Talking Rubbish

I've just been reminded by Joyce that back on 15 February I started to consider what 'Living Faith' means. I liked her definition: it's a kind of "living mindfully".

Unfortunately I went down with that bug a little while after that and I've only recently stopped feeling so ridiculously tired. So most of Lent has passed me by and I have not reflected much on which of my uncompassionate ways I need to change or had the energy to change very much.

One thing we did decide to try to change for Lent was the use of plastic bags to line our kitchen bin. My bright idea was that we could wash out the plastic inner bin regularly and so not need a bag inside it. The flaw in this thinking became apparent when hubby put some fish skins in the bin overnight and I was too tired to clean it for a few days. The better thing would be to wrap any wet and potentially smelly items in newspaper, or put them in one of the many plastic bags we find we throw away anyway when we've finished the contents and put the item straight in the outside bin.

Alternatively you could use a corn starch bag, but this means maize is being grown to collect our rubbish rather than to feed any person or animal. The degradable plastic bags, of which I have a few to use up, simply break into little bits of plastic which can be swallowed by animals and cause other harm to the environment.

Another option is to cut your waste right back to absolutely nothing, which has been the aim of Almost Mrs Average who has been on Woman's Hour this week talking about her 'Rubbish Diet'. I'm planning to keep reading it to discover some useful tips, although I don't think she has a teenage son who buys lots of heavily packaged fruit going cheap in the supermarket he works in and other such delights to make sure the bin doesn't go hungry.