Matthew Luxon and Waveney Warth, who are attempting to live for one year while creating as little rubbish as possible, have contributed this blog on their top five tips for rubbish reduction. Their ‘Rubbish Free Year’ challenge is a great way to highlight the simple changes ordinary households can make to reduce their rubbish, and their inspiring story combines concern for the environment with good old fashioned kiwi ingenuity:
In February of this year we began a self imposed challenge. Our mission is to live for a year without creating any more than one official Christchurch City Council bag of landfill rubbish. We’ve set ourselves a big challenge because despite having some ‘green’ tendencies, it’s not a state that comes particularly easily for us! But now, after some hard work and tough decisions, we have now completed five and half months without a rubbish bin in the house. In that time we have amassed less than a shoebox full of items we can’t divert from the landfill.
Although we’ve had to think a bit more about how we live and make some changes to our lifestyle, it has not stopped us living relatively normally. We have not had to put off doing projects around our old three-bedroom house nor change our diet radically.
We are keen to make this change as sustainable and functional as possible, in order to live long term with a greatly reduced landfill rubbish footprint. Along the way we have picked up a few ideas on what has helped us reduce our rubbish which may be of assistance to others. Here we’ve narrowed it down to our top five:
- Do the basics: Compost, reuse and recycle – every bit helps.
- Check out the packaging of items when shopping: Be sure to weigh up whether the packing of what you are buying can be reused, composted or recycled. Also check out alternatives to the supermarket, such as the butcher or fish monger for your meat, and the green grocer or farmer’s markets for your fruit and veges.
- Buy bulk: Buying from our firm friend The Bin Inn seems to be working out cheaper in the long run. Sometimes more is better!
- Surf the net: We have been amazed at the number of people who are doing similar types of things internationally who can provide support and advice. As an extra bonus there is no negative carbon effect either!
- Move the rubbish bin to the garage or shed: When we were preparing for the challenge, we put our rubbish bin into a shed outside. This meant that we rapidly became aware of what we were throwing out and it provided some extra motivation to buy non-landfill destined packaging.
We wish Matthew and Waveney all the best for their challenge and look forward to seeing how they get on for the rest of the year. We’ll be sure to keep updating their progress here.
What do the rest of you think about Matthew and Waveney's challenge? How about some more tips so we can make a top ten?
Comments
Wow, good on them! As much as we try to reduce our rubbish, we still produce about a supermarket bag full each week. Now that the Auckland City Council recycles a wider range of plastics that should reduce further, but there is no way I would be able to get five months of rubbish into a shoe box (unless I wore clown shoes).
My tip of the day: there is absolutely no need for plastic cling film.
- To keep your food fresh in the fridge, put it in a bowl and put a plate on top.
- To keep your sandwiches fresh use a multi-use container with a tight fitting lid.
It's a small thing, but plastic cling film is one of the few things I haven't been able to re-use or recycle so the only solution is to avoid it!
Submitted by Lindis on 29 July 2008 11:45:09
Awesome! That's quite a challenge. I generate approx one plastic supermarket shopping bag of rubbish every month and have opened my colleagues eyes to reducing their waste as well which is one of the most satisfying aspect of being 'green'.
Another option which could be a Top Ten is to keep in mind that one person's waste is another person's treasure, share your waste with others! For example, I keep a lot of protective packaging such as bubble wrap, tissue paper or foam padding to keep packages that I send overseas safe, or to protect jewelery I have made when giving it to others. Colleagues who can't have compost bins give me their fruit and vegetable waste to add to my bin. Your friends and neighbours might have occupations or hobbies which require your waste so spread the word!
Submitted by zuchini on 31 July 2008 11:49:08
Hi zuchini and welcome to our community. I think the idea of rehoming things we don't need anymore is a great idea. There always online auction sites where you can try and make a few bucks for your old stuff, or try sites like freecycle.org or craigslist.org where you can give it away for free. The great thing is that it all means less rubbish to get rid of.
Submitted by Andrew on 1 August 2008 09:10:08
I sell my stuff on TradeMe with a $1 reserve :D
I have someone coming over any second now to pick up my old fridge for the grand sum of $20.50. It still works perfectly well, it's just surplus to requirements. What a satisfying feeling to know someone will get some use out of it!
Anybody want to buy a perfectly good 1990 Toyota Corolla hatchback car? I've barely used it since I got my 250cc motorbike, so it might as well go to a new home too. Anyway, I can't fit it in my shoebox :P
Submitted by Lindis on 1 August 2008 11:20:16