Yesterday I delivered my third letter to the gym about giving out free plastic bags. They have been good and immediately put up a 'green' notice above the dispenser asking people to 'reycle' but that will not save the planet....I am looking for complete understanding that giving away plastic bags is condoning their use when they are in fact totally unnecessary. Complete withdrawal is my ultimate goal. I looked up some facts on plastic bags and put them in with my letter to add support to my argument. Did you know that the average use of a plastic bag is 12 minutes and it takes over 500 years to decompose? Or that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic debris floating on or near the surface of every square mile of ocean? (2006 United Nations Environmental Programs Report). Or that some countries like India are the final resting place of plastic bags carried overseas from all countries. They flap from trees like trapped birds and billow about on the roads. Because we pay to have our rubbish removed and do not have to pick our way between the debris each day we have somehow become absolved of responsibility for producing it. This cannot be right. As the banking crisis has recently shown us the person lending the money needs to take the risk. The link between these two must be immediate to be effective. So too the link between rubbish producers and those with resposibility for it.

So on the rubbish front so far I have stopped using any kind of plastic to dispose of my trash. We buy plastic specifically to throw it into land fill...... this must be madness. I compost all my uncooked food. My composter is an amazing Tardis of a machine. I just keep filling it up (have not emptied it once yet) and all the little creepy crawlies mulch it down (leaving my plants alone) and eventually make some lovely compost for my vegetables. The composter also acts as part of the food chain as it supplies fruit flies for the canny spiders who have made their webs immediately above the lid. I love to watch them shimmy down their silken threads and wrap up the next meal with their deft front legs. The silk coming straight from their tummy like a spool. Beautiful creatures, how could anyone kill them?

Also we now have a 'food' bin for cooked rubbish, so a new container to fit onto the kitchen worktop. I give a lot of food to the birds or foxes if I can. Live and let live. I recycle paper and card, glass and plastic bottles. Now need to start doing something with the tins.