Recycling, it is a great thing to do!
However, for me, there is a step before that.
It is about whether something is even needed in the house. Whatever it is, the question is now asked.
Do we really need that?
Do I buy those loose bananas, or the bananas that come in plastic packaging?
Do I buy a pound of loose onions or the ones that are in plastic packaging?
Do I buy a paper book, or buy it on Audible.
There are now so many options to cut down on what we need in a physical sense.
I can't be doing with waste. I have never thrown away leftovers. Some of the best meals that you can make are from conjuring up something magical from what is in the fridge.
I don't know about you, but we have these darn sell by dates on food stuffs, it means that legally a shop cannot sell the item after the sell by date. It does mean that a heck of a lot of food gets thrown in the bin. There are places that try to give it to charity.
There are also whoopsies here, where they will mark things down in an attempt to get rid of it before they have to bin in.
I love a bargain, and love to go shopping to my local Morrison's supermarket around 6pm and see what they have reduced that I can make a meal with tomorrow.
Those two steak and kidney pies are an example. £2 reduced to £0.50. A bargain and they are really tasty.
And to top it off, a spot of pie!
Yes, a cherry pie reduced from £1.50 down to £0.38. When they are trying to get rid of things, they put them down to a quarter of the price.
So that is my wee bit for helping reduce waste and also help my pocket too! A win win for everyone:)
Recyling at home - Wheelie Bins
Unfortunately, not everyone recycles and separates out the correct materials to put into wheelie bins. It has been around for years and is so simple. You just only put the correct items in the relevant wheelie bin, then wheel the bins out to be emptied!
We have four categories in my area.
Blue ~ General Waste
Green ~ Metals and Plastics
Black ~ Carboard and Paper
Brown ~ Food and Garden Waste
Every Tuesday morning our local binmen collect the wheelie bins from the pavement, and it rotates on the colour of wheelie bin.
I did find out recently, that if you throw something that is smaller than a fist, it is too small to be recycled and will end up in the landfill. The advice is to leave bottle tops and jar lids on the respective bottle or jar. Something I never did before. The recycling centre will not waste time sorting small items.
We never stop learning!
But the worst thing about Wheelie Bins in the UK or on my street anyway is the bloody annoying neighbours, who do not bring them off the pavement.
Not only do they cause a problem for pedestrians to pass, but they blow over in the wind onto the main road and cause traffic accidents!
Bring those wheelie bins in people!
Okay my wee rant over.
This post was my out-of-competition submission for the Silver Bloggers community #BOM, this month about Recycling
It does close at midnight UTC Today June 13th, but there are still a few hours to enter, so come on and give it a post!
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful new week!
All images and ramblings are from me, the mad Scotsman @TengoLoTodo unless otherwise stated.
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I would like to give an example of your content; I never throw stale bread in the trash. we use them again for any cooking. It is especially delicious when cooked with eggs.
That is a great thing to do. I am the same, bread and stale bread goes great with eggs, I do think eggs are my favourite food though:)
Glad we have the same taste 🙂
hehe great minds think alike!
Thank you for the compliment 🙂
I rarely throw food away. I don't like seeing food wasted. And my wife and I always look for the reduced items. I found an app called Too Good To Go with allows shops to sell their food that's near its sell by date. I've had some good bargains using this app, but you don't always know what you will get.
That app sounds a great thing. Mind you, you are down South and I am sure have more shops near you than me. Reduced items are great, I will often go about 6pm and see what there is and cook the next day for dinner. Prices are just getting ridiculous at the moment, I notice something going up virtually every time I shop!
I love it when I find discount groceries I can use. My favorite health food store will sometimes have discounted dairy items I can use and that's always a win for me because dairy is a staple for me these days. The big supermarket's discount section is mostly bakery things, most of which I can't eat due to allergies, but occasionally I've nabbed something there too.
Ohhhh the people who don't know what to put in the recycle bin. It's possibly worse here because even though we have single-stream (we don't have to separate different recycling), which is the easiest thing on the consumer end, people still manage to bork it up. The rules about leaving the cap on or off I totally understand, I just got clarification recently on that too because I had always heard conflicting advice (basically here the rule is: if it's the same material, like a plastic cap on a plastic bottle, leave it on. But if it's a metal cap on a glass bottle or a plastic cap on a paperboard carton (yes we can recycle cartons here), take it off). But the biggest "WTF, people" I see all the time is people putting plastic bags or plastic air bubbles for shipping in the recycle bin, and you can't do that! Plastic bags are the #1 contaminant in our recycling system, and they bork up the machinery at the recycling plant. I always wonder what those people think the collection bins for plastic bags at the grocery store are about if they think they can just chuck them in the regular recycling bin...
ah you are in Colorado I see. Last time I was there which was a few years ago in the San Luis valley, recycling was wtf is that 🤣
The separate stream sounds a great idea and there is no excuse for people messing that up. However, too many people just don't give a f...
Plastic really grates me, I am forever picking it up when I go outside, or to the beach and park.
So much plastic. I periodically message companies about their plastic packaging, and usually I don't get a reply, but in one case I did and they told me "our customers prefer to see the milk." I replied back and told them that I AM their customer and I'm telling them I care more about the Earth. No response to that. On an organic, grass-fed dairy company from Mennonite farms. Your customers are crunchy granola environmentalists, y'all.
Prefer to see the milk, how lame is that for an excuse! Talking off milk, I recently starting getting my milk delivered twice a week in glass bottles:) Much better and I swear the milk tastes tastier too.
Partner, that is so brilliant, going to get the shop when they are on discount is indeed a win win for everyone.
I don't like wasting food too but here in my country so many people just love wasting things sadly.
They waste things, really uff that is not good partner! Yes getting discounts is a great win win. I hope that you are having a great weekend!
Yeah, it's really sad but I'm glad you use the discount to your advantage.
Yes my weekend is going well and you?
Oh yes and I will go down after dinner tonight as I need bread for tomorrow, maybe I will see something, maybe not hehe
Oh good, my weekend is flying but it has been fun:)
I hope you see it.
Am glad despite your weekend is flying you are having fun, that is good.
Where I live, even when I buy loose fruit and veggies the cashier still puts them in a plastic bag. Such a waste. Anyway, it is good to see that there are sober-minded people out there still. Good one.
Plastic is my bug bear! One day we will get rid of it though.
I can't stand food waste either, it makes me so angry to see food being thrown away. I've never thought it was right, but after the crisis in Venezuela that worsened in 2017 and 2018 and seeing people with nothing to eat scavenging through the rubbish, I can't stand it when people throw food away. If you are not going to consume it, find someone to give it to, there are so many people going hungry.
And you do have some good bargains with the food sales, although I can imagine they are sometimes hard to catch. Here if they did that, there would be huge queues at the supermarket.
If you are not going to consume it, then give it to someone, oh that is a great idea Super Eli. Yes those bargains are hard to catch and I am usually too late and just get what nobody else wants.
Throwing away food is a big no Tito Ed. We believe doing such is like throwing away blessings. It's great to see how they slash prices off the goods in your stores. I wish they do the same here :)
Throwing away blessings oh I like that comparison CJ:) Yes the discounts are great if you can grab some though!
Yes Tito Ed :) Enjoy your weekend over there. It's real sunny here which is awesomeness!
Real sunny haha you tease CJ, we have sun then white clouds then grey clouds and sun hides haha
Recycling is necessary to improve the life of the whole planet, in some countries like yours, here there are attempts, but I feel them very lukewarm if not cold, you have surprised me with your initial approaches.
I had never thought about these things, these offers, although here this type of ready-made meals are almost not given here, it is very rare, but I congratulate you for your actions are exemplary.
Well I hope that some sort of recycling does come to your country.
It is our planet and we should all try our best to keep it safe.
So I know I could do better, but I try, have a wonderful weekend :)
In our place, there is a shop where we could recycle our waste. I have this box where I put all recyclable trash then once it is full, I'll bring them to the shop. I'll get points in return that I could redeem into goods.
Oh that is a good idea Jane and you can get points and prizes well goods, that is an incentive for some people. Some though are just lazy arse and don't give af!
Bargain hunting marked down items, we were brought up looks for savings everywhere. Look at a jar of honey labeling, it too has a sell by date of late, even from well renowned suppliers!
'Dustbin diving' we watched a young man who by selection lived outdoors, went behind stores and was never without food in the USA. Whatever he felt like he normally sourced, I was dumbstruck since food here never goes to waste.
We have not reached the age of coloured garbage bins for recycling, for a short time plastic and glass went into an orange plastic, household into black plastic bag as still happens, irks me no end!
Thinking before buying most definitely first option is best, be aware of what we do.
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Oh yes I have watched some of the dustbin diving vids on youtube, it is amazing what they find and it is not just food, some people get things and resell them!
Ah you and I have the same irks I see:)
Agree some find enough to open a small roadside store, not only food clothing as well.
We have similar conversations in this household over what we should buy. One of my bugbears is our love of fizzy drinks, Pepsi Max, Fanta and so on. The cans can be crumpled and recycled, but its the volume of these things. Why not make our fizzy drinks using a Soda Stream.
I reckon we could all potentially reduce what we actually throw away as rubbish, would be better than recycling in itself.
Oh man I used to love SodaStream as a kid. I wonder if you will get one, but I think the ease of opening a can of fizzy juice will win out!
Absolutely if we reduce what we throw away then it would be the best :)
Still have an in use SodaStream about forty years old, second hand from my brother who purchased the bigger plastic bottles for storing, mine is still the small glass bottles....
I admit there are really those times that I am throwing food away. But in as much as possible, I have to eat every food we have at home so it would not be thrown away.
I am sure that you do everything perfect as much as possible. I am still looking for the elusive pink bell pepper🤣
Aww hahah. Sorry po. Nakalimutan ko ang pink na bell pepper.
You know I never knew that the colours of these bins have a significance. I doubt the waste management board in my country even cares about that. As for food passing sale date, they don't care about that either as sometimes you get to buy a food item only to find out that it tastes funny and when you check the sale date, it's way passed. That's crazy.
Morrison offers really great discount. I bet if I were in Scotland I would always shop there. Why waste money when I get get same satisfaction for lesser price.
We are lucky in that all the supermarkets do offer these discounts, Morrison's just happens to be the closest supermarket to me:)
The bin colours, well so many people still don't recycle, even though this has been in operation in the UK for many years!
Maybe Nigeria will get their act together one day. We can only hope :)
We can only hope my dear! How are you feeling now? Much better?
Let's hope so, yeah I am getting there thank you :)