The Eco Worralls

Happy New Year!

We’re starting off this year with a surprising announcement from Perth and Kinross Council stating an annual charge of £25 is coming for our Brown Bin collection. Aside from general despair and the angry questioning of what exactly do we pay our Council Tax for? The sad fact is, there is nothing we can do so we might as well just get on with it. Embracing it at this juncture is too far; even for me!

We home compost all our kitchen food waste. We rarely throw leftover or waste food away so it’s mainly fruit and vegetable peelings and some loose tea and coffee grounds. We have 2 large composters in our garden which do us just nicely.

Garden waste however we do regularly fill our bin with. There are several trees that overhang into our garden and we routinely trim branches and into the bin they go. Same with the leaves and shrubs that shed like dog fur all down our wall. We have a high wall covered in ivy which we keep on top of along with general trimmings, clippings and tidying we do weekly with the kids.

Paying £25 for our bin to be collected is a cost well worth considering. I can think of plenty of things I would much rather spend that amount on! Frustratingly the Council are not encouraging home composting by offering any sort of discount on them. They sell them for £50 through their website which is a lot to pay out for something that will be filled completely in one season.

The Council has said that we can still take our waste to the local refuse and recycling centre so environmentally nothing has actually changed or improved with this additional fee, which is a little disappointing. Our local recycling centre has also stopped doing free mulch too, which means the Council are using it all plus charging us, which feels a little cheeky!

Our local waste and recycling centre is en route to the boy’s weekly swimming lesson. It’s no trouble at all to load the car up the night before and drop it all off on the way back. We immediately agreed this would be our new routine. I’m sure some weeks we’ll forget but the boy’s won’t be stopping their swimming lessons anytime soon so I’m sure it won’t take long to adjust.

I found myself mentally weighing up what £25 would get our household instead of a fortnightly bin collection; insulated Klean Kanteen for Mark, more reusable straws or snack bags, fabric to make reusable kitchen towels, ingredients to have a bash at making soap… literally everything I can think of is more desirable than our brown bin being collected!

One of our New Year Resolutions was to step up our eco friendly way of living. My favourite online shop Babipur have just published a great blog post on 10 ways each home can make small changes to reduce waste. It’s a great read and I was delighted to see we do every single one of them! You can find it here.

I’m making some more beeswax wraps today to use the last of my pellets, then I’m going to get some soya ones which will make them vegan and that wee bit friendlier to the planet. I’m also off hunting for paper cotton buds so I’m not partly responsible for iconic images like this; captured by Justin Hofman.

Small changes really do make a big difference. Here’s to a more eco friendly 2018.

Have you made any resolutions? I’d love to hear from you about new ways to improve our eco friendlier life!