House & Home Reducing Waste at Home

Let's post up our ideas to share about reducing waste when we shop so less junk ends up in landfill. I must admit I live in a green suburb on the outskirts of a major city. Apartment dwellers may not have as many options for recycling or reusing as I do. If so, there is plenty of info available to help, such as Gardening Australia's website and the TV series "The War on Waste".

If there are earlier threads about this topic, please link.

 

My meat from the real butcher goes into plastic bags which I do not want to reuse. When i buy meat from Woolies, it will be prepared on plastic trays which I can wash and dump into the council's recycling bin. I have reduced my use of cling wrap considerably - left overs go straight into lunchboxes and into the fridge/freezer for later.

 

I stopped eating meat all together just over 2 years ago, solved that problem immediately.

 

About 18 months ago Lake Macquarie City Council gave all its residences an extra bin for food and garden waste as well as a small bin to keep in the kitchen for food waste, they also provided bio-degradable bags to fit in the small bin. There were a lot of groans and moans from some people but over time everyone seems to have fallen into line and the scheme seems to be working well ...
However, we now have the green waste police who every now and again call around and inspect bins when they are left out on collection day. I have been caught once, but that was a family member who now knows better ...

 

That's just more waste though, imagine everything involved in running all that. Any house can just have a bucket and dig it through their garden when full or compost it for their garden..
Units and flats could have something simple like that too if someone figures out what to do with it.
As l was just saying in the other thread, they actually give you the waste now in the first place with all their fancy packets and wraps. We use to used two little tin bins for a family of 12 growing up , now 1 or 2 at my house often fill up 3 big bins in a week. lt's all just wrapping and boxes and plastics, cartons , dunno how but more rubbish comes out of your shopping bags than food.
Then you just throw it all out and they have to figure out wth to do with it.
Go figure.

 

Asides from the normal recycling:

- every house I've owned I use a compost bin so don't have any need for green waste
- I take cotton string bags to the supermarket for all my fruit and vege so no prepackaged carrots or potatoes
- I do cringe at the amount of "other" plastic I seem to pick up around the rest of the supermarket tho (fortunately most is recyclable) - I use beeswax wraps so cling wrap has not been a "thing" in house for a few years now (when they lose their wax, just grate more over and reheat in the oven)
- a sheet of newspaper goes in the bottom of the bin to get those spills, instead of plastic bags - I've used recycled shopping bags for 30-odd years now
- we don't have a local butcher, but the next house has one just down the road so I'll be taking my washable plastic containers to get my meat put into
- we have a combustion fire so all cardboard gets burnt (or in the compost during summer or under mulch for weed suppression)

Even then we seem to end up with a bit of rubbish - mainly plastic that is not labelled as recyclable (or not) so it goes in the bin,

 

I think the first step is the buying:
We try not bring in anything that we do not want. Eg buy meat in bigger portion, so avoid having too many plastic bags or trays. Say No to paperbags at
Chemist; my car is just outside the door. Bring my own Casserole when getting takeaway-curry.....

Next is we try to refuse to put things into the bins unless we are 120% sure. Eg Plastic Meat Trays can be used as rubbish collector next to the bin or for making dumplings, glass jar to save for pickles or gardening, cartons can be used as rubbish bins when we have BBQ at home with friends or gardening...

Food is the same: try keep rather than throw out. Some people bought 1kg meat and trim out 300g of fat and brisket. We use the chicken carcass for soup and porridge...

 

I just wish people knew how smoke from combustion fires is dangerous for people like me who become seriously ill when exposed to the smoke ... doesn't do much for the air quality either ...

 

Perhaps people simply don't know how to use them properly - they shouldn't "smoke"

 

Perhaps I should have typed 'fumes' ...

 

Mum had 2 she called string bags when l was a kid. lasted years. All our food came home in those and old news papers. Milk came in glass you returned those they washed them and use them 0ver 100s of times. Same with other drinks, shop use to give us 5cents or something a bottle.
We were smarter 40yrs ago.
Meat and stuff came in news paper,papers natural it can just go into the earth. Now even 6 sausages at a supe come in some stupid fancy foam tray twice their size with glad wrap.
A pretty little plastic bag for fruits and veggies , buy a cake it's in some fancy plastic container, it's surreal. Foam and plastic takes 1000 yrs to break down paper takes a few weeks and it's natural anyway and recyclable. Though l hate the tree factor with paper that's why it should be reused recycled.
All they have to do is stop the fancy go back 40yrs and they'll hardly have waste anyway compared.
We think we're being really clever with our supes finally banning plastic bags, we never use to use or need them anyway but look at what the rest of the crap is wrapped in.

So it all really ****** me off , because the p[eople are finally starting to care but we have to fight our ridiculous fancyness and rules and regs.

 

"but more rubbish comes out of your shopping bags than food". Not here. What are you buying that has so much packaging? Get back to us after a week with your list. Or do a stocktake in your kitchen/laundry/bathroom of what is "packaged".

Regarding the "compostable' waste from apartments - surely you can create a small garden on the balcony and put your compost there. What about a rooftop garden? Community gardens?

 

@random, thank you for being so concerned. May I ask where do you live and in what type of housing. That may help me to understand why your situation is so different from mine.

 

What ... !!! ? Don't deprive me of the trimmings ...

 

... actually love a good, slow roast, fat infused brisket over three days - roast - salad topping - then finally meat/veg soup

 

The food in 'wrapping' at the supermarket gets taken out of its wrapping, and the packaging is left at the shop in Switzerland.
In Zurich the garbos weigh each households' garbage and charge accordingly.!!!
next question!

 

Oh Packaging! This is one of the biggest reasons I don’t like Japan. Don’t get me wrong, everything is pretty cute sweet. But I feel they are over the board with packaging. Everything is wrapped in tiny small packaging, small plates and bowls. I cringe thinking of where they are going! I remember going to one market and a stall was selling noodles. And true story, the noodles came in small packages for one person, each wrapped in plastic. Those plastics filled up,one entire bin!

That’s what I had been aspiring ... please do this Australia!
My family will pay the least because our bins were never full!

 

Hi n thanks for that . Aren't you in a unit , thought l read ? They're a bit more difficult. Me l'm in a fair size house , yards , garden, the typical 3 big bins we have now.

 

One of our IPs is a townhouse and Mum lives in an end villa with garden on three sides. We have a regular house on 650m2 and my council has 2 bins. Unless I load the normal bin with garden prunings, our weekly rubbish barely covers the base of it. We only ever manage to fill the fortnightly recycle bin if we have a party, although this year the govt introduced the 10c refunds so these items will not go into the recycle bin ever again. State govt now charges council for everything we take to the tip, so our trailer loads get weighed and the fee will be passed onto us at some point in the future. Residents have responded by cramming as much as possible into the bin collections instead of sorting it and taking it to the tip. I dont have to bother with rats getting into my compost - too many snakes.

 

oh crikey , you got snakes in your yard , what sort ?