Backsliding a bit

Sad to say our good habits have undergone a little slippage in the past couple of weeks. We haven't undone all the good work, but it shows how good intentions can be overridden by life in general.

Last weekend I was away with friends, and the week's food shopping had to be fitted in at Tesco on Friday evening before I left, so there was a bit of a resurgence in plastic packaging in our bin. I brought home what recycling and leftovers I could from the weekend away, but we still had to leave about a quarter of a black bag in the landfill bin there. A lot of that was ash from the coal fire, for which we had no alternative disposal. And some of the leftovers also brought waste with them that ended up in my bin, e.g. cheese and houmous.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been doing some computer upgrading at home, and so there's been some more foam packaging and little plastic tie widgets, but lots of cardboard and poly bags have been recycled. Old computer parts will go on Freecycle if I can persuade Mark we don't need them "just in case".

This weekend just gone ended up being a bit of a mad rushing about time as we were organising a charity quiz night, and it made more sense to go to the supermarket on the way from another errand, especially as we ended up food shopping on Sunday when things shut at 4 or earlier. The worst offenders waste-wise are still meat and fish, although we tried to mitigate by buying things which will do for multiple meals, like a whole chicken. It was interesting to see minor differences at Sainsbury's, as our usual supermarket would be Tesco - they sell chopped tomatoes in Tetra cartons (not sure why; I feel a can is more immediately recyclable), and I can pick up a large pack of wholemeal pasta rather than several smalls. But really the two are much of a muchness.

I haven't weighed the bin yet, but will do when I get home, to get a 2-week total (it's the same bag). I think the volume may have gone up due to plastic, but the weekly weight will have gone down as we have refrained from eating duck lately :)

Update: 730g for 2 weeks, i.e. an average of 365g per week.