British Parent Bloggers

Have you thought about putting your kids on a rubbish diet?

“What madness”” I can hear you shriek. “Why would I want to deliberately put my kids on a diet that’s full of junk?”

But this Rubbish Diet doesn’t offer your kids any old crud. Actually it’s the only rubbish diet from which they will come to benefit, learning positive things along the way and creating great foundations for the future.

The Rubbish Diet to which I refer is all about slimming your bin and reducing all the trash that ends up in landfill and that’s a great lesson to learn when children are young.

At the last count, the UK produced 22.6 millions of landfill waste in just one year. In the same period, Germany produced 10 million tonnes and that’s with a population that’s 25% larger than the UK. With the UK now creating the highest amount of landfill waste of all EU countries it is no surprise that our country is regarded as the “Dustbin of Europe.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the thought of charging my children or even their children with the responsibility of sorting this out. Something can be done about it now and managed alongside regular family life.

As you know, if you’ve got children, waste follows naturally (and I am not just talking nappies). There are all the leftovers that end up in the bin as slops, not to mention packaging from toys, as well as toys that break easily and are quickly discarded. It all amounts to way too much, especially where food waste is concerned. According to the website www.lovefoodhatewaste.com one third of food is thrown away, which is a shocking statistic, representing a terrible waste of money and I have most certainly contributed to this very big problem.

So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and have recently signed up to our local council’s Zero Waste Challenge and boy, it is a challenge. During the week 10th-17th March, the aim is to reduce our household landfill waste to nothing…yep, nothing!

Our family started out with 2-3 50litre bags of waste, which amounts to around 100-150 cubic litres of trash being sent to landfill every two weeks.

As a result of changing some simple habits over the last few weeks and discovering some fantastic waste reduction techniques, we have already reduced our impact on landfill by 50%.

Can you imagine if everyone did that! The beauty is that many people could do so much more. I am now hoping that my next “weigh-in” will see another major reduction.

So if you want to try to slim your own bin, one of the best ways is to engage your children from the very beginning. Let them be ambassadors of Zero Waste and do some of the hard work for you. If they need encouragement to get started, you could use a reward chart which come relevant treats.

Once you’ve got the buy-in from the little people, aside from the obvious tips such as using washable nappies, here are a few things that you could try.

Teach them the “Three Rs”

Your children will love this.

There is a great track by Jack Johnson, which is included on the Curious George Soundtrack Album. He sings about the Three Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

The song will probably get them dancing around the room and as they do so they will pick up a very important message that recycling should be the very last solution to waste management.

Click here to listen

Shopping with waste in mind

While out shopping, ask your children to look for alternative products that help reduce your packaging.

Give them the task of being bag monitors, making sure that they take along the reusable bags for you to use instead of using free carrier bags at the checkout.

Cooking with waste in mind

I know it’s risky, but ask your children what they like to eat. Be trustful that they will include some healthy options and feed them what they eat (with due caution to ensure a healthy diet).

We all know that children can be fickle eaters, so try reducing their portions so that don’t leave so much on the plate.

No-Waste Packed Lunches

If your child has packed lunches, make sure that you pack the food in reusable containers. Try to avoid cling-film, which can only be binned and sent to landfill. At least tin foil can be washed and recycled.

Reducing Food Waste through Composting

If tackling food portions doesn’t resolve things, there are options out there to manage the food waste without sending it to landfill.

A simple compost bin will take vegetable peelings and fruit waste. If your problem is more than that and you are discarding pasta, rice or cooked foods, invest in a wormery, as worms just love to munch on our vegetarian waste food. Worms also provide great entertainment for some children, but be warned if your kids are the slightest bit squeamish as you’ll have to feed them yourself.

However, if you regularly throw away cooked meat or fish you can’t use a wormery for this and you will need to consider alternative options, such as a Bokashi kitchen composter. This is great for all food waste as you simply drop the scraps into what looks like a pedal bin and then cover it with a layer of bran that has been injected with Micro-organisms. Keep layering in this way and when the bin is full, you just leave it for a couple of weeks to ferment down. The end product can be placed in the wormery, compost bin or even dug into the garden.

There is also another composting system, which is called a Green Cone, which is installed into the garden and can accept most forms of food waste, including meat products. It can even be used to dispose of pet waste.

Buying gifts with waste in mind

If you are buying presents for birthday parties etc, look out for toys that have very little packaging. There are so many items in the shops that are over-packaged. If you choose books as presents, what could be better as there’s no packaging involved at all.

Get your school involved

If you are enthusiastic about reducing landfill waste, you’ll be able to share your enthusiasm with your school and get the children involved in challenges for Healthy Schools or Eco Schools initiatives.

Our local primary school is supporting the local Zero Waste Week campaign. We are currently planning a sponsored Zero Waste lunch. All funds raised will be directed towards sustainable products such as wormeries, which have both practical and educational value.

If the concept of The Rubbish Diet has encouraged you to think about what your family can do to slim down your own bins, I would love to hear from you. Even better, it would be wonderful if you could inspire others out there to do the same.
Any comments or queries can be emailed to enquiries@therubbishdiet.co.uk

Karen Cannard is the author of The Rubbish Diet blog. Follow her progress to see if she can slim her bin in time for her local Zero Waste Week which starts on 10 March 2008. www.therubbishdiet.blogspot.com. All hints and tips from those with more experience will be gratefully received.