Over half way there!

It's hard to believe that we're coming to the end of Week 5 of the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, with only just a few more weeks left.

It's been a busy couple of weeks.  Weeks 4 & 5 have in fact been very hectic.  Although I didn't have any time to blog last week, there were some great features on the Mark Murphy show about how the garden can help reduce waste,  including a Master Composter Betsy Reid, who gave some great advice about composting and using the HotBin for her village's community composting project in Waldringfield.

Karen Kenny, one of Suffolk's allotmenteer experts encouraged us to get gardening, even if all we have is a balcony, where you can still grow produce such as spinach, tomatoes and salad leaves.  The Coffee House in Moreton Hall was also featured too, highlighting their own home-grown herbs, which they use as ingredients in their dishes.  Amongst many other things, they also give away their coffee grounds and promote the idea of a reusable keep cup to replace the idea of disposable cups, which was a great intro to this week's theme of 'Ditching the Disposables', where they are offering free coffee this week for anyone who takes in one of their Keep Cups.

We kicked off this week's challenge, asking listeners to think about the different types of disposable products that feature in their daily lives and to find ways in which they can replace them with either reusable alternatives or make them last longer.  Just because something is 'disposable', it doesn't mean it has to be used just once - take plastic cutlery for instance.  Until it breaks, it can be used over and over again.

This Wednesday's BIG Conversation was reusable vs disposable nappies.  It was a great debate, and if you are pondering using reusable nappies, it really is worth listening into Wednesday's show on iPlayer, where there's even news of a nappy-library network based in Ipswich.

Please do keep letting us know how you are getting on!  We are hearing some great stories of 'rubbish dieters' really making some dents in their bins, with one household reducing their rubbish by 75%.

That's enough to keep us smiling through this grim weather!

Don't forget, if you're at the Suffolk Show next week, Mark and his team will be broadcasting from the BBC Radio Suffolk stand each morning.  I'll be there on Thursday, joining Mark just after 10am and then taking part in one of the Love Food Hate Waste cookery demonstrations at 2:30pm.  You'll see my food chopping skills in action!

Also, do pop along to the Green Suffolk, Creating the Greenest County marquee, where there will be lots of advice about how you can reduce waste in Suffolk, a perfect opportunity to solve any outstanding questions.

And of course, it's not too late to join in!  If you have been inspired by the stories you've heard on BBC Radio Suffolk, you can register to do the Rubbish Diet too.  Just click on the Sign Up button at www.therubbishdiet.org.uk.

Abbeycroft Leisure checks out Havebury Housing recycling

Abbeycroft Leisure and Havebury Housing are both supporting the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet.  Cat Rayson from Abbeycroft Leisure writes about her team's visit to check out the super-organised recycling system at the housing association's main office.

On Friday our intrepid Abbeycroft Leisure recyclers headed to Havebury Housing to meet Michael Blackford - their green man whose expertise we planned to utilize to our benefit for our own Slim Your Bin challenge.

Michael met us in reception where we got our first view of their recycling efforts:

 

Very snazzy. We have similar bins at Bury St Edmunds Leisure centre but with the volume of visitors we get and the amount of small children, they’re not always used in the correct manner. Quite often you’ll encounter a banana peel in the cans and plastic side of the bin – which is never a treat.

This problem is one of many that face a business when trying to encourage recycling: education. How do we educate people to use the bins correctly? Michael’s answer is that people learn in time and get used to the process... although we didn’t see many children running around Havebury on a high from their swim session. I guess we have different challenges in that department.

Sweeping into the ground floor office, the first thing that struck us was the size of the open plan environment (and the cake table we passed on our way to the bins!). Our offices at the Leisure centre are so much smaller in comparison – surely if Havebury can implement a recycling system on this scale, it’ll be easy for us?

Each cluster of desks have their own bin station. Some employees are within throwing distance so I’m sure some competitive games of bin basketball take place daily. Others have to walk from their desks to the bins, it looks like exercise is being encouraged concurrently with recycling! The bins are pretty fancy and have handy ‘toppers’ what indicate their use: blue for recycling and black for general waste. This is a delightful coincidence as our council bin collection separates as such so there’s no need to associate further colours with this work-based environmental outlook.

We moved upstairs to IT (and pass another cake table – two cake tables!! I wonder if they have any vacancies…?) and talk to the team about recycling further office supplies. We notice they have a big open box full of printer cartridges. We get through toner like its ice cream at Abbeycroft Leisure and at present, we don’t have a recycling system in place for our old toner cartridges.

Havebury Housing have a super handy box supplied by ‘Each One Counts’ http://www.eachonecounts.co.uk/ a company who provide you with a recycling box to fill up. You fill the box, you email them and they collect the box and donate money to charity. So not only is your conscience clear from recycling, you get the added bonus of giving money to charity – all for something that would have previously have gone to landfill!

With our visit drawing to a close, Michael made some last suggestions in regards to how we can be more environmentally conscious in regards to our attitudes to recycling in our offices.

• Change printer paper to recycled paper – it doesn’t have to be a complete swap, you can phase it in gradually.
• Create bin stations in the office with clear differences between the bins and what they hold.
• Look at having confidential waste collected for shredding/recycling.

We’ve since ordered our own recycling boxes for Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill Leisure Centres for our used toner cartridges and we’re on the case of ordering our new bins and looking at more eco-friendly supplies. Next stop – a visit to the Masons Materials Recycling Facility in Great Blakenham to see what happens to our cardboard and plastic when we put it in the blue bin. Hard hats ahoy!

Week 3 - Reducing food waste on the airwaves

Ooooh, I wish I could package up this week's content from BBC Radio Suffolk and keep it forever.

It's Week 3 of The BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet, and we're addressing the problems of food waste.  It is such a huge topic, there's a lot to get your teeth into and chew over!

It's been great to hear stories of how some participants have already reduced their rubbish by 50% just from recycling/reducing much of the packaging waste, but if we can tackle the food waste issue, we are going to see even more amazing results.

For instance our household waste in Suffolk includes 35,000 tonnes of food waste, which costs us local taxpayers £3.14m in disposal fees each year.  Just imagine if as a county we could halve that! Our contributions as taxpayers and the money in our own pockets would go much further.

This week, BBC Radio Suffolk has introduced another fabulous line-up of contributors on the Mark Murphy show and today alone we heard a great interview with Emma Marsh who heads up the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which caught my own imagination back in 2007.

If you do nothing else this week, I'd highly recommend listening into today's show on iPlayer, where Emma shares her tips on planning and food storage.  Just fast forward to around 1h 12mins for advice on fridge temperatures, invigorating limp carrots and how to extend salad leaves, plus much more.

Other great highlights from today also include the amazing story of Jim & Diane from Felixstowe who haven't needed to put out their rubbish bin for four years, thanks to avoiding stuff that can't be recycled, recycling all that they can, keeping on top of food waste and composting the rest in their wormery.  FOUR YEARS!  That's incredible.  You'll find their feel-good interview with roving reporter Luke Deal at 1h 28mins.

And at 2h 26m, you'll also find Colin Brown, Director of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineering, discussing the Institution's report on food waste, Global Food - waste not, want not, which estimates that 30-50% of food waste doesn't reach a human stomach.

With callers sharing their top tips and highlighting the issues that they've seen, it's proving to be a hot topic.

And if that's not enough, you should listen into yesterday's show too, with Mark Matthews sitting in, featuring the Feeding the 5K's Gleaning network, helping to rescue unsold food from farmers to feed those who are living in poverty.  You can hear Martin Bowman explaining the concept at around 1h 8mins.

And further into the programme (starting at 2h 8mins) are some great tips from Super Scrimper's contributor Jane Sago, who's also the Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Suffolk East Federation of Women's Institutes.

Coming up later this week, we'll also hear Luke Deal investigating 'fatbergs' in the water systems of Suffolk, as a reminder that flushing unused food waste down the loo is not the answer to reducing food waste or disposing of it responsibly.

So if you're inspired to tackle your own food mountain, my top tip is to start monitoring it straight away and keep a food waste diary to identify solutions for the things that you regularly throw away, through buying & cooking less, storing better and working out what best fits your routine.

If you sign up to the Rubbish Diet challenge, you'll receive lots more advice on how to reduce all kinds of waste.  And for more recipes than you can shake a stick at, visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com, where you can also download their new iPhone & Android app.

And please do keep your stories coming in, whether your news is good or bad.  It's always great to hear from you and together we're making a real difference. THANK YOU!

Free compost giveaway in Suffolk

FREE compost, bargain green waste bins and environmental experts are on offer to green fingered Suffolk residents during National Compost Awareness Week 2013.

From Monday 6 to Tuesday 14 May, the Suffolk Waste Partnership will be highlighting the environmental and financial benefits of those who choose to make and use their own compost.

To celebrate the week and to thank Suffolk residents for supporting green waste recycling services, officers will be giving out free bags of compost, whilst stocks last, to Suffolk residents visiting Household Waste Recycling Centres across the county.

Green fingered residents will be able to pick up a 25 litre bag of soil improver together with information on home composting and local authority green waste collection services, at the following Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC) events:

• Portman’s Walk HWRC, Ipswich, IP1 2DW, Tuesday 7th May, 10am – 4pm
• Hadleigh HWRC, Crockett Way, Hadleigh, IP7 6RH, Wednesday 8 May, 10am - 4pm
• Mildenhall HWRC, Mildenhall, IP28 7JQ, Thursday 9 May, 10am - 4pm
• Bury St Edmunds HWRC, Rougham Road (U8048), IP33 2RN, Friday 10 May, 10am - 4pm
• Lowestoft HWRC, Hadenham Road, South Lowestoft Industrial Estate, NR33 7NF, Monday 13 May, 10am - 4pm
• Foxhall HWRC, Foxhall Road, Brightwell, Ipswich, IP10 0HT, Tuesday 14 May, 10am - 4pm

Loose soil improver will also be given away for free and two further events - but you'll need to take along a spade and bags to help yourself.

• Needham Market Lake, Mill Meadow side Needham Market, Sunday 12th May, 9am to 3pm (or until stocks last)
• East Town Park, Haverhill, CB9 7UR, Monday 13th, 10am to 4pm (or until stocks last)

An average household in Suffolk could divert 150kg of organic waste a year from landfill by home composting. When sent to landfill, organic waste breaks down without oxygen, producing methane which contributes to global warming.

For those interested in making their own compost for use at home, there has never been a better time to start, with a whole range of compost bins and accessories available to Suffolk residents at bargain prices. The Suffolk Waste Partnership is also offering even greater subsidies to residents who purchase composting systems designed to process cooked food waste.


There will be a number of 'Compost Clinics' during the week. Suffolk Master Composter volunteers will be 'on call' to show residents how to compost at home and to offer free trouble-shooting advice. Compost advice clinics will be held at:

• Tuesday 7th May – Endeavour House (SCC), Ipswich, 11.30 – 2pm
• Thursday 9th May - Endeavour House (SCC), Ipswich, 11.30 – 2pm
• Sunday 12th May – South Suffolk Show (Craft Marquee), Ampton Racecourse, Ingham, Bury St Edmunds (on A134), 9am – 5pm

For details of all the items available to Suffolk households through the offer, and to order, visit www.suffolk.getcomposting.com or call 0844 571 4444. Further details on Compost Awareness Week activities will be listed on www.suffolkrecycling.org.uk

Composting will also be covered as part of the BBC Radio Suffolk Rubbish Diet in Week 4, commencing on 13 May, so if you've been thinking about getting into composting, there's no better time to start.