Tonight’s post is in response to a question posed by Jean in the comments of my post a couple of days ago about Zero Waste. She asked about alternatives to using plastic to line a kitchen bin.
I have read about using newspaper to make an origami-style bin liner and one day I might do that. In the meantime, I find that despite my best efforts, I always seem to have plenty of plastic bags for the purpose.
I line my small kitchen bin with whatever plastic bag comes to hand. I do not knowingly bring any extra plastic bags into the house but some is simply unavoidable at this stage. Any bag that looks as though it would be useful for this purpose is saved. I keep them in a ziplock bag in the laundry cupboard.
For example, I buy frozen peas so I carefully slit the top of the bag and then use that in the bin. Often, it does not tuck neatly over the edge but I am prepared to accept that. I use a rubber band to tie it off before throwing in the bin. If I get any plastic bags in packaging of items such as small appliances these are kept for the bin as well. They usually have a few air holes to avoid accidental suffocation but that is not a problem as my waste is usually just confined a small number of non-recyclable items which need to be contained rather than necessarily sealed in plastic.
I do not put any meat scraps in my kitchen bin. I generally buy meat that has no waste eg: skinless, boneless chicken breast fillets, premium mince etc. The exception is bacon as I trim the fat off it. I put the meat scraps in a bag in the freezer and occasionally add them to a kitchen rubbish bag immediately prior to putting the garbage out for collection.
Anything which can be composted is collected in the compost bucket – this includes all fruit and vegetable scraps as well as eggshells and butter wrappers.
Finally, here are the bins in a pull-out drawer in my kitchen. Each bucket lifts out for easy disposal and cleaning. On the left is the small one I line with my rubbish bag and on the right is the recycling.
I will do another post soon and examine exactly what rubbish we have for a week.
Let me know how you manage your various waste streams. Have you made a conscious effort to reduce the amount of rubbish you send to landfill?
organised castle 
Good post! I try and compost what ever I possibly can and I do try not to use new plastic bags as well. I think it’s always a good idea to look at the things you throw away to see if you can reduce it.
Could your bacon waste go to a neighbours dog or cat? Naughty me, I don’t waste this bit as I LOVE fat 😦
This is currently a favourite ‘topic’ of mine (just commented on 365lessthings about it)! I don’t use bin liners. I use a bokashi for all wet, organic waste (yes, that includes meat scraps) and I don’t buy bone-y meat. I rinse all recycling, so it can sit in it’s container til I get to taking it to the mega recycling bin in the bin room. Most of my ‘trash’ bin is plastic – bags/wrappers from other stuff, the ring pull in my UHT milks etc. But I do reuse the toliet paper plastic as a bin bag – but I seldom need a bag to line a bin, as there is nothing wet, and a quick swish of the dusty bin is easy enough (it’s just a little fluffy from the time I didn’t put the vacuum fluff in the bokashi). I’m an active zero waster… And I’m heartened to find others! yippe
Great post, Fairy! I am nowhere near as good as you but I do make an effort to keep waste to a minimum. My small waste bin is usually only emptied once a week. The garbage bin only gets put out once a fortnight. But I was wondering if you have butcher birds or kookaburras around you? They love bacon fat.
Oh, and I recently purchased new pillows, new doona and linen. The plastic bags from those will keep me in bin liners for ages!
Fairy do you have chooks? They love the bacon rinds etc.
Here in my part of the UK we are supplied with three large wheelie bins for different items, to encourage recycling – and it works! (That is to say, I sort through the rubbish everyone else in the household just chucks in the kitchen bin!) However, the OH and the son-and-heir are now catching on to setting aside paper and cardboard for the recycling bin, and the odd plastic bottle, too!
I keep the large plastic covers used on delivered furniture as it’s usually good quality polythene – always comes in useful! Also, bubble wrap – I have a carrier bag full of it, ready for wrapping fragile items especially at Christmas!
I need a use for used teabags – we seem to generate those with ease!
Thank you. This is a great post, and I have found it really helpful. I too find that however hard you try some plastic bags do find their way into my home and that is what I have been using until now. I keep all veggie scraps and they go into the compost when I go to the allotment. If I know I won’t be going for a few days I just freeze them until the next time I go. The one thing I have thought about but haven’t tried is a bokashi bin. I think it would be useful but they seem to be a bit expensive.
SueH asked about used tea bags, I put mine in the compost.
Thanks for sharing ideas.I was looking forward to it.