Cambridge Residents Take Part in Zero Waste Week 2013

As a nation, and indeed a planet, we are all collectively becoming far more aware of our responsibilities in relation to waste and recycling, particularly when it comes to reducing the amount of food that ends up in our bins (and, subsequently, in landfill).

With this in mind, some residents of Huntingdon and Cambridge have taken action into their own hands recently, embarking on the nationwide Zero Waste Week scheme at the start of September. Now in its sixth year, the initiative was set up to encourage the reduction of landfill waste, while also changing attitudes towards wasting food (and money).

This year, the theme is “use it up”, and it refers to cutting down on overfilling cupboards and fridges with food that eventually gets thrown away due to being surplus to requirements and going mouldy. The scheme is simple, and challenges the people who take part to not to generate any landfill waste for an entire week – or at least as little as possible.

The focus here is on avoiding food wastage, and the Zero Waste Week website provides participants with a helpful sign up form that adds your zero waste pledge, as well as advice for making it through the week, such as recipes that are leftovers-heavy.

Other tips include more effective management of portion control, cutting down on overbuying (BOGOF offers, buying fresh items in bulk instead of loose etc.), planning meals more carefully, paying attention to the food itself rather than the best before dates and much more.

Zero Waste Week was introduced in association with The Rubbish Diet; a nationwide operation that positions itself as a “slimming club for bins” and encourages its participants to keep stringent records of what they throw away. The two initiatives work side-by-side, echoing the DIY roots of The Rubbish Diet, which began when Bury St Edmonds mother of two, Karen Cannard, started to blog about what she had thrown away in an eight week period back in 2008.

According to Cambridge City Councillor Jean Swanson, we spend over £12bn a year as a nation on food that we throw away – ironic, considering that many have thrown their arms up at the government’s recent introduction of free school meals for all infant school children, at a cost of £600m to the taxpayer. This makes initiatives like Zero Waste Week an important eye-opener for some in the area Cambridge and Peterborough area, and the hope is that many who took part will uphold the week’s ideals of waste reduction and money saving throughout the year.

With the region’s changing attitudes towards waste management seeing a further emphasis on recycling, turning to reliable experts such as Woodford Recycling to carry out first rate processing of all household and commercial waste at our Huntingdon recycling centre is the best course of action. We aim to process up to 85% of the waste we collect, and our team are fully trained to sort all materials in an efficient manner to ensure effective disposal.

Get in touch with Woodford Recycling today for more information.