Bags of bags in bags and even more bags!

Geez, being a trolley pulling reusable bag carrying veteran, I'd forgotten how many plastic bags could potentially come with a weekly shop.

But look! Here's my latest shopping that arrived home today from the supermarket! And just look at those bags. There are blimmin' lots of them!

But as you can probably guess, it wasn't me doing the shopping today. This isn't how my shopping looks when I normally bring it through the door. For the first time in absolutely yonks I'd ordered my groceries online, thanks to my car being immobile and needing an urgent mega top-up of stuff. I would have normally gone on the bus, but I've also been too busy of late to make regular trips into town.

Ordering online may have been convenient but it meant there was no escape from the plazzie bag and its many friends, which is utterly ironic because only ten minutes before the delivery van arrived, I'd got a call from BBC Three Counties Radio to appear on the JVS show later to discuss the topic of carrier bags. Timing is everything, wouldn't you say!

A few years ago I wouldn't have given this picture a second thought, but these days I look at the amount of plastic and think, what a potential waste! And there were even more bags than you see here, but I'd quickly unpacked them and gave them back to the driver along with a bag full of plastic packaging I'd been collecting for recycling.

At least these bags are in good hands. It's not quite the end of their life just yet. Many people would just throw them in the bin, where they would take decades to break down in landfill, not to mention those that get blown away and harm wildlife. However these will be reused as bin bags for all the plastic film packaging that I'll collect over the year and each month will be recycled together with the contents. I guess they'll probably come back as plastic lumber or something similar!

But plastic bags aren't the only problem when it comes to the amount of rubbish that gets generated by shopping. There's so much other rubbish that a trip to the supermarket can create too. So if you'd like to find out more about what else you can do to reduce waste, be sure to check out my latest guide for Week 2 of The Rubbish Diet challenge, which was published online just yesterday.

And if you really need some extra help with remembering to take your reusable bags to the shops, take a look at the YouTube video below featuring Dave Chameides from 365 Days of Trash. Email subscribers can find the link directly to the video here.



More advice is also available in Dave's article, that accompanies his video, entitled Plastic Bags: Stop being part of the problem.

And the good news is, after this tiny blip in usual proceedings, I will be back to the shops next week with more reusable bags than you can shake a stick at!
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Thanks to Stephanie of @Facing_South on Twitter for sharing the link to Dave Chameides' article. And if you're interested in further discussons on plastic bags, listen into BBC Three Counties Radio today (19th Jan) between 1-2pm where JVS will be discussing this very topic on his show.
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A glamorous side to recycling

Writing about rubbish may give the impression that I'm always knee deep in trash, washing out containers here, composting there and sorting out maggots.

Well yes, life is often spent washing out another tin of cat food or dropping off stuff at the recycling centre, which is why I feel it is really important to take a morning off, glam up and spend some time on little indulgences. So now and again I get out of the house and meet up with my writing partner in crime, the young Ruby of the Living in Bury St Edmunds blog.

Once a week, we make ourselves comfortable in the lounge at the very glamorous Angel Hotel and over a coffee we talk rubbish and explore other ideas that take our fancy. She gets on with her writing projects and I get on with mine. Sometimes we even get entertained by the appearance of The Angel's very own recycling bin being wheeled out to the back door.

But yesterday was even more special. Just before I was due to meet Ruby at The Angel, I received a call from BBC Three Counties Radio, inviting me to appear on the JVS show to discuss the idea of financial incentives for recycling.

How glamorous is that? A live radio interview from the lounge at The Angel hotel.

A chance to comment on the Shadow Chancellor's plans to pay people to recycle...A chance to say that it was good news but shouldn't be seen as a "one size fits all solution"... A chance to remind that it shouldn't just be us consumers that need sorting, but the top of the food chain needs addressing too.....like do we really need all those overpackaged multipacks?

Anyway, I quickly discovered that my mobile connection in The Angel wasn't good enough for radio and spent the next twenty minutes hunting down a quiet corner with a great mobile reception...but with very little success. So the only other option was to head out in the rain to track down somewhere quiet in the centre of Bury St Edmunds. Somewhere peaceful on market day is a pretty big challenge.

After a not-so-glamorous run in the rain I finally arrived at the most wonderful Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, where as a member I regularly enjoy their quiet space. That would be a great location for the interview I thought, set against the backdrop of the Suffolk Showcase exhibition. And my phone was showing 5 bars...excellent! Another glam location for my glamorous day.




The Art Gallery Director was kind enough to help me in my urgent quest for a quiet spot. However, the gallery was far too lively with the lovely music playing in the background. That wouldn't do for radio.

So I was kindly offered the meeting room and I was very grateful to her for helping me.

I got the call from the radio station.

And I said my piece...

....from the little meeting room, which was very fitting indeed, not just because it was private and quiet...

...but because the room itself had been recycled.

Yes... it used to be the gentlemen's lavatory and even though everything else has been removed, the old hand basin is still intact.

So if you get a chance to listen into yesterday's Jonathan Vernon Smith show on BBC Three Counties Radio (about 22 minutes in), you'll now be able to picture the scene.

And eh...if the Tories do actually pay me for my recycling efforts, that would at least cover my coffee expenses at The Angel for a few years to come. You never know, I may even be able to afford a regular lunch.

Now how glam would that be?

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The person behind the voice: Jenny from Bletchley

If you were listening into the JVS show on Three Counties Radio last Thursday, you would have heard me chatting briefly with caller Jenny about her rubbish.

Jenny had phoned in to tell presenter Jonathan Vernon-Smith that her solution to the problem of over-packaging is to unwrap it and leave it at the supermarket. She relayed it with such great humour, I was disappointed when our 5 minutes airtime was up.

I knew I could have talked rubbish with her for much longer. Her character was compelling.

So, I decided to catch up with her off-air and I guess it’ll be of no surprise that we had a good old gasbag for an hour.

Jenny, soon to be 60, is widowed and lives on her own. She describes herself as an ordinary, everyday person, who is just happy in her own company, pottering around and enjoying her retirement.

I asked her why she decided to call into the radio station and this is her reply:

“Once you’re conscious of things like rubbish and you see how easy it is to make the change within yourself, you get drawn to what others are doing. When I heard Jonathan talking about the supermarket and the wrappers, I didn’t give it a second thought, I just rang up to tell them what I do with my wrappings. I was surprised when the producer Laura said she’d put me on air”.

As Jenny laughs about her actions, it becomes obvious that she is a do-er with a great sense of humour and is someone who is happy to stand up and be counted.

“Instead of just moaning to myself or my friends I take action,” she chuckles.

“When walking along my local high street, a couple of months ago, on a cold winter’s day, I passed what might be regarded as the top greetings card shop in the country, with its doors wide open. How ignorant I thought, to have the doors wide open, with full heating on, blasting all that hot air out into the street.”

“When I approached the manager and suggested how wasteful it was, she looked at me as though I was from another planet and said, ‘it’s shop policy’… ‘Doors open mean the shop’s open, doors closed means the shop’s closed.’”

“So I took it upon myself to remark loudly that it was very short-sighted of other customers not to have said something about it, after all we are the ones who are going to pay for this waste of energy the next time they put the price of the cards up.”

Jenny may appear to be an activist, but she is just an average person who has perhaps found her inner rebel and now has the confidence to do something about it.

When I asked her about her rubbish and recycling, she said that it’s only in the last couple of years that she’s paid particular attention to it, recalling that it must have been 10 years ago that her area was issued with recycling bins to sort out paper and tins.

These days, her area has pink bags for things like newspapers, cardboard and packaging and a black bin for landfill waste. Through choosing products carefully and taking recyclables back to the local supermarket facilities, Jenny’s landfill binbag remains quite small and she only needs to put it out every three weeks, despite a weekly collection.

However Jenny acknowledges difficulties with the current system. “When the council changes its contracted services, it can get quite complicated for residents while everyone tries to get used to it.”

She also believes that more could be done to encourage people to recycle more and comments,

“The local supermarket car park has some recycling facilities, which I use for the few tins I buy, but there could be more facilities available.”

At this point she happens to reflect on society in general and adds, “It’s also about getting people to have new thought patterns.”

“For example, I’ll take some rolled up bags to the shops and often people look at me strangely.”

“Some of my peer group just think I’m making a fuss and sometimes say I should get a life. I just tell them that perhaps they should stop rushing around so much and start thinking about other things that are important”.

I bet some of my own friends probably think the same about me and the various habits that I've developed over the last few months.

During our short chat, I quickly decided that I really liked Jenny's gumption and admired her approach. She doesn't have access to the Internet, but she did write down the address of this blog. So if any of Jenny's friends or relatives are reading, please give her a big high-five from me and thank her for agreeing to be featured.

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The day I baked an apple pie

Yesterday, I woke up with a real desire for apple pie.

Why? I don't know!

I just wanted apple pie.

More curiouser...I felt the urge to make one.

The old me would have just gone out and bought one, but for my alter-ego, aka Almost Mrs Average, who has this thing about packaging and all that, this option is now generally a no-no!

Of course, it's pretty easy to get ready-made pastry these days and this has been a popular addition to my shopping basket over the years.

But yesterday, I took a step back in time and recalled the days when I used to make my own pastry.

The last time was circa 1988 when I was a student on a grant in Nottingham, with £2500 annual income to support me for the whole year. Back then I used to be able to cook up a mean apple pie to share with my friends.

So what happened?

I suppose things have got in the way of my appley pie delights...work, cheap supermarket deals, more disposable cash, kids and generally less time on my hands. When you think about my love of blogging as well as my regular dose of Corrie, I generally don't have the hour or so needed to dedicate to regularly making pies.

...but that's where I've been foiled. My poor memory must have got the better of me, darn it.

An hour...where did I get that from? Of course it doesn't take that long!

Yesterday I grabbed the flour, butter and lard, rubbed it into crumbs and bound it together with some water and within 10 minutes I had some pastry.

After leaving it to chill in the fridge, I rolled it out and shaped it into the pie dish, added the chopped apples and then bunged it in the oven for 50 minutes.

And there it was...a delicious apple pie, which required only about 20 minutes effort.

I am glad to have rediscovered the ease of home-made pastry. For something that seems to carry a veil of mystery, it really was that easy. It's almost like unpicking an illusion and discovering the reality that hides within.

I think only time will tell whether I' m a real convert or whether it's just a temporary blip of enthusiasm, but I'm pretty confident that there will be a few more pies in the Almost Average Household from now on!

The other big news today is that Almost Mrs Average is stepping out of Suffolk...well only for 5 minutes...when I "nip" over the border to Beds, Bucks and Herts!

If you tune into BBC Three Counties Radio at about 12.15, you may be able to hear me talking to presenter Jonathan Vernon-Smith about my rubbish, or rather the lack of it. So to any listeners who are visiting the blog as a result, may I extend a very warm welcome and thank you for listening to my rambles.

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