It's Not All Rubbish

Tuesdays are bin days for us in Preston. Over the last few years I've lived in a few different areas with a few different recycling and rubbish systems. Some places had rubbish collections ever week, some rubbish every week and recycling fortnightly. In Preston we have rubbish one week and recycling the other.
The recycling is split into two big boxes under the stairs. The yellow lid box is for paper and cardboard while the red lid (which has been missing for some time...) box is for glass, tins, foil and plastic bottles. We also have a food waste collection every week which is great as it mean the actual rubbish is kept to a minimum. Having weekly food rubbish collections also mean that what little rubbish is in the bin doesn't smell at all.
I love watching how much we recycle, put into food waste and rubbish. It really makes you think when you can see how much food you throw out each week. I'm also addicted to seeing how small I can get our rubbish bag every fortnight and how much of our waste I can get into the recycling boxes. The next step will be to keep rubbish down but also reduce recycling and food waste. Recycling's great but it's better not to make the waste in the first place! My veg box is helping as we no longer have plastic packaging for that, just a big cardboard box which we give back each week to be reused.

Rubbish has been in the news as well as on my mind this week. On Monday the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles announced that £250 million is going to be found to encourage councils to provide weekly rubbish collections. Environment groups and those against the austerity cuts have been horrified. It does seem a little surprising that when everything seems to be being cut there's money around for extra bin collections.
I know some people complain that in the summer after two weeks their rubbish smells or that in a large household bins fill up within a week. But if the recycling's separate and clean that won't smell, which with good recycling facilities should be most of the household waste. With regular food waste collections, and a desperately needed reduction in throwing good food away, rubbish won't be smelly and won't fill up as quickly.
I don't live in a big family house but in a student house of 6 the recycling boxes only got full after two weeks and we only filled the bin once a week. So that's 2 full bin bags a fortnight, easy to fit into the wheelie bin and that included all the food waste as we couldn't compost or recycle it.

The Independent talked about the governments proposed changes here, while The Guardian discusses it here and the BBC covers it here. There's a lot of comments from both sides of the debate so have a read for more info.

Shades of Green

Lots of the words in yesterday's list are used for people and lifestyles rather than products. Light, dark and bright green all fall into this category and describe three green philosophy types. I've read these terms often but didn't really know what they meant. A great article which explains all is this one by Alex Steffen (who coined the term Bright Green). Here's a quick guide:

Light Green environmentalism is the belief that changes on an individual level are the main solution to environmental problems. Lots of people making lots of little changes will snowball and all together will begin to make a big difference. It also relies on people demanding change as consumers which will push the markets towards more environmentally friendly products. This form of environmentalism has helped spread the environmental idea and made it a fashionable lifestyle choice, but it also generates a lot of "green fatigue" as you often feel that your little changes don't have an impact in the grand scheme.

Dark Green environmentalism focuses on community action. More campaigning, activism and a move away from our current consumer lifestyle, back to a more local, community one. The idea is that small communities producing locally will have short supply chains and allow individuals to take control of their impact on the environment. This involves making bigger changes and commitments, not just remembering to recycle each week. The Dark Green philosophy has been taken up in particular by transition towns where communities prepare for the dual challenges of peak oil and climate change by reducing their fossil fuel reliance. This focus on community action works well and does a lot of good. However, it's often associated with the doom and gloom side of environmentalism, with messages of imminent disaster, which often puts people off doing anything green at all.

Bright Green is the newest of these terms. It's philosophy is a belief that sustainable innovation and design are key to a sustainable society. To fix environmental problems we need an economically strong green industry. We need industry to redesign systems and rethink infrastructure to make integral changes to how society works. This is how the biggest changes happen and while you can agree with this philosophy, unless you're an inventor or in charge of major infrastructures it doesn't leave much room for individual action.

 In reality most environmental issues require a mix of the three types of green. Recycling is a good example. You need individuals to recycle but you also need the community to have facilities to recycle, like collections or bins. On top of this you also need manufacturers to create the procedures for recycling and for creating new products.
Mos environmentalists would describe themselves as some shade between these greens and I think that's better than just being one. We need to use all the ways of changing our lifestyles and society for a greener future, not just stick to one because we like the label. At the moment I'm probably more light green than anything else but I'm really interested in getting involved in more dark green projects in my community and I think more environmental inventions and changes to industry would be great.


What colour green are you? What do you think about all this labeling?