The Friday Journal: Week 2's rubbish highlights

So, hello you wonderful gaggle of bin-slimmers! It's almost the end of Week 2 of The Rubbish Diet challenge and what another fantastic week it's been, with our EIGHT households dotted around the country - and New York - facing up to the challenges and in most cases overcoming their frustrations to reduce their waste.  It's been brilliant to see them reporting back on local recycling facilities that they've discovered, and not just those provided by their local councils but opportunities supplied by chain stores too, which have take-back facilities for plastic film (e.g. supermarkets), batteries (e.g. Robert Dyas) and small electricals (e.g. O2 stores recycle digital cameras, iPods as well as phones).  As this week is all about shopping habits, it's a great reminder to keep your eyes peeled for stuff that you can recycle when you're next in town.

And talking of eyes.  That photo up there in that top right hand corner, is by no way my attempt at creating an air of authority over our waste-busters.  It's more of a reminder that my personal highlight of the week has been my submission to middle-age with my commitment to varifocals. And with a 2-for-1 offer at Vision express, I decided to ditch the option of getting a free second pair of brand new specs and instead had my old reading glasses reglazed with my new prescription.  I can't even begin to tell you the joys at being able to see the screen properly.  Of course, if I hadn't chosen the reglazing option, I could have donated my old glasses to the Vision Aid Overseas scheme, for which Vison Express collected 10,000 pairs of spectacles in 2010.  If I'm honest, I'm now feeling a bit guilty for having had them reglazed and not donating them, but I only realised when it was too late. Other ideas for recycling unwanted glasses can be found over at MyZeroWaste.

Elsewhere, of more national interest, the £250m treasure chest to revert to costly weekly rubbish collections was launched today.  Rather than repeat myself, I'll recycle the blogpost that I wrote on the matter in September when the scheme was first announced.  It would be detrimental to revert to outdated weekly collection methods but hopefully the fund will enable those councils that wish to invest in diverting food waste out of landfill, to add such a scheme to their service.

News from plastics reprocessors also reveals that as more different types of plastics are collected, serious investment is still needed in proper separation methods to improve the quality of output from the recycling process, as well as harnessing a wider public commitment to recycle more plastic bottles within the household waste stream.  On the other side of the waste stream, it has also been highlighted that retailers are still finding waste reduction a key issue in their supply chains, despite making progress on their own operations.  It really does show that when you look at the wider picture, just like trying to improve things on the home-front, it can feel like three steps forward and one step back.


However, progress is being made throughout all aspects of the waste stream and highlights that every participant has a role to play!  And each effort counts, whether it's the recently announced agreement amongst London bars & restaurants commiting to ditch the humble plastic straw,  or independent retailers like Mark Hall, pictured left, whose business provides a take-back scheme for customers to return their old Courtyard Chutney Co. jars.

For example, with each jar returned, customers receive 25p off their next purchase, which is great news for regular customers, Mark's business and what he describes as "jar miles".  All jars, whether new or old, have to sterilised before use, so the process still saves the business money and with brand new sealable lids that conform to H&S regulations, jars can be back on display within days.

And finally, back to our bin-slimmers.  The most lovely surprise of the week was the news that Terry-Anna from Ipswich appeared on BBC Radio Suffolk's Mark Murphy show on Wednesday with an update on her Rubbish Diet challenge. Having only created just half a rubbish bag of waste this week, she explained her strategy on-air.  Do listen in if you have a chance before next Wednesday.  It's a bit of a giggle and you'll find it at 2hrs 36m into the programme.

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Meet the bin slimmers in London & New York

It's been great catching up with the volunteers who have taken The Rubbish Diet challenge, and finding out more about the specific issues that they are facing, as well as the new opportunities that they are discovering to help them reduce their household waste.  So, having introduced you to a couple of households in Suffolk last week, this week we're heading for the city, or rather two cities, and saying hello to Donna in London and Amy over in New York.


Meet Donna

Living in London, with a challenging job that involves spending a lot of time away from home, means that with most aspects of her personal time, Donna has the "balance challenge".  Taking on The Rubbish Diet is no exception to that rule!

For things to work for Donna and her husband (who also has has a time-consuming job) they really need efficient systems.  Efficiency and ease are highly important to them.  They don't have a car so for "bin slimming" habits to stick, their efforts need to be practical for the true urban dweller!

Donna tells me that their local council Tower Hamlets has really embraced recycling and makes it very easy for residents, and they also have a kerbside food waste collection programme.  Since starting The Rubbish Diet, she has also discovered that a green garden waste collection is available for homes in her area, and was able to request for her street to be included, which will now be effective from next week.

She's found that local shops have been extremely helpful too, with facilities to recycle plastic bags, batteries and Brita water filters.  A visit to her mobile phone provider prompted her to look into the Electrical Waste recycling that companies are obliged to provide and following a search on Google, she also learned about Sky's programme to take back older electrical satellite decoding boxes via a Freepost address.

Although Donna didn't tell her husband about this project at first, he was supportive from the moment he read her initial blog post.  He has had some great ideas, including better labelling for their bins at home, and ensuring they verify with the council what should be included in each bin.  For Donna, it will be interesting to see his reaction to changes as the weeks progress - and to figure out together how they can keep things simple, straightforward, and a part of their routines once the eight weeks are over.

Read more about Donna's progress on her blog: www.beatinglimitations.com/blog


Meet Amy

Amy lives with her husband in New York City and they already recycle a lot, so for them waste reduction is going to be the key challenge, and in particular food waste.

 

As well as having a regular waste collecton service, the couple also installed a garbage disposal unit in their kitchen, when it was remodelled last year. These used to be outlawed in NYC, but regulations have allowed them in recent years.  

 

However, Amy tells me that although it has decreased the amount of food waste going into their rubbish bin, it doesn't address their actual food waste issue and this is something she would like to work on.  She's also considering starting home composting by week 8 of The Rubbish Diet, which at the moment seems like a huge step.

This week, she's decided to take measures and ditch the disposables too, including tackling her coffee machine and switching to the reusable k-cup filter and buying coffee in bulk. She's also making the switch from disposable paper towels.

Amy tells me that her fellow rubbish dieters have inspired her to look further into the plastic bag recycling over in New York and she's now found that she can also take other types of plastic bags to participating retailers! 

 

You can find out more about Amy's progress on her blog: www.beyondthebluebin.com

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Kleiber's law and its possible implications for obesity

Kleiber's law () is one of those “laws” of nature that is both derived from, and seems to fit quite well with, empirical data. It applies to most animals, including humans. The law is roughly summarized through the equation below, where E = energy expenditure at rest per day, and M = body weight in kilograms.

Because of various assumptions made in the original formulation of the law, the values of E do not translate very well to calories as measured today. What is important is the exponent, and what it means in terms of relative increases in weight. Since the exponent in the equation is 3/4, which is lower than 1, the law essentially states that as body weight increases animals become more efficient from an energy expenditure perspective. For example, the energy expenditure at rest of an elephant, per unit of body weight, is significantly lower than that of a mouse.

The difference in weight does not have to be as large as that between an elephant and a mouse for a clear difference in energy expenditure to be noticed. Moreover, the increase in energy efficiency predicted by the law is independent of what makes up the weight; whether it is more or less lean body mass, for example. And the law is very generic, also applying to different animals of the same species, and even the same animal at different developmental stages.

Extrapolating the law to humans is quite interesting. Let us consider a person weighing 68 kg (about 150 lbs). According to Kleiber's law, and using a constant multiplied to M to make it consistent with current calorie measurement assumptions (see Notes at the end of this post), this person’s energy expenditure at rest per day would be about 1,847 calories.

A person weighing 95 kg (about 210 lbs) would spend 2,374 calories at rest per day according to Kleiber's law. However, if we were to assume a linear increase based on the daily calorie expenditure at a weight of 68 kg, this person weighing 95 kg would spend 2,508 calories per day at rest. The difference of approximately 206 calories per day is a reflection of Kleiber's law.

This difference of 206 calories per day would translate into about 23 g of extra body fat being stored per day. Per month this would be about 688 g, a little more than 1.5 lbs. Not a negligible amount. So, as you become obese, your body becomes even more efficient on a weight-adjusted basis, from an energy expenditure perspective.

One more roadblock to go from obese to lean.

Now, here is the interesting part. It is unreasonable to assume that the extra mass itself has a significantly lower metabolic rate, with this fully accounting for the relative increase in efficiency. It makes more sense to think that the extra mass leads to systemic adaptations, which in turn lead to whole-body economies of scale (). In existing bodies, these adaptations should happen over time, as long-term compensatory adaptations ().

The implications are fascinating. One implication is that, if the compensatory adaptations that lead to a lower metabolic rate are long term, they should also take some time to undo. This is what some call having a “broken metabolism”; which may turn out not to be “broken”, but having some inertia to overcome before it comes back to a former state. Thus, lower metabolic rates should generally be observed in the formerly obese, with reductions compatible with Kleiber's law. Those reductions themselves should be positively correlated with the ratio of time spent in the obese and lean states.

Someone who was obese at 95 kg should have a metabolic rate approximately 5.6 percent lower than a never obese person, soon after reaching a weight of 68 kg (5.6 percent = [2,508 – 2,374] / 2,374). If the compensatory adaptation can be reversed, as I believe it can, we should see slightly lower percentage reductions in studies including formerly obese participants who had been lean for a while. This expectation is consistent with empirical evidence. For example, a study by Astrup and colleagues () concluded that: “Formerly obese subjects had a 3–5% lower mean relative RMR than control subjects”.

Another implication, which is related to the one above, is that someone who becomes obese and goes right back to lean should not see that kind of inertia. That is, that person should go right back to his or her lean resting metabolic rate. Perhaps Drew Manning’s Fit-2-Fat-2-Fit experiment () will shed some light on this possible implication.

A person becoming obese and going right back to lean is not a very common occurrence. Sometimes this is done on purpose, for professional reasons, such as before and after photos for diet products. Believed it or not, there is a market for this!

Notes

- Calorie expenditure estimation varies a lot depending on the equation used. The multiplier used here was 78,  based on Cunningham’s equation, and assuming 10 percent body fat. The calorie expenditure for the same 68 kg person using Katch-McArdle’s equation, also assuming 10 percent body fat, would be about 1,692 calories. That would lead to a different multiplier.

- The really important thing to keep in mind, for the purposes of the discussion presented here, is the relative decrease in energy expenditure at rest, per unit of weight, as weight goes up. So we stuck with the 78 multiplier for illustration purposes.

- There is a lot of variation across individuals in energy expenditure at rest due to other factors such as nonexercise activity thermogenesis ().

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Monday Meeting: The Rubbish Diet Challenge Wk 2

After such a great start to Week 1, which saw our bin slimmers sorting out their recycling systems at home and getting familiar with what can be recycled locally, this week's challenge will take them to a whole different level when it comes to their waste busting mission.

Whilst last week's challenge was to recycle as much as they could, this week's focus moves to eliminating other waste through what they buy. 

There are even more mini challenges to contend with this week, which will have the rubbish dieters scouring the shelves of the supermarkets and checking the packaging to see which products will suit their recycling bins and their rubbish bins alike.

This is the week, where I'd recommend that you allow an extra half-an-hour for your grocery shopping, or if you normally do it online, make some time to go off the store for just this occasion.  It will be worth the effort.


So are you still up for the challenge?  Great, then here we go:

This week is all about getting used to shopping with waste in mind, becoming knowledgeable about packaging and your own shopping habits and asking yourself some questions before you buy.  It won't be easy because, against the aim of reducing waste you will also need to weigh-up other factors such as budget, convenience, values and personal taste.  There is lots of information in the Week 2 of The Rubbish Diet Challenge guide, but these mini-challenges will get you started in the right direction.

1: Before you buy anything, ask yourself the following questions:

• If I buy this product, will I definitely use it?
• Can I buy it without packaging?
• Can I reuse, recycle or compost the packaging?
• Are the reycling options convenient?
• Do I really need the product if the packaging ends up in landfill?
• Without this packaging, will the contents end up as food waste?
• Are there alternative products that create less waste than my usual choice?
• Is the product\packaging made from recycled materials?
• Can you make it at home?

2. Become familiar with recycling labels: The first thing you need to understand about recycling labels, is that they should NEVER replace advice from your local authority.  Only your local council can tell you exactly what they are able to recycle.  Packaging labels only offer extra reminders about which materials can be recycled in the UK and the extent of the sevices available.

More information is available in The Rubbish Diet Challenge guide, but even without that, my top tips are:

• Ignore this symbol, as it means nothing to UK recycling guidelines. It has no value in this country and just makes me want to spit feathers, so just pretend it's not there.

• Look out for these labels instead, developed by WRAP and the British Retail Consortium and which have become the retail sector standard.  However even if the label says it can't be recycled, e.g. Film, as shown below, you should check with your local council first.

3. Learn to lift and separate. This particular exercise is for those who live in areas where plastics such as yoghurt pots and margarine tubs aren't recycled.  If are looking for off-the-shelf alternatives which enable you to throw less plastic into landfill, try and identify products that have been designed to use less plastic, ie developed with a thin plastic inner and a stiff cardboard outer. Brands such as Yeo Valley have redesigned their packaging in this way. It just means that before you recycle, you should split and separate the packaging.

4. Remember prevention is better than cure and here's a list that might help.

• Pick up an old bag before you head to the shops.
• Buy loose, where possible (Bananas don't need bags)
• Take a container, if the shop allows (and follows in the footsteps of Unpackaged)
• Buy concentrated products.
• Look for refillable options.
• Supersizing your purchase can sometimes help reduce packaging, so look for larger packs.

So, it will be interesting to see how our 8 volunteer households get on this week, throwing these extra decisions into their already busy lives.  However, as experience shows, once you become aware of how much waste results from our purchasing choices, it really does become easier to shop with waste in mind as a subconcious mindset, just as we shop with any of the other values that we carry with us.

So, without further ado, it's time to reintroduce our bin slimmers and see how they are getting on.  I think they're doing really well and the results of this week's weigh in will be updated as the results come in.

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):  THIS WEEK: half a bag, with another week to go before collection.

2.  Ness.  @NessyThompson
Household: 2 adults & 5 children, a rural village in Mid Suffolk
WK1 Weigh-in:  2 full wheelie bins (fortnightly).  THIS WEEK: less than 1/2 a wheelie bin, with another week before collection.

3.  Donna.  @Donna_De
Household: 2 adults, in Tower Hamlets in London. www.beatinglimitations.com/blog
WK1 Weigh-in: 1 30L rubbish sack. (weekly).  THIS WEEK: 1 30: 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) THIS WEEK: 1 small bag - 3.6kg / 8lbs

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): THIS WEEK: 1 bin bag with another week before collection.

6: Jax. @LiveOtherwise
Household: 2 adults, 3 children & a baby on its way, 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). THIS WEEK: 3 small bin bags, with another week before collection,

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).  THIS WEEK: 2 Bags.

8.Tim @Dotterel
Household: 2 adults, 3 children, Lincolnshire.  www.bringingupcharlie.co.uk
WK 1 Weigh-in: 1 full wheelie bin (fortnightly). THIS WEEK: 4 small bags with 1 week to go before collection.

Don't forget, just because the Rubbish Diet challenge is already in WK 2, 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.

And if you're a blogger, remember to share your latest blogpost on the topic using the clever little linky below.  If you're got any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

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The Friday Journal: It's all been happening in Week 1

What a week it's been.  Very much of a whirlwind really, which kicked off in great style on Monday launching on BBC Radio Suffolk from Bury St Edmunds' Household Waste Recycling Centre.

It really is incredible to see how much can happen in just five days. News coming in from the households participating in the challenge includes great discoveries of local recycling facilities that will help keep all sorts of materials out of the bin.




There have been challenges too, including one household, which was trying to find a convenient Tetra Pak recycling bank. Hopefully that will be resolved.
 

The bin slimmers have also been organising new storage facilities, recycling new things and have even given me access to their bins to see if anything had been missed.  And yes, it is rewarding to find stuff in a bin that can be passed on easily for recycling and already fits in with an existing recycling routine.

I've made a few discoveries this week too, not least that all the recycling centres across Suffolk take plastic packaging such as rice and pasta packets as well as the polythene bags, but we can also bung corks in their timber collection and their media banks will accept VHS tapes, cassettes as well as CDs and DVDs.

That's the thing with recycling centres, facilities are always changing so if it's been a while, it's always worth popping in for a bit of a gander, as was discovered by one of our participants today, who drives past most days but has never been in, except for one occasion as a passenger.

Other great discoveries include improvements over the last year to council business recycling facilities in Bury St Edmunds, which now includes heavyweight items such as glass. Having met with our borough council today, I'm also looking forward to more good news being announced over the next few months.  Further afield, Aylesbury Vale District Council, home to one of our families, will also be announcing improvements to their service too.

This week, our local primary school commited to taking its own Rubbish Diet Challenge and has already started to investigate how they can reduce food waste over the next seven weeks, a project that's been adopted by their eco-club, so I'll be keeping an eye on how they get on.

And elsewhere, a local cafe, The Coffee House in Moreton Hall, signed up as a Tapwater.org refill station, enabling passers-by to refill their water bottles for free and reduce the need for bottled water. I only suggested it on Wednesday and by Thursday, they were on the Tapwater map.

So what with our Ipswich bin slimmer receiving her new slim bin from the council, a compost bin on order for another and a kitchen waste caddy awaiting delivery and some reports coming in of less waste, it has been a really good start to The Rubbish Diet Challenge 2012.  And I really can't thank the participants enough, as well as others who are joining in as the challenge progresses.

But the proof is always in the pudding and we will find out more at next week's Monday Meeting, when a new set of mini-challenges will be set,

However, in the meantime, if you haven't seen it before, do check out one of my favourite videos of this week, put together by Tim Atkinson, aka The Dotterel, who's taking the challenge in Lincolnshire.  The full blogpost can be found here.

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The Rubbish Diet: The sponsored approach

It warmed the cockles of my heart yesterday, to discover that there were even more bin slimmers officially on board, aiming to reduce their household waste over the next 8 weeks, and one of them had extra news to share.

It came in the form of Joanna Boardman, who has not only pledged to see how low she can go, but has also registered her challenge on the DoNation website in the hope that she can also gain some sponsorship for her efforts. 

Now, before you think I'm going to ask you to empty out your spare change, if you haven't come across it before, the DoNation scheme is a sponsorship site with a difference.

It asks supporters not to delve into their pockets, but to donate by doing instead, a marvellous idea based on the inspiration of founder Hermione Taylor, who cycled from London to Morocco in 2009.  She didn't ask friends and family for sponsorship but asked them to do something to make a difference to help environmental issues. She was amazed that this drew sponsorship from 216 people, whose actions saved over 16 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of 84 flights from London to Morocco.

Joanna challenge was the 100th to be registered at DoNation, and she is now keeping a diary over at her blog Let's Waste Less, which encourages people in North East Lincolnshire to make less waste.  Joanna also happens to be a waste minimisation officer for North East Lincolnshire and having just moved into the county it will be interesting to see how she gets on, whilst wearing both her professional hat as well as being a resident.

Her starting point last week was 1 sack full of kitchen rubbish and two carrier bags full of other household waste.  She lives in an area that doesn't recycle yoghurt pots or plastic meat packaging and she'll no doubt have trouble with all kinds of plastic film as well.

And having left her old compost bin in situ at the previous house, one of her first tasks has been to organise a new one for her latest property.

I remember that was one of the first things I did when we first moved to Bury St Edmunds.  Even though the council collected fruit & veg peelings and garden waste, I recall crossing my arms defensively and saying "They're not getting their hands on my compost!", so there's nothing quite like a girl after my own heart.

We'll be keeping tabs on Joanna's progress over the coming weeks, but do visit her blog for more info and pop over to see how you can sponsor her at the DoNation site.  I've just promised to switch from my car to using my bike once a week, which will apparently save 9kg CO2 each time.  It's about time I got back to pedal power..... and I suppose it's a form of 'recycling'. (Boom Tish)

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Meet the bin slimmers

Each week, I will be introducing some of the volunteers who have signed up for the Rubbish Diet challenge, so that we can find out more about their rubbish, the issues that arise and their plans for slimming those bins.

For Week 1, I'd like to introduce you to two people from Suffolk, Ness and Terry-anna.

Meet Terry-anna

Terry-anna lives with her partner in Ipswich, which falls under the district of Ipswich Borough.

When she first volunteered for the challenge she mentioned that she threw out between 2 -3 bags of rubbish every fortnight. However, already at the start of the challenge this week, she'd already slimmed this down to one and a half bags for her first weigh-in. 

This is great. Taking advantage of less waste, Terry-anna has already ordered a new slimmer bin from her council, a 180L, which will take up less room than the average 240L that's issued to most homes.

Some of the key things that her household will be tackling throughout the Rubbish Diet Challenge include some food waste (but not much), aerosol cans and those annoying little things such as tissues.  However, she doesn't want to stop there. When she was offered the opportunity to have a larger recycling bin, she politely declined.  Instead, she hopes to slim down her recycling bin too.

Huge thanks to Terry-anna for joining in and helping to support the launch of the challenge on BBC Radio Suffolk this week.  You can listen in on the link to Mark Murphy's show, with my introduction at 1hr 6min and Terry-anna's interview at 1hr 25m, where she confesses that she really hopes to get down to zero during Week 8.

*Terry-anna's new bin is part of Ipswich Borough Council's 60\40 plan where they are aiming for 60% recycling and offer residents the choice of smaller rubbish bins and larger recycling bins. 

For Ipswich's recycling guidelines, click here.



Meet Ness

Ness lives with her husband and three children (aged 6, 8 & 10) plus a dog and two cats, in the rural district of Mid Suffolk.

Currently she has two wheelie bins for rubbish, which are generally full to capacity each fortnight.  However, for her first weigh-in this week, she was already pleased to see that her rubbish was down by one bag since she's been preparing to take on the challenge.

The key challenges for Ness will be organic waste and making sure that her family follows the recycling guidelines.  It's a busy household, which means things that can be recycled often get thrown into the rubbish bin.  Just like Ipswich, Mid Suffolk residents benefit from mixed plastics recycling so most packaging can be put in the recycling bin for kerbside collection. 

However, Mid Suffolk doesn't collect compostables, except for garden waste, and even so, this service is only provided on subscription for residents who need it.  Knowing that organic waste such as peelings and odd pieces of mouldy fruit end up in her rubbish bin, Ness has committed herself to getting to grips with home-composting and has already got a bin on order.

She's also focusing on how she can organise other materials to drop at the Household Waste Recycling Centre, which admittedly is not always a convenient exercise, but will allow her to recycle textiles, Tetrapaks,  plastic film and hard plastic.  I'm hoping that by the end of this challenge, Ness will have cut her rubbish down by at least half and the council will be able to wheel that second bin away.

*For Mid Suffolk's recycling guidelines, click here.


I'll be reporting back on how both households have managed later on in the challenge.  In the meantime, for further information about recycling facilities in Suffolk, visit the county's new website.

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