RRRRRR

me when I had hair…. dog hair, in fact!

Well, it’s a sort of Recycling, I guess…   The kids thought they would reverse age’s tendency to remove hair from my head, so they dutifully combed one red and one white Golden Retriever, took the hair and made me a wig (a very itchy one at that – I hate to think why!!).

So what does all that fun have to do with the Rrrrrs in the title?  Well, Bea Johnson got me thinking: she of the Zero Waste Home movement.   Her book is, to put it mildly, a challenge to all of us who want to do three things:

1. Simplify our lives and de-clutter
2. Save money
3. Save the planet

[Interesting aside – she starts with Rs and now I’m subconsciously doing a list of Ss]….  Back to the Rs, then….

On page 15 of her book ‘Zero Waste Home – The Ultimate Guide to Simplifying your Life by  Reducing your Waste’ (Publisher: ‘Scribner’, 2013), she introduces the idea of a logical sequence of actions:

1. Refuse –> refuse publicity, products, packaging & non-recyclables we don’t need
2. Reduce –> reduction in buying things we do actually need
3. Reuse –> reuse whatever we do use or consume
4. Recycle –> when we’ve finished reusing: recycle it
5. Rot –> if it is natural, let it rot down in the compost.

Sounds entirely sensible, but, me being me, I saw a whole lot of other Rs ‘lurking’ in the background, so I sort of extended it a bit (below in black), because it is not all action – there’s no end of thinking behind all this too:

PLANNING PHASE

1. Reflection.  Where am I on this? Do I know enough to change & how to accomplish it?
2. Research. I’m not about to ‘reinvent the wheel‘ if someone else has the answers.
3. Reinforce. What am I prepared and determined to actually do?
4. Recognition. If I do all this, how will I recognise how well it is working?

PERFORMING PHASE

1. Refuse. As above
2. Reduce. As above
3. Reuse. => repeating the same use as originally
4. Respect & Repair => cleaning,looking after the item & repairing it if possible
5. Re-purposing => re-forming it to use it in a new function (if it can’t continue as is).
   
6. Recycling => consigning to a recycling system.
7. Rot. As above, if compostable

POST-PERFORMANCE PHASE

1. Re-evaluation => how did Planning and Performance phases go – as expected?
2. Refinement => perhaps before I re-run the process, I can refine and improve it.
3. Reaffirmation to Repeat/Re-run ad infinitum! (‘Feedback loop’)
4. Reach out => maybe there are others out there who can benefit from your experience.

I’m not saying this is perfect, just that it extends Bea’s original list of Rs and includes some of the thinking processes behind it whilst keeping her Famous Five Rs.

__________________________________________

So where are me and my family on all this?

Honestly, I think the main change has been one of attitude and determination as regards Bea’s first three principles of saving money, saving the planet and simplifying our lives: these things come to the forefront in all we do.  Let me give you one seemingly silly example.  I tend to be the one who takes our recycling bags to the ‘tip’ with paper, cardboard, cans, plastic containers, glass etc and I find myself thinking, before I put anything in these bags:

• can I find an alternative use for this?
• if ‘the bomb’ dropped – would I need this? – Could I actually make it myself if I did?

A recent example or two:

1. Dog-food bags (3&5L). We have at least four of these a week – so a dozen or so a month.  After having opened them and being about to chuck them in the recycling, I found myself thinking: if I put a few holes in the bottom of these, filled them with ‘terreau’ in spring, they’d be great for growing tomatoes in.  By spring I should have 20 or 30 growing.  No need to buy big pots.
2. Nescafé coffee jars. Now they have designed these with straight sides, they are ideal for the workbench where I can store all sort of screws, nails etc by size.
3. Thick cardboard tubes (the type carpets are wrapped around).  I’ve cut and painted/covered some of these which are now used to hold umbrellas or Christmas/birthday present wrapping paper.
4. 12 x egg containers.  We have an ‘it’s in there somewhere‘ drawer in the kitchen for batteries, odd nails, ribbons, elastic bands etc – small stuff.  Egg containers are perfect for keeping it in some sort of order so you can see it at a glance and it doersn’t all get mixed up every five minutes to jam the drawer either!
5. Pringles containers. I’ve cut them to hold the cotton pads the girls use to take off make up or to hold the dosettes for our Tassimo coffee machine.

To be more systematic, lets look at the specifics:

1. PAPER, PRINTING & WRITING. Buy recyled – it doesn’t cost much more and unless you are writing a critical document like a CV put your print instructions to draft/brouillon to economise on ink which is more cistly than gold!  Print on BOTH sides.  Use pre-printed paper (on one side) as a rough draft paper or make a message pad.  Only print when you really HAVE to.  Email rather than paper messages.  Why not use a fountain pen rather than a cartridge pen or one use biro pens?
2. ENERGY. Wise-up!  There are many forms of energy production at very many levels of cost and efficiency – get to know them and their impacts upon your pocket and the environment. We got it wrong – even with the right intentions!  We were professionally advised to go for a new air/air heat pump, but it simply never worked or cost three times the cost of a basic gas system…. the problem wasn’t so much the system but the fact our large, old, poorly insulated house simply was the wrong context for such a system.  Wear ‘onion clothes’ – yes even indoors: turning the system down to under 20C can save a fortune.  It goes without saying: close windows and doors religiously…. we have even installed a ‘dog door’ do that we don’t have to open the human-sized door in winter!
3. FOOD WASTE. We look at the vegetable skins, peelings etc…. those that can be used to make a soup or ‘bouillon’ base for other cooking are reserved and used. The rest either goes to the dogs to mix with their ‘croquettes’ or we cut it up small for our neighbours’ hens (and occasionally they bring us eggs as a thank-you)… oh, and in Spring I can use the egg shells to protect my lettuces (slugs don’t like the sharp edges).
   The green stuff that remains goes in the compost and in spring I have 1x cubic metre of nice compost for the ‘potager’ every year … and that saves on buying 10 or more bags of compost from a garden centre: 100 Euros saved…
4. WATER.  We try to take 2 minute showers (even that is 20 – 26 litres a time) and turn the shower off when shampooing/soaping.   Only fill the kettle up with the amount you actually think you will use.  Buy water flow reducers for your taps and a dual flush for your loo….. if you can’t do that and your cistern will accommodate it – put a brick in it which will save 2 Litres per flush.  Run the dishwasher only when full.  Our next project is likely to be a water collection one: we have a 100 square metre roof surface and we need to capture the rainwater for the garden and possibly (if we can afford it) use it to flush the toilets.
5. CLOTHING. When it concerns clothes, we try to review rather than renew our wardrobes every season and: repair and refresh what we can, offer things to friends if we have grown out of them (in one direction or the other!!) and send what is left to the Terre des Hommes / Relais.   We also use websites such as Vinted to sell on clothes in good condition.
6. BOOKS, FILMS & ‘stuff’,   My Dad used to say that what we have in the attic or the cellar is just junk: not good enough for us to use every day but far too good to give away to others’.  The result: a house stocked full of things that effectively have zero value to anybody and sit there becoming redundant and unusable.  Better to be honest with ourselves and actually DO something about it – give the stuff away so that it can have a viable ‘second life’!  Books and films we give to the university or local open libraries where people are free to give and take what they want: we have one in Brunstatt and there are several at the UHA (Fac des Letrres and IUT Colmar for example).
7. GADGETS and EQUIPMENT.  Ever heard of ‘repair cafés’?  There are at least two operating periodically in Mulhouse on a regular basis where volunteers with electrical and engineering skills are happy to ‘have a go’ at reparing whatever you have, usually for nothing or for a suitable donation.  I was told my guitar amp was ‘dead’ because a potentiometer replacement would cost far more than the article was worth.  The repair café fixed it by cleaning, spraying and re-soldering and it is still very much in use!
8. BAGS for LIFE. Most supermarkets will sell you a bag for 1 Euro which they will freely replace if it wears out.  It’s a no-brainer ….  The only challenge is to remember to take it with you … which is why we hang one or two right by our front door!  The kids still miss them though!!!

Try looking up ‘Life Hacks‘ or Recycling Hacks on Google – there are thousands of simple ideas for re-using things, most of which reqire only some scissors, scotch tape and maybe a glue gun.  Some of them are absolutely amazing and ridiculously simple.  You may find yourself looking differenly at your throw-away recycling rather as free resources!

A Q for you!  If you have lived in any of the university’s accommodation blocks – do we provide the opportunity for students to compost?  If we don’t, we should ask: the SIVOM will provide advice and composters for free for blocks where there are more than 11 units of accommodation.  Bear this in mind if you live in a private block with more than 11 appartments too!  

So what does our family ‘throw’? 

Bones that are too dangerous for the dogs and scraps of meat or fish that neither the dogs nor the hens can eat.  Sometimes the weekly bin collection comes round and there is NOTHING in our bin to be collected – with 7 of us living in our house.  On the other hand, we have a double-normal size recycling bin and it is ALWAYS stuffed to overloading with plastic and cardboard especially (some of the latter I just exhumed to cover my car windscreen against frost).

Shopping-wise we try to buy less (so there is less waste) but buy bettter quality, which for us means:

• local wherever possible,
• seasonal almost always,
• organic/bio/eco/fair trade
• replace red meat by white meat or fish and cut down on meat generally in favour of veg and fruit.

It is a slow process which has meant buying and actually reading cookbooks and getting more inventive with our cuisine – we have developed a nice line in recipes for leftovers, for example.  We like the idea of shopping at our local market and spending our money with friends who live locally – the money stays and circulates in the local economy creating jobs (rather than going into the pockets of the shareholders of ‘monolithic’ supermarkets).  We almot never (unless on emergency) buy at the supermarket anything we can actually get from the market. The prices on the market are sometimes more, equal to or even less than supermarket prices.  We prefer to spend the same amount and buy perhaps a little less, because the quality is better to our minds and taste buds.

We also question what we do buy at supermarkets…. do we need 1001 diferent types of cleaners for floors, windows, surfaces – all needing plastic containers and sprays …. or will a basic white vinegar & water mix do the trick for 0,50 Euros rather than 3,99 Euros?  (It does, by the way!)

I’m not saying we’re perfect by any means (certainly not remotely as good as Bea Johnson!!) – still too many impulse purchses, still too many ‘wants’ that aren’t really ‘needs’, still too much clutter, but we feel as if we are heading steadily in the right direction for our pocket, our health and our planet…..

Her book has been a bit of a wake-up call!

See Bea’s English Documentary (50 mins)

Bea’s French Summary (she is French, by the way!!!)