The Rules

So it's been a busy week trying to get our house ready for the challenge to begin.

I had the dilemma of deciding whether or not any of the plastic or non-recyclable materials we currently have before the challenge contributes to our total at the end of the 6 months - e.g. a bag of rice we already have in our pantry but will use within the next 6 months. To try and make it as fair of a challenge as possible I have bought glass and metal storage containers and transferred our open packets of food or baking ingredients into them, any unopened products I have donated to the food bank. In future I will buy these items in bulk or in recyclable containers or we will go without. Anything I haven't been able to transfer over or use before next Monday and we use it in the next 6 months will be counted in our total rubbish. 

I would like to point out that we are also trying to buy organic food as much as possible and I am unable to find any organic meat that is packaged in anything recyclable and our local butcher doesn't sell organic meat. I don't generally eat meat and Josh is happy with 4-5 vegetarian meals a week but we will continue to buy organic meat that is unfortunately packaged in plastic until I can find another alternative. If suitable, the packaging will be cleaned and put into our bucket, otherwise it will be put into landfill.

Whilst we won't personally be buying non-recyclable products, if someone gives us something wrapped in something we can't re-use or recycle, we won't be rude and not accept it! We will also add this to our bucket. In saying this, I won't persuade or ask people to buy us these things as a way of cheating!

Medical rubbish is another area we are willing to not cut back on i.e. pill packets and plasters. Also our cats are not required to adhere to the rules of the challenge as I feel that de-fleaing them monthly is necessary and due to the fact that I have a cat who gets beaten up too often I will still use throwaway gauze to clean him up. Their cat food however does come in recyclable tins and I have just found one brand of cat biscuits with a recyclable box (Purina) and biscuits are also available in bulk at a wonderful new store in Paraparaumu I have discovered called Bin Inn - see their Facebook page here

Any rubbish that we get in the next 6 months will be cleaned and stored in a bucket and I will post regular photos to show you (hopefully) how little rubbish we actually have! The challenge will officially begin next Monday, the 21st of April, as this will give us enough time to ensure that everything is ready! I will do weekly posts, generally on a Monday, to update you all and share some handy tips.

Work recycling out for curbside collection today

On another note,  yesterday I emptied four days worth of recycling out of the bin at work and got 12.6kg worth! That is a huge improvement and I'm so happy! I've noticed that my eco-friendly ways are starting to wear off on my co-workers and a few are telling me of ways they have improved at home :)