It’s INSANE!

I was thinking the best way to get people (me included) to really appreciate the amount of waste they are making is to tell them there will be no more bin lorry, ever.  What would you do?  What would I do?  Suddenly our waste is our problem.  Each week we’d create more and we’d have no idea where we’re going to put it all!

Just about at that point it makes sense to separate your waste into different catagories.  Food waste that might be used as feed (for animals under your care), or for compost.  If you can’t do either of those, then you’d have to find somewhere to take it where it could decompose.  Cardboard waste could be used as fuel (though there’s a carbon-release hit at that point) or taken for re-cycling.  Plastic waste (clean it first) can sometimes be re-cycled (see the label), but many plastic tubs can be re-used, and there are also ways of melting it and turning it into cool new things (we’re hoping to get Matt and Nat bags soon in the shop; they do exactly that).  Well, you get the idea.  There is a lot of information on the internet about this sort of thing.  The point is, I think we would pretty soon try to minimise the waste we create.

All of this reminded me of my Grandma.  She was the daughter of a farmer, though she lived most of her life on old-fashioned housing estates.  Wherever she was, however, she grew stuff (in her garden and in an allotment) and more importantly (for this blog post at least) she very carefully managed her waste.  It wasn’t a trendy ‘green’ statement or anything.  She just didn’t want to waste stuff, because wasting stuff is inherently dumb!  When she died, we found loads of things she’d saved “just in case”, including a box of milk bottle tops (which she used to make cards and seasonal decorations), stacks of cardboard, folded flat, ready for re-use, and even a bag of chicken bones (I have never worked out why she was saving those).

Together, these two messages tell me something – waste is dumb, and you don’t have to be a trendy greeny to do something about it.  You just have to be you and me to do something about it, because it makes sense not to waste stuff and not to send it to a big tip to rot.

We’re very proud at Plum Ethical that we help, in some small way, to minimise waste.  The whole point of what we do is to show that everything has potential to be beautiful.  It can stop being waste and become something gorgeous, and useful.

S.

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* Because, after our experiences with suppliers in a shop we ran some time ago, it’s good to know where suppliers are coming from.   Also, because Kresse and James are very cool and inspiring.  : )