The Rubbish Diet Challenge

Do you have a little green nag that sits on your shoulder poking you in the ear, telling you that you should reduce your waste and recycle more? If so The Rubbish Diet Challenge could be just what you need to kick it off your shoulder and stop the nagging once and for all.

It certainly worked for Karen Cannard, who created the bin slimming concept as a result of taking up her council's own Zero Waste Challenge in 2008. Filling a wheelie bin every fortnight, she set up a blog to chart her progress and to seek help in her mission to slim her bin in time for the big event. At the end of Zero Waste Week, all her family threw out was one plaster and ever since, that full wheelie bin of trash per fortnight has been replaced with just one small carrier bag.

That's one carrier bag per month.

The Zero Waste Week, often run by local authorities, is just one of the many strategies that have been rolled out across the UK during the last three years in an attempt to reduce household waste across the country. Elsewhere in the waste management chain, manufacturers have been reducing packaging and incorporating more recycled materials in their product range, whilst the recycling sector has been introducing wider services for processing plastics.

These are the issues that now attract the interest of Karen who, when finishing her challenge two years ago, found that the huge task of reducing our country's dependency on landfill had grabbed her attention.

‘The blog was only supposed to last for eight weeks, but with news that landfill sites were reaching capacity, increased disposal fees hitting the taxpayer, and most importantly, discovering the environmental effects of food waste, I simply couldn't turn my back on such an important issue. By sharing my discoveries on my blog and through other media, I hoped that I could inspire more people to join in my mission to slim the nation's bins using a good dose of enthusiasm and a firm dusting of light-hearted humour.'

In the last couple of years she has invested much of her time motivating her readers, other bloggers and radio presenters into taking small steps to reduce their waste and suggests that even changing just one habit can have an enormous impact, whether it's introducing composting, growing herbs or recycling one extra thing. And after blogging about it on a regular basis, she's finally gathered together her tips and personal anecdotes into a free online book called The Rubbish Diet Challenge.

But the challenge isn't just about the process of ‘reduce, reuse and recycle'. According to Karen, what makes The Rubbish Diet different is that it presents a goal and a timescale in which you will tackle the landfill louts that lurk in your weekly rubbish, with results that help to deliver permanent change. And that timescale is just eight weeks.

So to celebrate the completion of the online guide, which is now available on her blog, Karen is inviting members and supporters of The Big Green Idea to give it a go and share our successes and frustrations on the Green Living Forum. She suggests that when it comes to dodging that packaging and tackling certain challenges, it is always good to have support amongst friends.

By taking up The Rubbish Diet Challenge and browsing through the online chapters, there'll be an opportunity to find out exactly what can be recycled in your area. You'll discover what those recycling symbols really mean and you'll also pick up tips on how to enjoy life with waste in mind. And like all other types of diets, Karen recommends that you should set your own targets for this one too, whether you wish to reduce your waste by 10%, 50% or even go for Zero Waste. Then after seven weeks of slimming those bins, she encourages readers to attempt the finale - a Zero Waste Week - and says that even though it may seem daunting at first, with weekly weigh-ins at the end of each section of the challenge, you'll soon see a positive change in the size of your rubbish bin that will motivate you to do more.

And for anyone who wants to put a spotlight on waste in their area, there are tips about working with the local media too.

So if you're up for an interesting and very worthwhile challenge, visit The Rubbish Diet blog where you can access all the chapters online as well as lots more links that might help at www.therubbishdiet.blogspot.com.

And next month, Karen will be joining us on the Green Living Forum, to officially launch our very own Rubbish Diet to help forum members slim our bins in just eight weeks. It will be like our very own WeightWatchers for waste.

As a result of her work on The Rubbish Diet, Karen was joint runner-up in the CIWM 2009 Awards for Environmental Excellence, in the category of Recycling Champion. She has also been recently shortlisted for Suffolk's Creating the Greenest County awards, where she lives with her husband and two young children. She contributes to a range of community magazines around the county and is a regular guest on BBC Radio Suffolk.

Top photos (c) Karen Cannard 2010

Bottom photo (c) St Edmundsbury Borough Council 2010