From the Rubbish Diet to the Suffolk Diet and other news!

Today marks the final weigh-in of the Waste Reduction Fortnight on my street and as I type, the recycling officers are busy monitoring the success of the project in this part of St Edmundsbury.  Our street is the first to reach the end of the project and over the next couple of weeks will be followed by the other participating streets throughout the rest of Suffolk. 

So has it been a success in our Almost Average household?  Well I can confirm that it has.  Regular readers may remember that two weeks ago at the beginning of the project, our fortnightly rubbish weighed in at 700g, which for us was unusually heavy.

And our challenge was to reduce it by 50%

Two weeks later, the official weigh-in is...dum,dum,dum.....50grammes!

And that's a fine result, given that it's half the size of what we would normally throw away.  The bag you see contains stuff like Weetabix wrappers, a few pieces of food soiled cardboard and some fiddly bits of broken kids toys, which are too small to recycle.

So, having had another astounding challenge on the waste reduction front, what's next?  Putting my feet up and having a rest?

How I wish.

But no...as of today, I am embarking on a brand new challenge which will see me taking a break from talking rubbish and instead embarking on enjoying local food.

For the next seven days I have been challenged to see how easy it is to live off nothing but food that is either grown, reared or produced in Suffolk.

And I am really looking forward to it.

However I won't be blogging about it here.  In fact, I've launched a brand new blog, appropriately called The Suffolk Diet, which will feature updates about how I get on.

So do visit if you can, as it would be lovely to see you.  And who knows, you might even feel like joining me in the challenge - whether you live in Suffolk or not.  And if you've got any recipes you'd like me to try or can even advise on the most delicious ways to use up my fridge full of  Kale, then please feel free to join in and keep me company.

You can find the new blog over at www.thesuffolkdiet.com.  There are a few introductory posts there already, but you haven't missed much as Day 1 of the challenge actually starts today.

And don't worry, I won't be taking my eyes off the bins.  I'll be back next week to tell you whether my Suffolk Diet has created any extra rubbish.

I suppose you could say, I'm just having a little holiday and I hope you have fun too.  It would be great to hear if you spot any new local food in your own neck of the woods.

The only problem I think I'll have, with all the good food in Suffolk, it's not just my bin that I'll need to keep slim.  I've got a feeling that I'll need more exercise too.

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