Green Blog

04 March 2011

A secret salad habit

I made a shocking discovery the other day. I spend nearly £400 a year on salad. That's almost as much as I spend on council tax. It's definitely more than I spend on cleaning products. And I only eat half of it. The rest withers away in its non-recyclable plastic wrapping, looking forlorn and making me feel guilty.

And I'm not alone. Recent Government research estimates that 45 per cent of salad bought by UK households ends up in the bin.That's a lot of hungry rabbits.

This week Friends of the Earth launched a new waste campaign. The aim is to help people like me to waste less and recycle more.

This campaign calls for our 'greenest Government ever' to set ambitious targets in their Waste Strategy Review in May. We want them to halve the amount of rubbish we have to throw away by 2020 by ensuring that more waste is recyclable and products are built to last.

We're going to need your help to make the them listen so look out for our actions and events in the next couple of months or sign up to email action alerts at http://www.foe.co.uk/news_events/join_list_waste.html

Working on this campaign has been a real eye opener. It's made me think about what I throw away, what I should reuse and what I could recycle.

As a result, I've given up my salad habit and started paying more attention to the tins of food gathering dust in the cupboard. I've fixed the holes in my jumpers and taken clothes gifted to me by kind relations who have no idea what I like to wear to the local charity shop.

And it's paying off. I'm saving a packet. In fact, I'm saving lots of packets.