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Reuse #zerowasteweek 2015

Today is the start of Zero Waste Week.  I am super excited to be a blogging ambassador. Last year it was a real highlight of my blogging year. The focus of the week changed some habits for the better in our household, I “met” some great bloggers and had great fun fusing plastic bags to create sandwich holders.

Recycle Plastic Bags

This year the theme is reuse. Here are some simple items you can easily adopt to reuse:

Shopping Bags – we have some onya bags bought 10 + years ago in Australia. Made from former parachute silk they are super strong, plus they fold down into a tiny bag. Keep shopping bags in the car so you never get caught out on a spontaneous shop (or is it only me who regularly ends up buying odds and ends, in our house, bananas, strawberries, milk and yoghurt)

Containers – good quality containers are great for packing lunches for work, freezing portions of pre cooked food for the days when you need a quick home-made ready meal, and of course storing left overs in the fridge.

Coffee Cups – as a non coffee drinker this is something I have never considered, but today I was served tea in a disposable cup in a cafe.  It’s easy to carry a coffee cup with you, asking takeaways to fill it rather than a disposable cup.

Clothing – with young children I am ever grateful for the culture of sharing children’s clothes, passing them on to people with smaller children. I have benefitted hugely from generous families, and love seeing a child in a pass me down from us. As a sewer I often refashion clothes into new items for example toddler shorts from trousers, and have researched odd sock ideas.

Envelopes – personally I find them great for lists!!

Yoghurt pots for children’s crafts, storage for paper clips

Food waste – We compost as much as we can, the compost then feeds the garden. Alternatively you can make your own vegetable stock from peelings.

So what does this week hold for our home? My pledge for the week is “I will be menu planning, food shopping with as little packaging as possible, and encouraging the children to eat their crusts! I will also be focussing on handmade gifts using materials I already have”

There are many tutorials for reusing items to create new on this blog, CD’s into coasters, crisp packets into an apron, fabric scraps into notebook covers. During the week I aim to share some more creative ideas for reusing items. Stay tuned for creating your first Christmas gift, a mans tie converted into a phone holder.

I will report back re the children’s crusts – a friend suggested weighing to demonstrate the percentage of a sandwich they are wasting. Lets hope it works! What can you implement this week, every step helps.

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Lucy Blossom

Saturday 26th of September 2015

It's such a great thing to do, whenever we do the weekly shop I use reusable bags, but I must get into the habit of carrying a small one wherever I go for those last minute, unintended purchases.

Julie

Wednesday 9th of September 2015

Lots of great ideas here. I'm trying to think what I did to my my kids to eat crusts, I'm sure there was a point when they left them. My middle lad always spreads his filling right to the very edge - we tease him it's like wall to wall carpeting! I guess that is so he doesn't get the "just bread" bit, but as he is 19 I just let him get on with it!

Vicky

Thursday 10th of September 2015

They all seem to have little idiosyncrasies!!

Free Spirit Designs

Tuesday 8th of September 2015

You always come up with such fantastic ideas, i look forward to hearing more of what you get up to this week! x

Threadsnshreds

Monday 7th of September 2015

Great to have ideas highlighted as I'm sure many of us could do better at reusing things x

Caroline

Monday 7th of September 2015

Good ideas, already do most of them and have our groceries delivered so no bags involved. The care does have 'bags for life' in the booth though and I use my own made over the years.

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