Counsel the council

Today we were advised we would be moving to a trial scheme in February for alternate week waste collection. OUr council produced a glossy leaflet and letter, ready for the recycling bin, to advise that in order to save landfill tax costs and to increase the volume of recycled waste from 22% to 40% they were going to stop collecting waste destined for landfill each week and move to forntightly collection, alternating with the succecssful fortightly recycling bin collection.

Now, good news for the planet and the environment you might say but to be honest the council is only addressing part of the problem. As a family of 5, 2 adults and 3 children (12,10,8) we already recycle everything the council will take off us. We compost all our organic waste including tea-bags and egg shells and sheets of kitchen roll. We take all our bottles to the bottle bank and we put all allowable materials into our recycle bin. Great! However, we still fill the waste bin with a full load every week, there is still so much that cannot be recycled by the council collections so it has to go in the landfill waste.

The council are refusing to supply a larger waste bin for us. So what is the answer?

One solution is for me to take the extra week's waste the council wants to save and take it to the council waste collection facility, or dump! That then still costs the council, landfill tax payments.

Another solution is to burn the plastic waste that cannot fit into the waste bin, although that would create noxious emissons adding to our carbon footprint.

Final solution is to stop purchasing items in packaging that cannot be recycled. This is the only practical solution, although it means saying goodbye to healthy foods like yoghurts, some fruits and vegetables like tomatoes and pears, strawberrys, raspberrys etc. I know I can buy these in markets in paper bag packaging which will mean my spend at the supermarket convenience consumption outlet will reduce further unless they start to offer these packaging alternatives.

Meantime I will receive a visit or call from a recycling adviser. Im hoping to hear that they will start taking fruit juice cartons and yellow pages as well as the lids from water and fizzy drink bottles.

There's always a reason not to do something. Our urban weed has to be dealt with. It's down to us and the time is now.

Cheers all

In the beginning .....

In the beginning there was Tesco! Jack begat Waitrose, Morrisons and the new look Marks & Spencers. Sainsbury's stayed aloof and retained a quirky independence. Waitrose the people's store, literally. Morrisons, the store for the people! The new look Marks & Spencers desperately giving whatever it thought the people thought they wanted at the time when all they needed was socks and underwear, school shirts and jumpers and floral arrangements on Mothers' Day. Sainsbury's remained orange, pretending that they weren't really competing for our cash but providing a service to chelsea charioteers and their brioche-addicted offspring.

Tesco looked down on what it had created and Sir Terry saw that it was good.

The earth is dying of consumption. We consume more than we need and like a drug, we crave more. We are conditioned to react to price offers, to "bogof" to dramatic end-aisle displays. The desire for consumption generates a hinterland of pollution and excess. The self-fulfilling legacy of our desire to consume has us hooked, our dealers have given us enough free hits to ensure we come back for more. Cheap music, cheap jeans, cheaper Chilean peppercorns infused with Yak droppings conning us that we are all now global citizens. We are global mugs.

The rot starts and must stop here, in our urban jungles, in our shiny personal transit modules, with our tiny personal music experiences and our grimy personal consumption footprint.

We are being slowly suffocated by an urban weed, that winds around us and binds us to unsustainable habits that are wants, not needs and desires not requires. No amount of recycling will fix the malaise, we have to change our lifestyles. We have to dramatically alter our daily routines and find a sustainable way of generating income with which we spend enough to live and fulfill the collective human dream. Survival first, the new PS3 second!

We have to overcome the subtle controls, that organisations from governments to retailers, from transport providers to energy generators have slowly edged into our existance. I am not a conspiracy theorist, I do not want to believe that this is part of a huge capitalist co-ordinated plot to subjugate the masses and self-fulfill their profit imperative. I do feel however, we need to regulate our world by treating our lifestyles as a thermostat and turn the notch down rather than up. Put on a lifestyle jumper rather than press a button for instant warmth and satsifaction. Progress doesn't mean, "at any cost". Progress should be viewed in the round and be considered for its total impact not just the "because you can" argument.

Spend less, earn less, consume less. Its a soft spiral up towards a greater sense of community and well-being and happiness.

You will have time for your families, time to make a family, time to enjoy your family, time to help them understand life. Help them and your neighbours and your colleagues to navigate this urban jungle and cut out the urban weeds that sprawl across our landscape.