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VikEvans

Listed below are comments made by VikEvans between Wednesday, 27th August 2008 and Thursday, 28th August 2008.

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Aisle be there 7:43pm on 28 Aug 2008 #88 johnhcrf

Like the idea of raised beds - reckon what I need to do is have a damn good dig out of the current bed, ditch the damaged trees and shrubs, and then dig in the compost I have got festering .. then add to it each year to grtadually raise it up. Blimey, I almost feel like a proper country girl just thinking about it (been living too long in a city yo uknow).

I'm running for a military support organisation next week :0) dunno if I am alllowed to name names but its the yellow ribbon foundation. All good fun, especially meeting likeminded people on the route round Hyde Park, and hearing their stories of why they are supporting their particular causes. A realy honest to goodness feelgood day!
Aisle be there 5:43pm on 28 Aug 2008 Peter_Sym ... I am rofl at the thought of disposing of a body in a coposting bin now :0) Blimey, will they put that into a storyline in CSI you reckon?

Certainly puts the whole composting issue into a new light for me if they can achieve that kind of decomp if the conditions are right. Very impressive.

johnhcrf ... thanks for that information and advice. I have got 2 flower beds in my garden - one is dedicated to growing wild flowers so as to attract the butterflies and bees. It was badly overgrown when we moved in so I cleared it out but kept it as a wild corner of the garden - and my cat is providing compost as he was buried there 18 mths ago.

The other bed is a mess. The soil sint very good, not brilliantly deep and it has a few ragged small trees there which I am in the process of chopping down and ripping out so that I can make the bed more productive. Growing veg is something I want to do, but need the kick up the bum to get it sorted once and for all.

I shall give the composter a last chance, because its a shame to get rid when its already there in place. One would be enough for the amount of beds I have anyway :0)
London bans plastic water bottles 5:37pm on 28 Aug 2008 I will be doing a 5km fun run on Sunday 7th Sept at Hyde Park and the amount of waste produced by competitors throwing their water bottles on the ground is sickening.

Why they cannot place bins around the place for the run I do not know. I understand that for a professional athlete its not possible to slow down to put rubbish in a bin, but out of the 20,000 who will be taking part next week there are roughly 10% of them who fall into that category.

The rest of them are people like myself - out to have a giggle, raise some money for good causes. And to be honest there is NO excuse for any of us to be so dirty by throwing our litter on the ground.

Its the one thing that ruins events like this for me :0(
Aisle be there 3:50pm on 28 Aug 2008 #73 ... I have a composter and its terrible! I have tried to follow the directions to the letter regards composting stuff down, but it seems to take well over a year to get anything remotely like stuff I can put on my limited garden space.

So the composter just sits there festering until I can once and for all empty it and give it to someone who may have better luck :0(

The other problem is that not all food waste can go into a composter anyway - there are many things that are not suitable for it such as meats. I am not inclined to put this out in my garden as if I do not only will that encourage half the neighbourhood cats to come in and terrorise my 2 mogs, but I dont want foxes or rats either thanks.

I have found that my wheelie bin only needs emptying fortnightly and could go for 3 weeks without being emptied - not bad going for a family of 5 where the youngest is 8 yrs old! I dont tend to leave it longer than 2 weeks though as I dont want it smelling bad.
Aisle be there 12:53pm on 28 Aug 2008 It's not that hard to achieve when so much of the waste I have is packaging!

The bits that do go into my dustbin are food, things like the juice cartons which are not recyclable in our area, polystyrene and that sort of thing.

We can ask for extra recycle bins with well sealing lids here in West Oxon - took about 4 days from requesting via their website to delivery which is brilliant. I now have 5 large recycle boxes so that I can ensure I have no excuse not to have somewhere for my family to put the recyclable stufs.

My family are also trained well to put all glass, can, paper and plastic in those boxes. To the extent that I told them if the council find recyclable stuff in the wheelie bin we will be fined over £100 ... yeah okay, its something some councils are threatening but not yet into effect, but heck it worked!! Even my notoriously lazy husband automatically goes to the recycle box and not the bin :0)

We have a good local council here when it comes to recycling - they even offer a garden waste collection facility which you pay about £35 a year to opt into, buts its been so popular they cant take anymore people on it for a while.
Aisle be there 11:55am on 28 Aug 2008 #46

I have checked with the West Oxfordshire District Council website and this is what they can and cannot take in the recycling regards plastics:

Carrier Bags, plastic bottles (squashed down please), plastic containers, yoghurt pots.

CANNOT take any polystyrene.

So all my plastic stuff is fine to put together in the recycle bin :0)

Also they ask that where you contain recyclable items in plastic carrier bags, please make sure it is ONE type of material in the bag (eg not paper and plastics together) and leave it untied or so that they can easily get to the contents to check that it is all suitable.

In 2 and a half yrs I have not had any of the bin men tell me that the plastics I put out for recycling are NOT compatible, or that I need to break down the types further.

Perhaps I happen to have a council who are encouraging people to put more into the recycling boxes than their dustbins, by making it far less confusing over which things we can and cannot put in?

Certainly makes it easier for me to ensure that 75% of my household waste goes for recycling, that's for sure.
Aisle be there 8:31pm on 27 Aug 2008 #39

To reduce wasteful packaging even more, why not just buy a washing powder that comes with built in fabric softners like BOld or supermarket own brands?

No need to buy that seperate concentrated softener, therefore no plastic bottle in your recycle bin :0)
In the bathroom cabinet 6:48pm on 27 Aug 2008 #33 theoriginalmrsgreen

Thanks for that info on the cellophane that Lush use. Very helpful :0)
Aisle be there 6:44pm on 27 Aug 2008 The only containers I rinse out are the ones that have had food in them that sticks - sauces, catfood, beans. If I dont then I will end up with a seriously stinky mouldly recycle bin and frankly I dont want that!

I also tend to rinse off yoghurt pots and milk cartons for the same reason (sour milk smell literally makes me heave). But I dont clean anything else - beer cans, wine bottles, the packaging from a joint because I just dont see a need to do so, they wont stink the place out in the few days (week at most) that they are in the recycle bin.

The council havent stopped taking my rubbish - they havent made any mention to us that all recyclable stuffs have to be clean for that matter.

I also do not seperate my plastics into what can and cannot be recycled. I havent got a ruddy clue which ones cant be - frankly that aint my job and so I put ALL plastics into the recycle bin. All neatly bagged up in one of the biodegradeable carrier bags that are kept for that exact purpose - so that my rubbish isnt going to end up strewn across the estate.

Been here 2 and a half years now and not had the bin men complain once about my recycleable rubbish not being how it should be so I think some councils in the UK are just being picky for no good reason.

Just out of interest - does anyone have a recycling collection each week that also includes clothes? West Oxfordshire does and its fantastic :0)
In the bathroom cabinet 07:55am on 27 Aug 2008 The only complaint I have about Lush - even though I think they are the best smellies shop around - is that they tend to giftwrap their special occasion items in cellophane.

Which kinda defeats the object of them being eco-frindly LOL.

Mind you, its a small blip but even then one that still gives me the means to reuse over and again the packaging.

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