Dont let the summer end without seeing this

The Clean Bin Movie: Coming to the UK - 23-30 August

Meet Jen and Grant, who have just arrived in the UK from Canada and are getting ready for a five-day tour of their documentary: The Clean Bin Project.

Forget the big budget Hollywood blockbusters that are hitting the screens this summer.  Whether you want comedy, drama or even a touch of horror - in parts - this is the film for anyone who wants to be inspired to reduce their waste.

I first came across the Clean Bin Project blog in 2008, not long after starting The Rubbish Diet. Jen Rustemeyer provided the running commentary to the challenges that she and her partner Grant Baldwin faced with entertaining accounts as they attempted a consumer free year to see who could create the least rubbish.

This was not your holier than thou blogging, more a combination of escapades, frustrations and ingenuity at overcoming some of the regular hurdles that face us all.

And thankfully, they also captured it on camera, creating a very entertaining documentary, which is being screened at five venues across the UK, with a post-screening Q&A with Jen & Grant.

Launching in Brighton this Friday, the full tour list is as follows:

Fri 23rd Aug - Brighton - Brighthelm Centre. Open from 6pm. Starts 7pm.
Tue 27th Aug- Stowmarket, Suffolk - John Peel Centre for Creative Arts. Open 7pm. Starts 7:30pm
Wed 28th Aug - York - City Screen, Picturehouse. 6:15pm
Thu 29th Aug - Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The Old Post Office. 7pm.
Fri 20th Aug- Warminster, Wiltshire. Baptist Church Hall. 7pm.

Entry is either free, or with a small donation/ticket price depending on local arrangements and sponsorship.  Huge thanks go to Freegle, Mid Suffolk District Council, City Screen & John Cossham, Transition Shrewsbury and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust for making these events possible.

It would be really great if you could make it to one of the screenings.  If you cant and would still love to see the documentary, copies can be purchased at www.cleanbinmovie.com.  There are also details of how you can host a screening for your local community.

The Clean Bin Project screenings are happening in time to whet the appetite for Zero Waste Week which follows the week after. Taking place,2-8 September, the theme this year is "Use it Up" and focuses on food waste.  Please do sign up at www.zerowasteweek.co.uk.  Therell be more on that from me soon.

Meanwhile, I hope that you enjoy the Clean Bin Project events, where youll also get to meet some of the local waste-busters who are running some great projects around the country.

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Thighs are my favourite Wait a minute let me explain !

Image via Wikipedia

THE NEEDLES

Theyll start the first week with the injections in the butt. They do it to see if there will be a reaction. Likely not, but that is standard.

They then give the option of the belly or thigh.

I highly recommend the thigh. They say it circulates the most throughout the body. The belly works on the belly/butt in the butt, but they do not reach all areas.

I only do the thigh now and its amazing. It really does seem to hit everything.

However, they dont inject in the inner thigh - the flabbiest part. Darn...I really could use some help there....

The nurses will say - ooh, youre so brave because it hurts. Thats bull - it stings (pinprick for 2 seconds) the same as the butt or belly, and by the time you walk out of the clinic, you dont feel anything.

I recommend the thigh - well worth the overall fat breakdown.

There - have I clarified my appreciation of thighs? ;-)

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Dont let food waste be next years shock headline my two penneth

Well Happy New Year everyone.  I can see its kicked off in fine style!

Having just got used to my back-to-school routine and having my first day at the laptop, this morning I found my Twitter stream awash with the topic of food waste and the medias shock that statistics published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers reveal that 30%-50% of the worlds food never gets eaten.

These are huge figures to contemplate, whichever way you look at it, with growers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers all playing a key part or being affected.

But this isnt the first time that the headlines have been full to the brim with the horror of food waste.  Heres a random sample, taking us back to 2007, when I first became aware of the issue.

2012 - Unilever calls on companies to tackle food waste mountain

2011 - UK families are wasting less food but are told to do more

2010 - UK Restaurants waste 600,000 tons of food a year

2009 - Elimination of food waste could lift 1billion out of hunger, say campaigners

2008 - Brown urges Britons to cut food waste

2007 - Call to use leftovers and food waste

Despite making inroads into the waste mountain, I am very much concerned that each spell of outrage even when followed by best intentions, dwindles back towards stunted action, as we move on - for whatever reason - to other competing issues in our lives and organisations.

However, with austerity biting at politics, retailers as well as the householder, 2013 could very well be the year that we look back on as being a watershed period in all our efforts to tackle this huge issue.  There is certainly enough expertise around us to help, with WRAP offering a bank of resources for the hospitality and retail sectors as well as its Love Food Hate Waste website for consumers.  And saving money is a bloody good carrot to wave in front of our noses.

But even so, it can be very easy to slip into old routines when hit by everyday pressures, and that, especially for the householder, is one of the greatest problems in tackling food waste.

If that sounds like you, there are simple steps to help you grab the problem by the balls, and which will help to ensure that youre not contributing to next years food waste horror story.


1. Make yourself accountable.   Tell your family, friends, Facebook pals, Tweeters or blog readers that you are determined to tackle food waste.  If you think itll help to keep you motivated, get them to sponsor you for a good cause.

2. Set a deadline to help give you a focus.   For example, trying to reduce it over the next couple of months.  It takes a while for new habits to form, so commit to going the distance rather than the novelty of a short sprint.

3. Start a food waste diary, to identify what type of food goes to waste and why.  This will help uncover regular waste habits.  And remember, throwing that mouldy fruit into the compost bin is still a waste, even if you think youre going to get some free compost out of it.

4. Use a separate bin to monitor your food waste.   Then rejoice when you see it reduce.

5. Stop buying things that you regularly throw away.  If you reduce the problem at source, youll have pounds in your pocket and less food in the landfill heap.  Check out my ornamental melons story as a very good example.  If you have regular leftovers when buying takeaways, just buy less next time.

6. Freeze it!  Food labels now advise that you can freeze certain products up until the use-by date.

7. Visiting www.lovefoodhatewaste.com is a must!  Youll get top advice on portions, recipes for leftovers and food storage.


Of course, if youve got fire in your belly and want to do more to either understand or tackle the wider issues of food waste, there are various avenues available, including

• Join food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart and his Feeding the 5000 campaign to help bring an end to food waste in the retail and supply chain.

• Follow Kerry McCarthy MP and her work commitment to drive change through parliament.  See last years blogpost about her Food Waste Bill.  And of course, you can always lobby your local MP to get behind the issue.

• Contribute to the WI Great Food Debate, the NFWIs series of debates about Food Security, which reaches at the very heart of the organisation.

And last but not least, if you live in Wiltshire, Shropshire or Suffolk and want to get involved in slimming your waste-line either on your own or as part of a community project, keep your eyes peeled for some fantastic Rubbish Diet initiatives coming up.

For instance Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is kicking off the new year with a county-wide Rubbish Diet, which will mentor householders through slimming their bins over a period of 8 weeks. If we get through to the next round of the Nesta Waste Reduction Challenge competition, Rubbish Diet Shropshire will be hot on their heels in the springtime, with a choir, school and football club all joining in with the bin slimming antics.  And in Suffolk, my own neck of the woods, therell be a lot of fun and games involving local well-known personalities who will be leading the way too.   Tackling waste will be a key topic for each of these projects.

Even if youre not a resident of any of these counties, hopefully youll be inspired to take action from a distance and come together in National Zero Waste Week, which will be held in September, where therell be another chance to work together to focus on reducing the amount of food waste, and other superfluous stuff that ends up in our bins.

Hopefully, this should all make for a great 2013, especially if we can pull together to ensure there are no shock food waste headlines this time next year.

And on that note... Im off to have another word with my 8 year old, whos busy listening to BBC Newsround about this very topic.  Time to remind him about his bad habit of abandoning bread crusts!

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