Introduction

In the last few years we have been pushed to thinking more about how we can reduce our waste and stop polluting the planet. In fact, since the coronavirus in particular, it is even more important to reduce waste because of the lack of availability of certain products, the need for fewer shops and social contact, and the ability to get food and groceries while self-isolating.

For me there have in the past been a number of stepping stones that have made reducing waste a more important thing to be incorporated into my lifestyle, including the following:

  • TV programmes like Hugh’s War on Waste and Jamie and Jimmy’s Food Waste Fight
  • The Blue Planet series by David Attenborough
  • Videos shared on Facebook and other platforms that show plastic polluting seas and rivers
We need to cut down on plastic waste among other things.

The truth is that I have always hated waste, maybe it was how I was brought up. The old line of eat your dinner as there are starving children in Africa who would love to have it perhaps got to me somehow and I have never in particular like to waste food.

I think one problem we had growing up though was that we never really saw where the waste went and so it didn’t really get to us when we were younger. But now with the advent of social media and the internet in general, the whole world and what is happening in it, is right there on our screens.

Like many people I welcomed the introduction of the 5p charge on plastic bags in shops. It seems to me that we had just become lazy by buying bags every time we went shopping. To be fair I did always reuse the plastic bags that I bought but now it seems that having ‘bags for life’ is something we should have done much sooner and once you get into the habit of it, is really not that difficult to do!

So, I created this website for a number of reasons – firstly, it is here to document how I manage to reduce my waste and any tips and tricks I learn along the way. Secondly, I thought by creating this website it would give me more impetus to do more in terms of reducing waste and recycling and also to investigate more about what happens to waste. Thirdly, and for transparency, I create websites for a living and I earn money from them for my everyday bills etc. So you may see links to products (but only ones that I can vouch for) where I might earn a commission if anyone buys something. You can find more details about that in my terms of service.