Staying green.

Our wish for our house and garden to be as green as possible goes on, our waste is on every level is much lower and we are both feeling good.
Our food waste is almost nothing, all vegetable waste, peeling, egg shells go to my wormery, which already is giving us fertilizer, and soon lovely fine compost.  Plus it's a magnet for any children coming into the garden. We are very good an do not waste meat, fish or dairy.
My ground coffee is scatted on my garden, the filters are dried and then used as pot liners, the used teabags I am popping into pots as I plant them up, nothing is thrown away.

Every time I go shopping I take a few of my home made bags, our local fruit and veg stall now hands out paper bags, which I always keep in my shed drawer. They now have gone back to using proper plastic bowls for their pre-weighed items, which they use time and time again, they switched very quickly. Plastic still comes into our home, but much less than before, and if we are able to avoid it we often do. If I go to the plant stand at the market on a Wednesday, I always carry a couple of previous used thin plastic carrier bags, and reuse them, I'm sure I can make them last the rest of this year.

My dish covers are always in use in the kitchen, we still on occasions use stretch and seal, but the roll we have again will last much longer, and our hope is by the time it's all gone, we will have minimized the need for it. Because we are not wanted to waste so much food, we are better at our portion sizes and do not have leftover food very often, before we freeze anything we ensure the portion sizes are right for us, which often means we get extra portions from our purchases.

Is this a fail, I love to see a full fruit dish, but the limes which look good hardly ever get used, we do use lemons alot. So I purchased two plastic limes, they do look very real, and now I will only purchase limes if we need them, so in a strange way it's not a fail, but a win.

 We are even saving our lolly sticks, these make great plant labels, and they are short enough to be put in seed trays with the covers on.

Another small win, we are using citronella candles in the garden, far more than ever before, I got these at Asda, 3 small pots costing a pound each, they are pretty and the pots can be reused for my succulent seeds when they grow, on the down side they came packed in plastic.   

I have not purchased any clothes or shoes since February, and I have no plans to buy anything this year. Garden toys for Will are all second hand from charity shops or off local facebook selling pages, and once finished with they will be passed on. My garden spend has been high and where I have purchased plastic items, they are not one use items, and will last me for years.
I recycled some of my plastic plant pots, I had spare plants which I potted up and took to our local Save the Children shop, so profit for them and pots moved along.
I responded to a post on our local facebook page and I have been given two books to read, I have been promised more once the lady sorts them, once I have read them I will pass them along. I gave some fabric to our local primary school for costumes, using the same page.
So half way through this year, I feel we are making progress, just small things, but we both feel better making the changes, we can't change our past habits, but looking forward we will be greener.