Turning a funny shade of Green
I’ve been lax in updating this blog. Trouble is that time has just completely escaped me this year. It was only last Friday that I realised I had two weeks to organise Christmas.
I’m blaming the weather. Summer didn’t really arrive until September so by the time I’d managed to get out into the garden to repair the damage of the July floods, I was running several months out of whack. The fact that summer then continued right through November didn’t help as I was still toiling away digging vegetable beds, moving plants and dealing with errant wildlife during the first week of December.
I’m not too sure why but during this period I suddenly decided to go berserk on the green front. Maybe it was the garden revamp and the installation of a new compost bin that started it but whatever it was, I began looking into exactly what I could recycle and how. It’s actually amazing what you can reuse when you put your mind to it. Now don’t get me wrong, I have been recycling for some time. I had a Wormery, purchased I might add at some expense and this worked fine until all the worms emigrated and I was left with an Ery full of undigested stuff.
Our local Council provide us with recycling baskets, not exactly mindblowing compared to other places where you get bins but at least it’s a start. We can put out glass, cans, paper and clothing, all of which is picked up every two weeks. This usually resulted in us filling the general rubbish wheely bin to overflowing.
My new compost bin arrived with all sorts of interesting leaflets and I began to see what I could stick in it that was currently getting thrown. Cardboard, egg shells, paper as well as the usual garden detritus. Ooooh homegrown veggies I thought so more work in the garden ensued as I’ll have a good supply of compost to use up.
The thought then occurred to look at exactly what we throw out and see what can be reused or recycled. The results were stunning. Our local Recycling Centre take pretty much everything so I began separating it all out. It became pretty clear that the bulk of our rubbish was cardboard and hard plastic packaging. Off I trotted and bought some recycling bins I can use to hold all of this prior to taking it to the tip.
Second was waste food. Now this doesn’t go in the compost due to rats but it’s a big problem in landfill with the gasses it gives off whilst rotting, so I bought two Bokashi bins, courtesy of discounts from our Council. They take a bit of getting used to but once they’re up and running, all food, cooked and raw, including meat, veg, bones and bread can go in there to be fermented. It’s an absolute boon for us due to leftover cat food which is always a problem. Once the fermentation is complete, the whole lot goes in the compost bin.
The upshot of all of this is, we’ve gone from a full-to-overflowing wheely each week, to one or two small carrier bags of things I can’t recycle. Given the Waste Tax the Government have recently agreed I’ll hopefully be saving a small fortune….. as long as I can stop our neighbour three doors down from regarding any empty bin as his for the filling. I’m open to ideas for booby traps.
