Wednesday 22 October 2008

Day 2

Well, after the excitement of Day 1 and the BBC I couldn't face blogging last night...so bright and early here I am...not huge progress yesterday, however, thanks must go to the small army of zero waste supporters popping up all over the country who have been sending in messages of good luck and great idea for recycling tetrapak and polythene (see: http://www.polyprint.co.uk/recycling.html). If you follow the comments on the blog you'll see these great tips.

The family seem to have become minor local celebrities, which although is quite exciting for them, is heaping pressure on us! Every where we go in the village people say 'good on you' which is lovely...let's hope it makes a real difference and rubs off on people. When I agreed to do all this I didn't realise the extra pressure it would bring, its not come at the best of times if I'm perfectly honest...raising a young family is hard enough, but when you're on crutches for 4 weeks and your littlest is potty training it makes things a bit more complex...having said that, there are thousands of families out there really struggling, particularly as the economy worsens, so we're hoping this will prove what is possible and that its relevant to every family, irrespective of circumstances. Hopefully we can prove that it doesn't have to be hard work and that it can save money in the long run too.

As expected, we're not going to be completely waste free this week...various items we have finished this week will have to be disposed of and there's no point trying to hide that. In retrospect we probably should have run things for a month before Zero Waste Week and then actually done Zero Waste Month!! That would have ironed out all the anomalies...I think next week will be better than this week because it will benefit from the careful purchasing of this week.

At the end of the week we are going to photo and list everything that couldn't be recycled or reused and ask for suggestions on how to improve it next time....should be interesting!!

Finally, the great bread idea!! By the end of the week we should have something edible!! Archie calls my bread 'brick toast' and it takes him so much longer to get through it poor fella!!

1 comment:

Almost Mrs Average said...

Hee hee - that bread sound like mine. You could try rolls instead, at least they could be used as building blocks. When I tried my own ZWW, I gave it a good build up of about 7 weeks (excessive I know, but I had to learn so much). The best thing about a challenge like this is that no matter when you start it, it is always the beginning of a real change to habits, and changes that will last with you forever. :-D