Week 2: reducing waste whilst shopping

Mark Murphy pondering my shopping

It was great to kick off Week 2 with the news that over 150 households have now signed up for the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet.  Thank you to everyone who's joined in already.  We're getting some fantastic feedback and it's wonderful to have started receiving so many 'rubbish weigh-ins' already.

This week's theme is all about how to reduce waste while shopping and if you listened into Mark Murphy's show yesterday you would have heard me scrunching and rattling some of the packaging as we talked about recycling labels and how packaging is changing to help reduce waste.

It is evident that labelling is still one of the things that still confuses people and in yesterday's show we highlighted that because facilities are so different across the country we should only use recycling labels as a guide, prompting us to check local facilities.  For example, most of the recycling labels say that film (e.g. pasta bags) cannot be recycled, yet in Suffolk we can recycle most film (even clean plastic yoghurt tops) at the HWRC.  Many labels also tell us that drinks cartons are widely recycled, yet throughout most of Suffolk we cannot add them to our kerbside bins and have to make a special effort to collect them for dropping off at the HWRC or other collection points.   It's a real reminder that to avoid confusion, the best place to start is always with your local council leaflet or checking the available facilities via  www.suffolkrecycling.org.uk.    And once you're familiar with that information, it really doesn't matter what the label says.


As well as understanding labels, there are many other ways that you can help reduce waste while shopping, including switching from pre-bagged produce to loose items, which can often be cheaper. 

Another trick to look out for are products where the manufacturers have actively reduced waste through redesign, for example you can now also find boxes of tea-bags that no longer have the film wrapper or inner bags and they remain just as fresh.

Other examples shown in the photo above include laundry liquid and squash which are now often sold in a concentrated form, consequently reducing the amount of water as well as the amount of plastic required in the packaging. 

Mark Murphy will be covering many more examples throughout the week, so it is quite possible that as well as your rubbish bin slimming down, the recycling bin has the potential to lose some weight too.

If you'd like more hints and tips, we'd love you to sign up to the Rubbish Diet online, where weekly topics will be delivered directly to your email.  If you want to catch up with Mark's show, the great news is that it's on iPlayer for the next six days, and you can even hear what local packaging technologist Glenn had to say on how some of the materials now help to prevent food waste.

And on the subject of food waste, we'll be delving deeper in the bins next week to get that one cracked.  Listen in on Wednesday 8th May as we celebrate Week 3.