducing our carbon emissions in the process.

OK, so that’s the technical bit. What’s exciting are the endless opportunities for crazy and creative designs. Being a jewellery lover, one of my favourite pieces is a bracelet made from old bed springs which I bought at Camden Market around 10 years ago. Every time I wear it someone comments on it and they’re always surprised to hear what it’s been upcycled from. My friend Shona also gave me the best earrings made from 45″ singles for my birthday the other year.

The necklace out of laddered yellow stockings is my favourite!

Of course upcycling isn’t really a new thing. Making something new and beautiful out of something old is what people have done since times began, surely. So why not join in?

An example of upcycling events taking place in November as part of this year’s European Week for Waste Reduction are the Textile Reworking Sessions in Aberdeen, organised by Aberdeen University and the reuse organisation Aberdeen Forward. Staff and students at the university are invited to attend the workshop sessions to learn how to make a new piece of clothing or other textile product from waste material.

The university’s Students’ Association Climate Change Project is also joining in by organising a Student Design Competition where students are asked to design a piece of art using waste materials. The entries will be displayed on campus where other students can view the finished pieces and a prize will also be awarded for the best artwork.

Are you part of a community group, charity, local council, school, university or business? If yes why not organise your own action to take part in this year’s European Week for Waste Reduction? Visit our website to find out more.

For more upcycling ideas, try the UK Upcycling website.

Can you produce less than a single bag of rubbish per year?

Posted on by
Reply

A family in Gloucestershire, England could well be the lowest waste family in the UK. They produce just one bag of rubbish over a whole year. And, contrary to some unnecessary rumours, it’s not a bag made from a left over hot air balloon: it’s a normal sized bag.

That's Just Cheating...

How have they achieved this? Do they graze cattle in their back garden? Do they wear sacks? Do they chant at the moon?

Apparently not. This video on the BBC website suggests they are just a normal family with a clever sorting system for waste. Actually it’s not even that clever: it’s just shelves with cardboard boxes on it. What is clever is the family’s determination to reduce their waste to landfill to such a degree that their bin now holds clean tea-towels, it gets used so rarely.

They sort all their rubbish into things that can be collected by their kerbside collection service (see our Sort It website for details of what your local authority can collect) and what they need to take to a local Recycling Centre. It really is that easy. If you want to try it you just need to set aside a small amount of space and then treat the materials you use with the respect they deserve. Wash and squash to save space. Sort properly. And it will all come together.

An interesting point made by the family’s representative (the mum) is that they think about their waste before they buy things. In other words they make purchasing decisions based on the packaging around a product (mainly food products) so they already know when they buy it that they can recycle or reuse it.

I’ll leave you with the best quote of the video:

If everyone did a little bit, we’d make a lot of change

How true.

Keep going…

Posted on by
Reply

A report out last week by our partner Remade Scotland provides a genuinely useful insight to household recycling from 2007-08. Not only does it show that local authorities achieved recycling and composting rates of 32% against a target of 30% (which is a tremendous achievement for both the councils and households concerned) but it also offers some guidance on what methods saw the highest rates of recycling among residents.

What Goes Into Your Recycling Bin?
What Goes Into Your Recycling Bin?

Example facts from the report by Remade show that:

  1. Schemes integrated with fortnightly residual collections recover 58% more dry recyclate than weekly collections and appear to reduce residual waste in kerbside bins.
  2. Multi material schemes collecting 4 or more materials produced an average yield 83% more than single stream collections.
  3. Weekly capacity of more than 100 litres produced 69% higher yields than those of less than 50 litres.
  4. Schemes that collect more than once a fortnight produce a 47% higher recovery rates than fortnightly schemes, 115% higher than those that collect every 4 weeks.

To read the report yourself (in PDF) please click here. Something everyone seems to agree on is that we cannot stop here. We have to keep going, which recalls a famous Scottish song by Sir Harry Lauder.

If you are thinking about composting your own food waste, why not take a look at our website on the subject. As for recycling, please fully utilise the methods provided by your local authority.

Rubbish in landfill isa bad idea for a number of reasons:

  • Methane is released by decomposing organic waste and contributes to global warming far more than carbon dioxide (in fact it is 20 times worse).
  • It is a waste of perfectly good materials which could have been recycled.
  • It increases demand for virgin materials, many of which are non-renewable so will eventually run out.

Anything you can do to avoid rubbish in landfill will benefit all our children’s futures. Keep it up!