Weekly Weigh In 29

This weeks landfill bag weighed in at 269g.

I'm not too concerned with this being over as I had gone round the bit bins upstairs, and we had a toothpaste tube.

I also cleaned out mine and Dave's washbags, which get used if we have an overnight stay anywhere, we needed toothpaste and rather than trail to the shop I thought there was a tube in there.
Found silly things like blister pack from paracetamol, a couple of dead disposable razors, all of which add to the total weight, but are not a weekly occurance.

Even with the total creeping up we are still only averaging 250g per week so far this year.

Washiing Liquid

I have been reading over at http://savingsnow.blogspot.com/

and found this recipe for a washing liquid which contains only natural ingredients.

I will be giving this a whirl in the next couple of weeks as although I don't use much washing powder and then only for dirty/smelly items this will be better.

HOMEMADE LAUNDRY LIQUID•
1 x bar of pure soap•
1 x saucepan {an old one if you have it}•
1 x cup soda crystals•
1/2 cup borax•
0.5 litre + 5 litres water•
1 x large plastic clean bucket•
wooden or steel spoon

I use the American cup for measuring as I find it easier.

Method:
Grate soap with a cheese grater & place in the saucepan with the ½ litre of water.
Heat this while stirring until soap dissolves.
Take saucepan off the heat.
Fill bucket with the 5 litres of water.
Add soda crystals & stir until dissolved.
Then add soap mixture from saucepan & stir until fully dissolved.
This will thicken as it cools -
Adding some essential oil makes a nice scent.
Add more or less water depending on the consistency desired then transfer liquid into bottles using a funnel.
Use one cup per wash.

Note: this liquid does NOT make suds. It has no foaming agent that is usually added to commercial liquids. Despite this it’s an excellent “green” cleaner that contains no phosphates.
Takes about 30 mins to make 10 pints.Cost approx £0.49 pence per batch.

Weekly Weigh In 28

This weeks landfill bag weighs in at 147g.

Again this is very good as we have had packups this weekend for football tournaments.

And even though we had a KFC takeaway last night it was ZW packaging/all recyclable.

They have changed the packaging for some items, so now it was all paper/cardboard based stating on it that it is recyclable, just got 1 carrier bag which I will reuse anyway.

Weekly Weigh In 27

Not quite sure how we've managed this one but the landfill bag only weighed 148g this week.

This is quite remarkable considering that we had a whole load of Tom's friends round on Saturday.

Next week will be the first of a few telling weeks as the boys are on school holidays from the weekend.

Weekly Weigh In 26

The landfill bag weighed in at 189g this week.

This week has seen a few things used up from the freezer which were in landfill wrappers; all I hasten to add bought before I got really into looking at all packaging with a microscope and deciding whether or not to buy said product.

There are still certain items which I can't find a suitable (choice/cost) alternative for and for now these will just have to be put into landfill as and when used.

I know others out there have children, so this not an excuse but it would be alot simpler if I didn't have to take their thoughts/choices into consideration; but then we as a family like our boys to make their own descisions about things.

David has still not eaten any crisps/quavers etc since New Years Day, I'm not really sure about the reasoning behind this descision, but for an 11 yr old who used to eat at least one if not two packets daily that is very good going. He hasn't seemed to miss them either.

School Trip

I'm not actually sure if this should be on here or my sister blog.

Anyway yesterday I went with the yr 4 students to our local Wildlife/Coastguard/RAF bombing range at Donna Nook.

The children were taught about beach safety by the coastguards, taken into the watch tower by the RAF and received a talk on the Coastal Environment by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

The third of the 3 concentrated on how litter and rubbish can affect the birds and sealife around the Lincolnshire Coast, including the Grey Seals who annually come to the beach at Donna Nook to give birth to their pups.

The speaker explained to the children how a waste balloon or carrier bag can look like a jellyfish from underneath and showed pictures of the effects from the animals eating such items.

He also showed items of litter he had picked up off the beach which had either sell by dates or competition dates on showing how old the plastic was, and explaining how even though there is information on the internet quoting that sweet and chocolate wrappers will disintegrate in 3-5 yrs he had some which were 15-20 years old. He then showed the children a washing up liquid bottle that he had picked up that morning which was priced marked in "old money (d)" so showing that this bottle was still around after at least 40 yrs.

Another aspect he touched on was how dogs running free on the beach had a detrimental effect on the sand and grassland nesting birds, frightening them away to the point that one area a little up the coast from there does not now have any birds nesting from those types.

Hopefully some of the information will have been taken in and will be remembered.