I recently went to an event hosted by Bristol City Council entitled "Slimming Bristol's Waste". The hierarchy was referred to multiple times by speakers, but yet the talk itself focused mainly on the recycling side, presenting the new shiny service being offered by the council.
However, I've been trying to approach the idea of waste in the "right" way. And so I'll start with reduce.
Since I started this project, and especially since I started reading around the issues of waste, I've been constantly astounded by the amount we throw away. From packaging to leftover food, we just pile it all in the bin and forget about it.
But there's a lot of simple things and changes that I've made. I don't use food bags when buying stuff from the fruit and veg shop, unless necessary - your carrots don't need a plastic bag just in case they come into contact with your bananas. I've also been trying to avoid buying things that are overly packaged - there's less to throw away if you don't buy it in the first place.
I recently got upset by the packaging on a beautiful lamp by a friend for my birthday. The base of it is made of a series of teacups and saucers, converted into a really beautiful and quirky item. This itself was given to me in a paper bag with a bit of tissue paper wrapping. All re-usable. The lampshade that came with it, however, was wrapped in cellophane. Upon opening it, this turned out to be the longest piece of cellophane that I think that I have ever seen. It was probably about 3 meters long, and try as I might, I have no idea what I can do with it.
It upset me, as it was completely unnecessary. I couldn’t
fathom the purpose, as it didn’t completely cover the shade and therefore
couldn’t be justified as protection. And as hard as I try, I can’t come up with
a re-use for it, so it’s currently rolled up and sat on the side in my house,
hoping that inspiration might strike.
It’s fairly typical of the kind of packaging and waste that’s
such a normal part of our lives these days. Items are packed in multiple layers
of packaging, and very little of it of it is reusable. Things like tissue paper have a
similar effect, but are recycle and easily reusable, so would be much more
preferable.
It can feel frustrating as a consumer trying to reduce waste (the reuse and recycle are easier) - often you have very little choice over the packaging of items. I can try to make positive decisions and support shops or brands that deliberately limit their packaging, but it's difficult.
It can feel frustrating as a consumer trying to reduce waste (the reuse and recycle are easier) - often you have very little choice over the packaging of items. I can try to make positive decisions and support shops or brands that deliberately limit their packaging, but it's difficult.
One of the places that I can have a real impact is when it comes to food waste. Whether that's food that I buy that I never use, or food that I cook and never eat - all of it is waste. As Tristram Stuart points out in his book 'Waste', "By buying more food than we are going to eat, the industrialised world devours land and resources that could otherwise be used to feed the world's poor". Exactly. He also points out that reducing food waste has minimal negative consequences, a far cry from the sometimes radical change in lifestyle that other actions can require.
There is a lot of waste in the food chain - from the farm gates, to the supermarkets themselves, to the waste that we ourselves create. Some of it is due to the way food is purchased (standards regarding the appearance of vegetables leads to massive amount of produce being rejected as it doesn't look quite regular enough). Others due to the way shops and restaurants stock food - the idea that all items must be available, and empty shelves put off consumers, leads to overstocking of produce, and the eventual waste of this produce. But some blame is ours as consumers. We buy things we never get round to eating, waste parts of the food we buy, and then cook too much and end up throwing away the leftovers.
I've been making a concious effort to think more before buying food, and I think the amount I have wasted has definitely reduced (it may also be to do with the communal fridge we have in my new house, meaning things get eaten before they go off). I'm also taken with the idea of trying to use every part of something when you buy it. I've roasted a chicken a few times recently, saved vegetable ends for the week leading up to it, and made chicken stock with the carcass. Not only is it an awesome way to use up the ends of vegetables and the chicken carcass, it was also amazingly tasty. However, I know it's something I still need to work harder on - we have our food waste in a tub on the kitchen counter, and seeing everything from stale bread to cabbage leaves go in there makes me realise there's work to do...
Inspired by the idea of food waste, I've signed up to volunteer at the Feeding the 5000 event being run in a few weeks in Bristol. It's being run by Fareshare, an awesome organisation who redistribute surplus food that would otherwise be wasted. The idea is to feed 5000 people from food that would normally have gone to waste - an amazing demonstration of the level of waste in the food chain. Hopefully through that and reading Tristram's book, I'll learn more about ways to reduce my food waste.
There is a lot of waste in the food chain - from the farm gates, to the supermarkets themselves, to the waste that we ourselves create. Some of it is due to the way food is purchased (standards regarding the appearance of vegetables leads to massive amount of produce being rejected as it doesn't look quite regular enough). Others due to the way shops and restaurants stock food - the idea that all items must be available, and empty shelves put off consumers, leads to overstocking of produce, and the eventual waste of this produce. But some blame is ours as consumers. We buy things we never get round to eating, waste parts of the food we buy, and then cook too much and end up throwing away the leftovers.
I've been making a concious effort to think more before buying food, and I think the amount I have wasted has definitely reduced (it may also be to do with the communal fridge we have in my new house, meaning things get eaten before they go off). I'm also taken with the idea of trying to use every part of something when you buy it. I've roasted a chicken a few times recently, saved vegetable ends for the week leading up to it, and made chicken stock with the carcass. Not only is it an awesome way to use up the ends of vegetables and the chicken carcass, it was also amazingly tasty. However, I know it's something I still need to work harder on - we have our food waste in a tub on the kitchen counter, and seeing everything from stale bread to cabbage leaves go in there makes me realise there's work to do...
Inspired by the idea of food waste, I've signed up to volunteer at the Feeding the 5000 event being run in a few weeks in Bristol. It's being run by Fareshare, an awesome organisation who redistribute surplus food that would otherwise be wasted. The idea is to feed 5000 people from food that would normally have gone to waste - an amazing demonstration of the level of waste in the food chain. Hopefully through that and reading Tristram's book, I'll learn more about ways to reduce my food waste.
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