Thursday, 11 September 2008

Day 4

Today I plucked up the courage to ask my friendly local butcher (Bob Wherlocks on North Street - who does the most amazing sausages!) to pack my meat in my own container. Well, as with the olive shop yesterday, I needn't have worried, as he was more than willing to do so. We ended up having a conversation about how he first started recycling. I came away wondering why on earth I had not asked earlier. I have a feeling that this wont be the last time I ask myself the same question. It is, often, just a matter of changing habits.

I then stocked up on brown paper bags for lunchboxes and was persuaded to buy 1,000 for just over £6. Is that .6 p per bag? And at our current rate of consumption they should last about two years! Bargain.

Today's bin contained:
  • plastic seal from Heinz mayonnaise bottle
  • Seasoned Pioneers spice packet (a mixture of foil and plastic)
  • plastic couscous packet
  • 2 Tunnocks wrappers
  • M&S plastic sweetcorn bag

I shall need to make enquiries about the M&S bag, which says it is disposable. Does this mean it can be placed in a plastic bag recycling bin? There really is a case to be made for standardised clearer labelling.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

well done on plucking up the courage and I'm glad it went so well. We found the same :)

I'm looking forward to hearing about your first experience of taking your own box (es).

Clearing labelling laws are definitely necessary; there is a lot of ambiguity out there.

Have a great day and well done on your progress so far,

Mrs G x

blue hands said...

Isn't it great when things you thought were going to be difficult turn out to be easy after all. My big problem with my own containers is finding the right lid for the right box... (Getting through those Tunnocks wafers I see!)
M xx

Almost Mrs Average said...

*Disposable*? LOL I wonder what the heck that means. Could be applied to most things. :-D

You should see new labelling appear in the shops soon, using WRAP's swoosh logo. It isn't foolproof but at least it will show the status of the packaging components to advise whether each element is widely recyclable, recyclable in certain areas, or not recyclable. The latter really means that recycling facilities are few and far between.

If you spot it on any products it would be great if you could let me know as I would be very interested to see how much it is being used.

Keep plugging at it and did you see your blog is now listed on the Bath & NES site? Hope it brings over some extra visitors. ;-D

Anonymous said...

I'm sure I left a comment this morning **scratches chin**. Anyway, I said congratulations for asking your butcher and how wonderful it was that he was so amenable!

Do let us know how your first containers exploration goes. You're right about the labelling; I'm harping on about this at the moment; we certainly need clearer labelling on goods.

just Gai said...

Dear All
You will see from my Day 6 post that there is still some fine tuning of the container routine to be done, but I'm determined to get there. Perhaps the trick is to go shopping midweek when it's less busy and there is time to explain exactly what I want.