Brilliance in Blogging Awards: Please vote for this waste-busting blogger.

I've just discovered the wonderful news that The Rubbish Diet has been shortlisted for the Brilliance in Blogging awards, which will be hosted by the BritMums Live event in June.

I'd firstly like to thank all the kind folk who nominated my blog. The news was a fabulous surprise, especially as over the last two months I've had my head firmly buried in other people's virtual bins.

Apparently there were over 12,000 nominations registered across many blogs, so I feel especially honoured to have made it to the top 20 blogs listed in the category of CHANGE.




The public vote has already commenced, and if The Rubbish Diet makes it to the final list, I will personally feel chuffed to bits, but more importantly, it will be a great opportunity to raise the profile of this blog and for bin-slimming habits to reach a wider audience and help embed the change that is needed to help reduce this country's waste footprint.

I felt too shy to ask for nominations, but today I am actually going to ask for your vote, as I would love the opportunity to raise awareness of waste reduction even wider within a blogging community that has already shown an appetite for such change.

Those who have followed the various campaigns that I have either instigated or promoted over the last four years, have done so with great enthusiasm.  From the early days of the recycling carnival, to Recycle Week, Zero Waste Week, Baglady's Living ASAP, the 1000 bin challenge and finally the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012, there has been one heck of a lot of support from the parent blogging network.

I now want to capture that energy and make sure the waste-busting message amongst bloggers gathers even further momentum.  Reaching the finals of the awards would most definitely help me empower other bloggers to do more and my brain is already thinking about some exciting campaigns that could capture the imagination of such a creative community, which has an amazing ability to inspire its far reaching audiences.

So if you have a moment to spare, just a few minutes is all it takes, do pop along to the Voting Page and VOTE.

You'll find The Rubbish Diet listed in the third category down, nestled amongst all the other brilliant blogs that have been nominated for the CHANGE! award.  Quite rightly, it's going to be tough competition, so your vote really will count. And of course, do vote for others that have inspired you too.

I'm off there myself in a mo' to check out the other categories. Good luck to all the bloggers who have made the shortlists.  And to anyone who takes the time to vote for my blog, I'd like to say a HUGE THANK YOU!  Your support is very much appreciated.


To view all the categories and place your vote, please visit: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/bibs_shortlist Voting closes on 30 April 2012.

Monday Meeting: The final weigh-in for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012

Welcome to the last Monday Meeting for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012.

Last November I put a request on Twitter and Facebook to see if anyone fancied slimming their bins in 2012.  Amazingly eight people volunteered straight-away and at the end of January, when routines had settled back to normal after the festivities of Christmas, the Rubbish Diet Challenge began, featuring weekly Monday weigh-ins and mini-challenges throughout the course of eight weeks.

Eight households slimming their bins in just eight weeks, all living in different parts of the country, including one in the US, all with different routines, contrasting priorities, variations in local recycling collections and wide-ranging household sizes.

But this was not an experiment or a test of perseverance, with me standing over them all with my beady eye.  It was more a realistic timescale, that would give each household the freedom and flexibility to set their own waste reduction goals, and find out the information they needed to reduce their waste in the best way that suited their lifestyle.

For all participants, it involved finding out exactly what they could recycle at the kerbside and further afield in their locality and use the facilities to which they had access. For some it involved buying less or switching to reusable products and for others it also involved having a bash at home composting.

And everyone had a different starting point, including Ness, with her family of five, who had two full wheelie bins each fortnight (often accompanied by side bags), and Jax with her family of 6 (her baby was born in Wk 7), whose rubbish bin was always just a third to half-way full.

However, as others agreed, it didn't matter how little rubbish they thought they were throwing away, times change and services often improve, so each wanted to find out more. And it's great to see that in every household, at least a 50% reduction has been achieved, with some households achieving this in the first four weeks and others achieving much much more since.

While most participants were happily settled with their new slimmer bins, three households decided to take the finale Zero Waste challenge for Week 8 of the Rubbish Diet, with Suffolk's Kate & Terry-anna, and New York's Amy, pushing the limits to see how low they could go.

And my word, did they do brilliantly! Terry-anna's bag of landfill rubbish, pictured above, was only half the height of a sauce bottle and Kate's household only produced just two mug-sized bags. Amy over the States is also pleased with her attempt at the challenge, producing so little rubbish that there's not even enough to fill half a small carrier bag, and weighing no more than 1.4 kilogrammes.

But this challenge is not just about attempting a Zero Waste Week.  It's actually the build up to that, which is more important.  To quote Tim, who knew that he wouldn't be in a position to attempt a ZW week, "It's the habits I've acquired during the eight-week programme that'll make the difference".   And you can see the impact of this in his last blogpost about his experience.  Tim had started the challenge with a very full bin.

For many who have participated, even though the guided challenge has finished, their own discoveries towards waste reduction hasn't stopped.  Just as Donna, who slimmed her household's waste by 50%, said to me only last week, "It isn't over in 8 weeks - it's just begun!"

I think Ness, who orginally started with two full wheelie bins, would agree with that.  As I was leaving her house on Friday, after she'd been interviewed for BBC Radio Suffolk, she asked whether it needed to stop there and made it clear that she wants her Rubbish Diet to continue.  Well there is plenty of scope for that as well as having more laughs in the process.

I suppose introducing her to the Recycling Centre for the first time, bringing in a Master Composter to help her compost and poking around her mouldy fruit, have all been interesting ways to strengthen our friendship,  And it is unfortunate that she had a poorly dog, who sabotaged any attempts she had to slim that bin right down last week.  But moving forward, she is now volunteering to get rid of the second bin, which she no longer has a use for.  When she first embarked on the challenge, she was adamant she would keep it as a comfort blanket.  So I am quite sure this won't be the last you'll hear of Ness's Rubbish Diet.


But for now, it's time for me to hang up my virtual bin-diving gloves for the Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012 and take the opportunity to thank everyone who has taken part, including all the households that have let me follow their waste-busting adventures, as well as those who have been inspired to join in along the way.  Everyone has just been blimmin' brilliant and I'm also grateful to the Mark Murphy Show at BBC Radio Suffolk, which has followed the challenge from the very beginning.


The list below shows the starting points as well as the final week results (please note that this was not a competition and participants were able to chose their own description of monitoring, which suited them best.  Also some collections are fortnightly, so for those, the list also includes their latest fortnightly results as well as a separate final week's results). I'm still waiting for some of the final results to come in and these will be updated as soon as they are ready. In the meantime, do try and listen to the great interviews that were broadcast on BBC Radio Suffolk last week, with Kate & Ness.

Kate's interview: http://bbc.in/wROWm9 FF>> 1h42: available until Wednesday 

Ness's interview: http://bbc.in/w9BdF7 FF>>2h38s: available until Friday

And again, huge congratulations and thanks to all involved, with results that range from 50% reduction to what I'd reckon is as much as 95%, I think now might be time to roll out the fanfare.

1.  Terry-anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk. 
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly): Final fortnight: 1.5 very small bags that are dumpier than an HP sauce bottle.  Final Week:  a small bag that is only half the height of  the sauce bottle.

2.  Ness.  @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in:  2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly). Final Fortnight: 1 full bin   Final Week: Just 1 bag of normal household waste, plus a rug and plastic from the family dog's unexpected illness.

3.  Donna.  @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly).  Final Week: 1/2 30 rubbish sack, plus one-off polystyrene packing.

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City.   www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) Final week: 1.4kg/3lbs

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly) Final Fortnight: 1 small swing-bin bag:  Final Week: 2 very small bags, approximately the height of a coffee mug.

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). Final Fortnight: Approx 5 small  bags worth of rubbish, filling only half the bottom layer of the wheelie bin.  Final Week: 2 small bin bags and some bits of polystyrene.

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in:  3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly).  Final Week: half a bag.

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire.  www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly) Final Fortnight: 3 small bags, filling just the first layer of the bin with room to spare. Final Week:. 5 small bags.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge 2012 is all over, it doesn't mean that you can't have a go in your own time. It can start whenever you like, just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do and follow the weekly ideas.  And if you want to join in the conversation on Twitter just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.  And do keep an eye on the blog over the next weeks, as I will be including an updated list of links and resources that will help you further in your waste-busting ventures.

It's reached Hong Kong: Tracking my mobile phone with O2Recycle.

Back in January, I did something I'd never done before.  I recycled my old battered mobile phone, working with O2Recycle to track it through their system.

Now, my phone was in a pretty poor condition when it left the UK.  The screen was scratched, the casing was broken and it needed a rubber band to stop the battery falling out.  And there was also the issue of it randomly rebooting itself.   Yet, after assessment, I still received £24 for it, which illustrates how valuable these devices are.

But I wasn't just interested in the cash, I was also interested in how the mobile phone recycling process worked, as well as keen to find out where it would end up.

It's taken a while due to the Chinese New Year and staff holidays, but finally the latest update came through this week.

My phone, a Nokia N97, was initially sent to O2's appointed recycling company, Redeem, which is based in Scotland.  There, it was assessed and categorised as a grade C, highlighting that it would need refurbishment to bring it up to the standard required to be sold onto a new owner.

Nokia phones are currently popular in the Far East so it was packaged up and despatched to the Hong Kong office.  Pictured above is the shipment that contained my phone, arriving in Hong Kong just a couple of weeks after I had handed it in. Deliveries are made every Monday, and upon arrival the phones are unpacked, checked and sorted into model type and condition.

They are then entered onto the company's inventory and are scanned, using the unique barcodes attached to the back of the phones.

When all phones have been scanned and added to the computer system, they are then laid out in plastic crates ready for auction.

Auctions are held every Wednesday and traders arrive from Hong Kong and mainland China to look for popular models that can be easily sold straight away or refurbished. Once they've browsed the stock and tested the phones, the traders fill out their bid sheets with the price they are willing to pay.  The process is very similar to a silent auction, where whey leave the sheets with the receptionist as they depart.

The bids are entered onto the computer and those who have placed the winning bid receive a SMS and return to collect their phones the following day.  The process is so streamlined that phones requiring no repair or refurbishment can be placed on the market within just a few weeks of being sent to Redeem.
 
I have now received confirmation that my old Nokia has been bought by a trader in Hong Kong, who specialises in refurbishing old phones before selling them at a small phone shop.  It will receive new housing and possibly other parts replaced before being boxed up with new accessories, such as a charger and earphones. It will then be sold onto a member of the public, which could either be a local resident or a tourist.

It still fascinates me that my useless old phone, which would have most likely ended up sitting in a drawer for years, is actually being put to good use over on the other side of the world.

I hope whoever buys it will get in touch.  However I am doubtful, as the Hong Kong office doesn't get that involved with the individual traders.  And although I included my contact details in an accompanying card, there's no guarantee that my message will be understood or not mislaid.

So maybe this is the end of the road as far as my curiosity is concerned.

If I ever get a random text message or email from its new owner I will let you know.

In the meantime, I am very much heartened by the tale that I read at the Little Green Blog, where Mrs Green was able to track her phone all the way to its new owner.  Do pop over and have a read, it really is heart-warming.

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If you're interested in recycling your old phone for cash, there are many ways in which you can do it, but it you wish to use O2's service, you can recycle by post and fill your details online, or pop into a store near you.  You don't even need to be a customer.  More information is available at www.o2recycle.co.uk.  O2 don't make any profit from this service.  All proceeds from their sales go to their charity Think Big, which supports community projects that help young people.   Other gadgets such as iPods, cameras and even routers can also be recycled, although these are not processed on a cash-back basis.

Slimming your waste at work: a Suffolk case-study

Regular visitors to this blog will be familiar with my passion for slimming down our rubbish at home, but I am also a sticky-beak when it comes to finding out what goes on behind closed doors in organisations across the country.

Inspired by my recent Smart Mums visit to British Gas, where I managed only a passing glimpse of their internal recycling activities, I was keen to find a smaller company closer to home that would allow me to have a poke about their own waste management facilities.  I really don't think I could have found a finer example of corporate recycling.


Music Sales is an international company which specialises in music copyright, printed music, book publishing and digital distribution. It also has 20 music shops that fall under the MusicRoom brand as well as 125 affiliated stores around the UK.

Rob Child, who manages the company's waste stream took me on a tour of their distribution centre, which is based in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

The first thing that struck me was the relevance of Rob's role within the business. Until fairly recently he was responsible for managing the procurement of packaging materials that are required for distribution.  It was only 18 months ago that a newly appointed Head of Distribution had the vision to expand his responsibilities to incorporate waste management.  

Waste is something that Music Sales cannot take lightly. The company distributes to the public as well as trade customers in over 100 countries and its online business provides access to over 250,000 products.  From a waste management perspective, this means a heck of a lot of packaging coming through its warehouse door.

The company's trade waste service is provided by St Edmundsbury Borough Council.  Until 18 months ago, much of the packaging waste was landfilled and Rob explained that when he took over the waste management role, the landfill skip was collected two or three times per week.

These days, their landfill skip is now only collected just once a fortnight and as a result, their waste management bill has dropped by two thirds.

That is a startling saving, which has been achieved simply by diverting recyclables out of landfill through easy in-house segregation.

The warehouse now separates cardboard, paper and plastic film, which are common materials that travel through its distribution facilities.  These are sorted by staff into the crates that are provided before being baled ready for collection.

When you consider that last year alone, 90 tonnes of paper were handled by the distribution centre as well as 10 tonnes of plastic packing, responsible procurement and recycling processes can make a huge contribution to the company's waste footprint.  Rob recognises this and since taking over the waste management role, his own procurement processes have led to a focus on packaging that contains recycled materials as well as products that can be more easily recycled.

But the company's waste reduction activities don't stop there. As well as core business recycling, Music Sales takes legal responsibility for its electronic waste.  Rob also encourages staff to use desktop recycling boxes and recycle their coffee machine cups and refillable Thermos flasks were provided to staff in the warehouse, which has helped to cut down even further on waste.  Dotted around the site are trade-waste equivalents of the wheelie bins that St Edmundsbury residents can find at home, which means that staff can also recycle aluminium cans and mixed plastics.

In just 18 months, the culture at Music Sales has totally changed and Rob is pleased with the fast turnaround.  A waste audit conducted by an independent company a year ago revealed that they were already achieving so much, they couldn't find any other way of improving their process.

Personally I think the transformation of the company's waste stream is a real success story and it would be great if it could inspire other businesses to follow suit.  Not only has the business seen a great financial saving from diverting recyclables from landfill, but Rob and his colleagues are also delighted with the contribution that the company is making regarding sustainability.

BritMums, Smarter Living & British Gas

Dana, from British Gas Smart Homes, demonstrating the Smart Meter handsets.

During the last couple of months I have been working with British Gas and BritMums as a Smart Mums ambassador, discussing ways to save energy in the home.  A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to visit the British Gas Headquarters in Staines, for a behind-the-scenes peek at some of the products that are already appearing in homes across the UK.

Moving forward from its traditional business as an energy provider, which historically has been dependent on creating energy from fossil fuels, British Gas is now also focusing on innovations that enable its customers to benefit from renewable energy and have better control of energy usage as well as modernising other aspects of their homes.

The initial focus of the visit was to take a look at the testing lab, where the company calibrates and tests the performance of the Smart Meters that are being installed into customers' homes.  Although they are not legally required until 2019, British Gas has already commenced upgrading properties and has installed over 400,000 units since 2010, offering customers more control over their energy consumption.

The mobile handsets, the latest version of which is pictured above, enable households to monitor their actual expenditure at any given time as well as forecasting the impact of their energy usage on future bills.  This means that customers can visualise the real savings from efforts to reduce their usage, e.g. turning down the heating, improving insulation, or even closing the curtains at dusk. For eco-geeks, the handset also translates the savings into CO2 measurements, so if you're on a carbon diet, the system will help you monitor your goals.

Of course much of this is already achieveable with energy monitors that you can buy off the shelf, but the advantage of a system that is wired into the energy supplier is that it provides such accurate information, that once it's installed and you've had your training session, you can finally wave goodbye to the inconvenience of estimated bills as well as visits from the meter reader.

The rest of the day was filled with introductions to technologies such as those that will allow customers to control their heating remotely, simply by logging onto the Internet or a mobile app.  Making good use of broadband and Wi-Fi technology, British Gas has also diversified into the home security market, with alarms that alert the customer directly if their home is experiencing a break-in or if there is threat of fire, a gas leak, a water leak or carbon monoxide risk. Customers can also configure the Safe & Secure monitoring system remotely and if there are any issues, they will be notified via a mobile update.

If there was a catchphrase that could sum up my day at the company's HQ, it would be "I didn't know British Gas did that!"  And on that very subject, I guess the one thing that appealed to me the most, was the company's investment in developing the Electric Vehicle (EV) market.

One of the key issues that is met by the current EV market, is the perceived limit on mileage. And yes, it can be daunting to think you can only achieve just over 100 miles between recharging.  However, while battery power is being improved and vehicle based technology becomes more efficient, British Gas is striving to develop facilities that will make charging more efficient and easier for EV customers.  This also includes the introduction of a new off-peak saver tariff, which reduces the price of electricity between 8pm-4pm, so it makes it cheaper to charge your vehicle overnight.

British Gas also sells and installs domestic EV chargers for off-road charging, but more interestingly, they are increasingly working with businesses to develop the roll-out of chargers in the workplace as well as public installations in towns and cities.  When combined with Solar PV technology, which can also be installed at a domestic level, it becomes a very exciting proposition indeed.

We were shown a video of Robert Llewellyn demonstrating his car and I confess I watched it with a real touch of envy.




And I must admit, having being driven back to the station in a Nissan LEAF, which was charged by the company's Solar PV unit in the HQ car park, I now want to convert.  However, until the prices of cars fall (despite £5K grants being available), I know I won't be able to.  A pity really, because with a car that's only done 14,000 miles in six years, I know an Electric Vehicle would do me just fine, especially with the thought of banishing the petrol station queue forever.


Of course, being a 'rubbish blogger', I couldn't visit any corporate headquarters without taking note of their waste reduction policies, and it was encouraging to see recycling bins dotted throughout the offices, for paper, plastics and cans, as well as batteries.  And all credit to British Gas, the company's recycling bins are accompanied by some of the best labelling and recycling instructions I've seen in a long time!

_____________________________________________________________

 I’m a British Gas Smart Mums Ambassador, working with BritMums and British Gas to highlight energy issues in the home.  This is a sponsored post.

• Take part in the Smart Mums Watt Loss Challenge now!
• Meet the Smart Mums Ambassadors
• Grab the badge to show you’re a Smart Mum
• Find out how smart meters can save you money

British Gas will be at this year's Ideal Home Show, which takes place 16th March to 1st April.  Look out for their stand, where they will be demonstrating many of their new products in their Smarter Home display.

The Rubbish Diet, Wk 7: Saturday catchup. Composting, radio & packaging protest

"Gee, I never guessed it would be as big as that!" were the words utttered by Rubbish Dieter Ness, as she collected her compost bin this week and tried to squeeze it into the boot of her car.

I did my best to reassure her that when placed in situ, it really would look considerably smaller.

Ness has never composted before, but since the start of her Rubbish Diet, she's been keen to give it a go and on hearing this news, Suffolk County Council were delighted to support the project by providing one of the 'dalek' style bins, similar to the ones I've been using for years. Earlier this week, we went to collect it from my local council in Bury St Edmunds and pictured with Ness, is Mike Culver, our borough's recycling officer.

Although I was able to give Ness advice on what she can compost at home and point her in the direction of more information on the Internet, I knew that could never beat introducing her to one of our local experts.  So I arranged for Paul Turner, one of our county's master composters, to visit and share his knowledge directly.  Paul is a full time fire officer, but also a keen gardener and allotment owner, and volunteers his time to the Garden Organic's master composting scheme.

Paul was able to advise on where best to site the compost bin and suggested a sunny spot, where it could rest directly on soil so that it would attract sufficient worms to help break down its contents.  Also, it's fairly close to the kitchen, which means that it will be easily accessible. By the time I arrived, Ness had already started filling the bin with the 'green' kitchen waste that would otherwise have gone into the landfill bin, and Paul was explaining the need to mix in other 'brown' compostables from around the home, such as paper and card.  Other top tips included adding nettles or comfrey, which act as accelerators. thus speeding up the composting process. He also suggested picking up spent coffee grounds from some of the coffee houses around town.

With the Zero Waste challenge next week, which marks Week 8, the final week of The Rubbish Diet, having a composter in place will help tremendously and I reckon Ness will see some great results.

And it's not just Ness who's been thinking about composting this week.  Elsewhere, our New York bin slimmer Amy is getting ready to start using her new backyard composter and Jo, aka Rubbish Geek, who is also voluntarily embarking on the challenge, is in the process of filling her new bins, whilst trying to prevent them blowing over in the wind because there's not much in them yet.

In other news this week, whilst I've been out and about visiting local businesses to see how they reduce waste (more on that next week), Jax, one of the Rubbish Dieters from the Suffolk Coastal area, was interviewed on BBC Radio Suffolk and was a real inspiration in the way she spoke about her passion for reducing her family's waste footprint.  You can catch the interview on The Mark Murphy Show, which was broadcast on Thursday, only four days after the delivery of her new baby boy.  Find it here on Listen Again, where you'll need to fast forward to 2hrs 4mins. There is also more information on her blog at Live Otherwise.

Now, if that's not enough to get on with, then check this out.  Blogger and Tweeter 8CW is calling upon shoppers to be brave and leave any excess packaging at the shops today, declaring 10 March 2012 Tweeps against Packaging Day.  So if you're feeling a bit rebellious and want to join in, today's the day to strip off any excess unwanted material at the till. Packaging only of course.  After all, you wouldn't want to get yourself arrested.

Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 7

Well, here we are, the penultimate week of The Rubbish Diet Challenge.

Over the last six weeks, our bin-slimming volunteers have got to grips with local recycling, looked for ways of avoiding waste whilst out shopping and have focused on habits and areas around the home where certain rubbish can now be banished for good. And this is the last week before they are ready do tackle their zero waste challenge.

This week's focus is on decluttering and getting prepared for those risky moments when in the midst of a clear-out, impatience can easily take over and stuff ends up in the rubbish bin.  But with a little forethought, a dose of patience and extra knowledge, that bin full of stuff for landfill can be easily avoided.

So, if you're able to invest just a few hours sorting out your stuff this week, and fancy a spot of decluttering - even if it is just one drawer - roll up your sleeves and read on.

Of course the motto when it comes to decluttering is "Be Prepared".  Even if it's a small clearout, you need to have an action plan of what you're going to do with your stuff.  If you don't, your patience will soon crack.  Try these mini-challenges below and for more background information, check out the online guide for Week 7, The Big Declutter.

1. Think about things that are currently decluttering your home and mentally organise them into different categories, e.g. things that you are going to give to a charity shop;  Items that can be given away via sites such as Freecycle; Items that you wish to sell; Consumables that should be recycled; Things you regularly use, but need to put back in place; Goodies that you can’t bear to part with and stuff that needs repairing.  Now start putting an action plan in place. First allocate a time in your diary for taking to the charity shop, recycling centre, or organising selling or repairs. Make it imminent.  Then, find some empty boxes or bags and start collating your unwanted clutter.

2. Don't tackle it all in one go, start with a mini-treasure hunt.  Allocate just a couple of hours and immerse yourself in a clutter hotspot, guiding your actions by the categories that you've allocated.

3. Think about repair or reuse first. If something is broken or in tatty condition, think about how it can be repaired or reused before even pondering replacing it. Even if you don't want the responsibility yourself, pass it on via groups such as Freecycle instead of recycling it.  Hopefully the Self-Repair Manifesto at ifixit.com will provide extra inspiration. I love their manifesto poster, which applies to all sorts of material goods and the site offers great advice for dealing with electronics in particular.

4. Decluttering lots of paper? Of course, old magazines can be distributed to other people before they end up in the recycling bin, e.g. friends, schools, community & craft groups.  If you find yourself needing to recycle a lot of paper, please spare a thought for you and your bin crew and spread it out across a number of collections, as a recycling bin that's full of paper is very heavy.

5.Think about ways of reducing future clutter. There are all sorts of ways of reducing that clutter, from avoiding impulse purchases, to focusing on how to keep unwanted things out of your home.  Thanks to faster broadband and digital technology, downloads and streaming facilities are replacing physical collections that are traditionally associated with multi-media, so books, music and movies are typical things that can be streamlined in the future.  Also, do you find you and your friends or family are constantly swapping gifts that you don't want?  There are many ways of addressing gifting that can help reduce the amount of future clutter, e.g. asking for membership, cinema tickets, or experiences instead.  Reducing the amount of stuff that comes into our homes will not just help you in your mission to declutter, but it will help minimise the world's material resources and the waste associated with production.  If you've got a spare 20 minutes, take a peek at the popular video The Story of Stuff, by Annie Leonard.

So how have the Rubbish Diet 8 been getting on recently?  The great news is they've been keeping that rubbish weight down, but the big announcement this week is that Jax from Suffolk has got a different type of weigh-in on her mind today, with the arrival of her new baby boy only this morning.  That's far more exciting than thinking about rubbish and I'd like to take the opportunity to wish her and her family huge congratulations on their new arrival. 

As for everyone else, their regular weigh-ins are starting to come in and their WK 7 results will be updated as they are received, while they get prepared for next week's Zero Waste challenge.  If you'd like to join in the challenge, take a look at the online guide to find out what you'll be letting yourself in for.

1.  Terry-Anna.
Household: 2 adults, in Ipswich Borough, Suffolk. 
WK1 Weigh-in: 1.5 large bags, filling one third of a wheelie bin (fortnightly):  WK 7: less than half a small bag.

2.  Ness.  @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in:  2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly).  WK 7: 1 wheelie bin

3.  Donna.  @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly).  WK 7:  1 30L rubbish sack

4. Amy. @AmyMarpman
Household: 2 adults in New York City.   www.beyondthebluebin.com
WK1 Weigh-in: 2 bin bags - estimated 9kg / 20lbs. (Weekly) WK 7: 2.3kg/5lbs

5: Kate. @BusinessPlumber
Household: 2 adults, in a rural village in Mid Suffolk : www.businessplumber.co.uk
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 unusually full wheelie bin - incl Christmas waste. (fortnightly): WK 7: 1 & 3/4 small kitchen bags.

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby, in Suffolk Coast. http://liveotherwise.co.uk/makingitup/
WK1 Weigh-in: 7 small bin bags - filling one third or half of a wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK7: Still only a third full after 3 three weeks.

7.Melanie
Household: 2 adults, 2 children, Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire
WK 1 Weigh-in:  3 large bin bags, almost filling a whole wheelie bin. (weekly).  WK 7

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire.  www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). WK7:. 7 small bags. Wheelie bin estimated 1/3 full.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 7, it doesn't mean that you can't join in.  Just visit the online guide to catch up with everything you need to do.  There's also lots happening on Twitter too, so to join in the conversation just use the hashtag #therubbishdiet, or tweet @karencannard.

The Rubbish Diet. - Saturday catchup - pondering communications

I've spent much of this week thinking about recycling communications. In theory it should be a simple process, but in reality it can be filled with great complexities as well as unintentional ambiguity.

Take our latest council leaflet for instance.  I was delighted to discover a copy in my youngest son's book bag, which had been distributed through his primary school.  Not only was this a great way of reaching local families, but it's the first time I've seen a visual representation of what can go in our kerbside recycling bin.

Personally, I think this is a much better method of communication, because there is less onus on the resident to interpret and second-guess what would otherwise be a sheet full of lengthy descriptions and instructions.

However, even when photos are used as illustrations, there is risk of ambiguity, often brought about by what's missing.  For example, in our borough, like much of the UK, we can recycle detergent bottles and shampoo bottles, but the photo used in the leaflet only shows drinks bottles and a clear washing up liquid bottle. I can now imagine the conversations over the bins, with residents pondering if they can recycling their bottles of Domestos or Head & Shoulders, because they don't match the bottles in the picture.

Plastics is probably the hardest area of recycling about which to communicate to households. Only last week, someone else I know reported back on a very confusing email conversation she'd had with her council over the types of plastics she could recycle. She wanted to know which polymer numbers, she could add, but like most local authorities, the council spoke of the categories of containers they could accept.

And I empathise with both sides. For example, many councils are still restricted in their recycling by the type of packaging.  They may be able to collect plastic drinks bottles (made from polymer type 1 - PET)  but it doesn't mean they can also collect fruit punnets or meat trays made from the same material (due to limitations on sorting technologies that are programmed to only capture materials in a bottle shape).  Consequently for such a council to tell a resident that they can accept Type 1 plastics would be wrong.

And if a council can't take yoghurt pots, there'll be no room for argument, no matter whether such a restriction is due to the polymer used or the shape of the packaging, 

However many residents do hanker after more information and I think there is scope for councils to use polymer numbers in communications to reduce householder ambiguity where it helps, even if this is restricted to their website, where there is greater opportunity to outline more detailed information about their local recycling policy.  After all, the packaging industry marks its goods with a polymer number, and if that information can be used in the right way, it would help many residents better understand the recycling opportunities as well as the restrictions that are in place.

At the moment, the only other information that a householder has to rely on is the On-Pack Recycling Label, which despite being a great call-to-action, doesn't respond to the amibiguity issue at all.  Shoppers still have to rely on local authority communications to know what can actually be recycled in their bins and further afield at their Household Waste Recycling Centre.

It really does illiustrate that even at a local level, residents have different information requirements and the whole nature of recycling communications needs to be tackled in the same way as any other marketing campaign, through market segmentation and targeted messages to reach different levels of interest, commitment and understanding.

And on that note, wouldn't it be great if each local council could release its own online guide, to advise residents on how best to aim for Zero Waste or get as close as possible with the facilities available.  But that takes communication to a whole different level, moving from information to motivation.

And developing motivation techniques is a whole different area indeed.