1000 Flowers for the Planet - #474 Remove Your Bin

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #474 Remove Your Bin

This idea is another challenge for you to try. It won’t hurt, but it will make you think. Remove your rubbish/trash bin from your kitchen and put it somewhere it can’t be used. This will force you to do two things. Firstly you will discover what you actually throw away because you’ll be standing there with it in your hand wondering what to do with it, and that will lead to the second task, which is to rethink how you deal with that waste. Imagine life without the garbage collectors – it would be quite dreadful if they didn’t show up every week to remove our rubbish. By removing your own bin and forcing yourself to think about your waste, you will discover a great deal about your family and your habits. You may find most of your waste is food and this may help you realise you’re serving portions that are too big or not planning meals very well. You may find most of your waste is foil wrappers from chip packets and lots of junk food. For my family it was foil coffee bag wrappers so we changed our habits and use a plunger instead. Imagine being able to live “zero waste” – there are people who manage this, and even if you can’t reduce your waste to zero, you’ll be making a huge contribution to the health of the planet by keeping stuff out of landfill. This could be a fun family experiment to help you achieve an important goal.