Practical tips for environmentally responsible and cheaper living

[MertzMan]

Whilst the legality is questionable, morally I don't see a problem with what I am to suggest but in the past two years I have been eating almost exclusively from the throw away bins at the back of supermarkets.

Everything is thrown out into separate food only bins and has been there for an hour or so by the time I get to it. Half the time it's still in date and everything is still factory sealed and ready to go. Saves it going to landfill and I recycle all the packaging where I can afterwards too. Plus I've never been ill from anything I've eaten, just common sense as to what is good and what is not. I regularly eat meat from there too with no issues.

 

[Huon]

Whilst the legality is questionable, morally I don't see a problem with what I am to suggest but in the past two years I have been eating almost exclusively from the throw away bins at the back of supermarkets.

Everything is thrown out into separate food only bins and has been there for an hour or so by the time I get to it. Half the time it's still in date and everything is still factory sealed and ready to go. Saves it going to landfill and I recycle all the packaging where I can afterwards too. Plus I've never been ill from anything I've eaten, just common sense as to what is good and what is not. I regularly eat meat from there too with no issues.

Morally I think you are correct but legally you probably need to be careful. I believe it is still classed as theft if you take things from supermarket bins and people have got into trouble for this before now.

 

[MertzMan]

Morally I think you are correct but legally you probably need to be careful. I believe it is still classed as theft if you take things from supermarket bins and people have got into trouble for this before now.

There must be a better, way, such as supermarkets redistributing it to soup kitchens, charities or community events... Failing that, permission of the supermarket, but that seems unlikely.

 

[Huon]

There must be a better, way, such as supermarkets redistributing it to soup kitchens, charities or community events... Failing that, permission of the supermarket, but that seems unlikely.

There's quite a bit of information out there on this. I think some charities have set up arrangements where binned supermarket food is redistributed but to do that they must have got over the legal objections. The worry for the supermarket's part appears to be that they could be sued if they redistribute food due to be binned and someone gets ill as a result.

It does seem rather a shame but there you have it.

 

[Huon]

There must be a better, way, such as supermarkets redistributing it to soup kitchens, charities or community events... Failing that, permission of the supermarket, but that seems unlikely.

Try googling Approved Food. They have a website where food that is close to or past its use by date and would normally be binned is sold.

 

[dave89]

Keep a jug og water on the kitchen side that way the kettle only has to heat it from room temperture to boiling.

 

[daveO]

Learning some basic food preservation tips and how to use leftovers really helps too. For example every now and then I go to Asda and there will be a trolley full of cucumbers reduced to 3 or 4p each. Now I have jars full of pickled cucumber. It doesn't last that long but that's mostly because it's so nice it gets eaten quickly.

 

[Swallow]

Small tip : If making your own draft excluders for internal doors, you can fix them by taking drawing pins to fix paper clips to the bottom of the door. It must be the inner "ring" of the paper clip that is available to tie to. I discovered this after taking a step back when the drawing pins on their own had failed for some tim.

Draft excluder can be made of a tube of material stuffed with just about anything or could just be a roll of something. If necessary make it look chic by using ribbon as the fixing material.

if you have old toilets (9 or 7 litre) this may work but a modern toilet only has 6 litres for a 'full' flush. if you reduce this it may not be able to flush away your deposits and you will need to flush again wasting water.

How much power have flushes lost because the tank is not up high like it used to be?

 

[ganstey]

Small tip : How much power have flushes lost because the tank is not up high like it used to be?

I'm convinced that my toilet bowl was designed to be used with a high-level cistern, despite the low-level matching one its had since installation some 40 or so years ago. Which leads to a(n off-topic) pet peeve of mine: Why are toilet bowls designed so that the main water power is directed at the front of the bowl rather than the rear?

A friend of mine often buys stuff from Approved Foods, but for some reason I've never got round to doing it myself. Time for a quick look...

 

[The Lord Poncho]

My top tip, don't be suckered into buying hybrid, or even worse, electric cars from the marketing and government hype. They are usually more damaging to the environment than a sensible and efficient normal engined car, or even a much older less efficient car when you think about the embodied energy over the life cycle of the vehicle. And on a very basic level, use old things! The embodied energy in items can be very high (think energy to collect the materials, assemble/produce, distribute) - and by eeking out the life of objects by repairing or just looking after them, you will be making a real difference.

And moving on from my point about the cars, don't blindly accept that doing certain things makes you green. These days the environment is used as a powerful marketing tool by companies, and as a powerful persuasive tool by governments. Case in point - recycling. Recycling some (certainly not all) materials can be more harmful to the planet than incinerating or even landfilling them.

 

[ganstey]

Recycling some (certainly not all) materials can be more harmful to the planet than incinerating or even landfilling them.

Could you provide some examples, together with details of where I can find the raw data? I'm doing an Environmental Science degree and it would be an interesting topic of discussion.

 

[The Lord Poncho]

Could you provide some examples, together with details of where I can find the raw data? I'm doing an Environmental Science degree and it would be an interesting topic of discussion.

Paper and glass being the chief suspects, and examples where the raw product (wood - can be from sustainably managed forests - i.e. a carbon sequestration resource; sand - somewhat plentiful) is not a desperately finite resource. In the case of paper, the energy used to collect, store, collect again, clean (bleach/other harmful products +lots of water), process (energy), redistribute. can be more than raw paper depending where you are in the country. In addition, you have to remember than most of our paper is baled at a MRF, and exported to china or india (think of the energy used in that), supposedly for recycling, but in actual fact, a lot of it gets dumped as it is uneconomical for them to recycle it out there, their environmental controls are lacking, as is the chain of custody from the UK. And guess what, it isn't dumped in a nicely constructed landfill unlike the current standard int he UK either.... There have been several instances of the Env Agency boarding ships to sieze these bales of recyclables for the reasons of unknown export, but also because they often contain a lot of other waste products within them - i.e. they are poorly sorted and exporting waste is illegal. Glass is similar - energy to collect from the user, store, sort, wash, crush, transport, turn in to a new product is usually more than sourcing virgin. With the modern standard of landfills these days, landfilling is not an environmental issue, it is a logistics problem.

There are always exceptions however - and often the trick being the use of these products in suitably low grade end uses close to the generation of the waste - so that the distribution and processing of the recyclable embodies as little energy and other resources as possible. No sources I'm afraid, other than my own experience of having worked in the environmental industry for a few years now.

 

[northumbrian]

That was indeed tip number two from me Stuart

So tip Number 2

Prepare meals in bulk. Its more efficient in terms of cooking energy, cooking time and cost. They can then be lobbed in the oven for a simple evening meal


Cottage Pie by British Red, on Flickr

going off topic here a little, can i ask you a quick question Red ?
this photo inspired me to knock up a batch of cauliflower cheese and ive put them in tin foil trays like yours with the foil lid on, and put em in the freezer.
could you tell me how long and which gas mark to use to cook them from frozen.

cheers andrew.

 

[daveO]

Red did a really good thread about cheap meals with some great recipes and I can't find it to bump it up. Does anyone have a link to it?

 

[British Red]

going off topic here a little, can i ask you a quick question Red ?
this photo inspired me to knock up a batch of cauliflower cheese and ive put them in tin foil trays like yours with the foil lid on, and put em in the freezer.
could you tell me how long and which gas mark to use to cook them from frozen.

cheers andrew.

Gas 4 for an hour to defrost then half an hour at 6 to heat through should do it

 

[British Red]

Red did a really good thread about cheap meals with some great recipes and I can't find it to bump it up. Does anyone have a link to it?

I remember the thread Dave - wasn't started by me though...it was a good thread

 

[daveO]

Ah maybe that's why I can't find it...

 

[northumbrian]

Gas 4 for an hour to defrost then half an hour at 6 to heat through should do it

cheers Red.

 

[Biker]

One thing I have found since my partner and I broke up last year is that shopping in places like Netto, Lidl or Aldi often works out a helluva lot cheaper than buying the same stuff in the local Intermarché or Leclerc (two big supermarket chains here in France). She wasn't interested in "slumming it" in such places. She'd buy all our fresh fruit and veg from the locally grown farmers produce from the market thought. But when you just want a tin of plum tomatoes or a carton of milk it works out cheaper to go elsewhere than the big branded supermarkets.

Just a thought.

One thing I haven't succumbed to buying though is the top budget stuff, like the equivalent to Tesco's stripy gear. There are standards I won't lower myself to. Call me a prude.

 

[Stew]

Oats in your mince dish. (Bolognaise, Chilli, etc)

It was a suggestion someone put on BB as something they do so I decided to try it without telling the missus. She didn't notice.

Adds more bulk for a cheaper cost, still something 'good' to eat. I managed to get an extra 2 adult and 2 kids portions than I normally would out of the last chilli I cooked from adding oats.