All posts tagged Zero Waste Week

Tiny packets – no thank you

Whilst I was away I stayed in a hotel with tea and coffee-making facilities in the room. I knew this was going to be the case, so I went prepared… happy to use the kettle, but eschewing the teeny packs of instant coffee and various tea bags, not to mention the bottled water.

The goodies provided by the hotel

The tray provided by the hotel

Instead, I took a jar of fair trade, organic instant coffee (the remains from when the builders were here), containers of loose tea (black China and redbush), an infuser, an insulated mug and an enamel mug for taking out and about, and my own water bottle:

My beverage kit

My beverage kit

Since I don’t take milk in any of my drinks, there were no issues with storing dairy. And so, on my trip I managed not to use any disposable cups, tea bags, water from plastic bottles or teeny tiny packages. It’s a small amount of packaging to avoid but every little helps and, in addition, all my drinks were to my taste.

My trip coincided with Zero Waste Week, so it was good to feel that in circumstances where I might have been seduced into producing more waste than usual, I did not, all with very little effort and just a bit of planning.

14 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on September 22, 2015  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 22, 2015

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2015/09/22/tiny-packets-no-thank-you/

Carpet slippers

December 2015 This post has been edited because the company that I bought the yarn from has gone out of business.

My final post for Zero Waste Week just has to be craft related…. well, I can’t go a week without writing a post about knitting or crochet can I?

In order to reduce waste, it’s a great idea to buy good quality items that won’t wear out quickly. Yesterday, fellow blogger westywrites posted about her attempt to avoid buying new clothes for a year and the fact that her socks are wearing very thin- a particular problem because she doesn’t wear slippers round the house. She has been inspired by yours truly to attempt to knit her own socks for added durability (they do last well if you use genuine sock wool and are easier to mend, in my experience, than bought ones). However, round our house we do wear slippers because I make those too… and they certainly protect your socks.

New slippers in Black and yellow Axminster rug yarn

New slippers in Black and yellow Axminster rug yarn (with hand-knitted socks underneath)

I have been experimenting with different chunky yarns for slipper-making and my latest creations are true carpet slippers because they are made of Axminster rug yarn (80% wool, 20% nylon)! I reckon that if this yarn is sufficiently hard-wearing to make carpets from, it should be good for the slippers that walk on them. The pair I’ve just finished is for Mr Snail – now he has a different home during the week, he needed a second pair of slippers to save him remembering to take one pair back and forth each week. I asked him to choose a colour and he responded that he wanted black and yellow to match the cover of his novel (I know not why). In fact the yellow that I ordered was rather more orange than it looked in the picture on the Texere website (sadly this company has now gone out of business), but it was the only yellow they had and he still seemed pleased with the end result. I made them to match part 2 of the Kindle edition of the novel, because the paperback edition is mainly yellow and white and that would have shown the dirt!

Lovely natural shades of Berber wool

Lovely natural shades of Berber wool

I was also delighted to discover that Texere [used to] sell Berber yarn (another one used for carpet-making, but pure wool this time), so I’ve bought some of that too to have a go with. If you want to make some slippers like the ones shown, the pattern can be found here and it’s free to download. It’s a bit hard on the hands if you use a really robust yarn like I did, but the resulting slippers are very warm and comfy… and they will not only save your socks, but may also help to reduce your fuel bills!

So that’s the end of my posts for Zero Waste Week – I hope you have been inspired somewhere along the line.

12 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on September 7, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in craft, reducing consumption
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 7, 2014

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2014/09/07/carpet-slippers/

Repurpose, reuse and avoid

We’ve had a busy day today – lots to fit in since Saturday is now the only full day in the week that Mr Snail is home. However, several of our activities have involved a zero-waste component.

First, we repurposed a plastic bottle. Now that Mr Snail is living away during the week, he needs to have two bottles of shampoo – one for each location. We buy the shampoo in bulk, so we just needed a suitable plastic bottle to fill up… this distinctive one seemed to suit (although we had to neutralise the smell first with a bicarbonate of soda solution):

You may recognise the shape of the bottle in the foreground!

You may recognise the shape of the bottle in the foreground!

Then we visited our local organic farm to buy some trays of tomatoes for bottling (they are currently having a glut). The ‘shop’ is not staffed, there are just signs giving the prices and an honesty box. Alongside the tomatoes there was a notice asking for the plastic trays to be returned once they are empty so that they can be reused:

The 'packaging' will go back and be used over and over

The ‘packaging’ will go back and be used over and over

And finally, this afternoon we harvested some of our potato crop. These will be stored in an old cardboard box, although some of them will be eaten tonight, so will have had absolutely no packaging associated with them:

A fine harvest

A fine harvest

I’m very happy with today’s contributions to Zero Waste Week.

11 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on September 6, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 6, 2014

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2014/09/06/repurpose-reuse-and-avoid/

Zero waste coffee

I do like a good cup of coffee – the real stuff made from beans. And it was whilst preparing my coffee this morning that I realised that (at least as far as what happens in my house) it’s zero landfill waste… so on day 5 of Zero Waste Week, I thought I’d tell you how I manage it:

We buy our organic coffee beans from a small shop in Aberystwyth called The Mecca; they sell loose teas and coffees and we always take our own containers so we generate no packaging

coffee beans

coffee beans

We grind the beans ourselves (solar electricity on a sunny day) and store any not used immediately in a glass jar

all ready to go

all ready to go

The water is filtered with charcoal, which comes wrapped in tissue paper in a cardboard box:

charcoal in the water jug

charcoal in the water jug

and is boiled in a Kelly Kettle:

on the boil

on the boil

using, for fuel, twigs from pruning the willow hedge

willow waste

willow twigs

and newspaper, both scrunched up and made into ‘sticks’ as my nan taught me

newspaper sticks

newspaper sticks

The ground coffee goes into a cone lined with a heavy cotton fabric, which is washed between uses and used over and over

coffee in the cone

coffee in the cone

We pour the water on and store any excess hot water in thermos flasks for use later

steamy coffee

steamy coffee

And very quickly, there’s a mug of coffee

my coffee

my coffee

Being lactose intolerant, I drink my coffee black and I don’t take sugar.

Eventually the charcoal needs replacing, but we just put it in the soil, and the filters need replacing, as they do finally start to break down with the action of the acidic coffee and the repeated rinsing, but they get put on the compost heap, as do the coffee grounds. The cone and jug are more than 15 years old and still going strong; the Kelly Kettle was bought in 2009 and has been repaired once. So, all-in-all, about as low waste as we can manage – a great drink for Zero Waste Week.

 

17 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on September 5, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in food and cooking, reducing consumption
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 5, 2014

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2014/09/05/zero-waste-coffee/

Pass it on

It’s day four of Zero Waste Week and I’m looking up…

… at my lampshades, that is.

A few weeks ago I happened to mention to my niece that I liked the lampshade in her bedroom. So she gave it to me. Well, not there and then, but once she had got the replacement she was planning to buy anyway.

So today’s avoidance of waste has been to replace this lampshade in the hall:

In the hall

In the hall

With the one from my niece:

Lily's lampshade

Lily’s lampshade

Then take down the torn one in the kitchen:

I do like paper lampshades, but this one only lasted 14 years!

I do like paper lampshades, but this one only lasted 14 years!

And replace it with the one from the hall:

Looks wonky because it was still moving when I photographed it!

Looks wonky because it was still moving when I photographed it!

Then dismantle the torn lampshade:

Ripping it up

Ripping it up… the paper has gone on the compost heap

So that I have the metal rings to use to make a crochet lampshade:

They need soaking to get all the remaining bits of paper off

They need soaking to get all the remaining bits of paper off

Which I will have in my office, and the lampshade that’s currently in there can go in the utility room where there is no lampshade at all at the moment.

How about that for using your resources wisely and producing zero waste?

16 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on September 4, 2014  •  Permalink
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 4, 2014

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2014/09/04/pass-it-on/

Accio wand

I have a new wand… it’s magic!

Well, actually, it’s not brand new, just new to me, and the magic thing is that it’s so easy to find such things via the internet these days. Say what you will about the challenges of using ebay, it is a great way to access people who sell useful things secondhand, in particular to source secondhand spares from breakers.

Cracked!

Cracked!

The other day, whilst Mr Snail was doing the vacuuming, yet another part of our Dyson broke… the wand this time. Sadly, it wasn’t in a place where a repair was feasible. The model we own is so old (it’s an original DC01), that not all spares are available now (as, for example when the base plate cracked). In the case of the part we needed this time, you can get new replacements (no not from Ollivander’s, but from proper, expensive spares suppliers) but you can also get them from breakers for (as it turns out) a third of the cost.

So, Mr Snail got searching and ordered. The place it came from felt it necessary to explain that the items they sell may be scuffed and could be dirty and not to complain if they are, but we were happy with that, just as long the wand really did come from an old Dyson that was no longer working. In fact, when it arrived (very promptly) the part was only very slightly scuffed and had hardly dirt on it at all (we will soon rectify that). And best of all it was fitted easily.

The new wand seems to be a rather brighter grey than the old cleaner
But the attachments fit (that blue paint has been there for about 15 years)

So, that’s one more thing that we’ve done for Zero Waste Week – bought secondhand so that we could continue to use an existing appliance rather than bin the whole thing and buy a new one. What shall I do tomorrow, I wonder?

-oOo-

Just in case you’re wondering about the title, see here

16 Comments
by The Snail of Happiness on September 3, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in reducing consumption
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Posted by The Snail of Happiness on September 3, 2014

https://thesnailofhappiness.com/2014/09/03/accio-wand/

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