How to minimise your domestic waste

"A basic right in a civilised society!!" "Bring back the weekly bin collection!!" "The Europeans do it daily - why can't we?" (waste collections that is!!).

Thus ran the headlines and the opinion columns during the recent media frenzy on rubbish prior to the May local elections. And it's still raging. This mystifies me - why should newspaper commentators fight for the retention of a wasteful service that costs taxpayers over £3bn a year? This money would be better spent on education or services for the elderly rather than being thrown into a rubbish-bin. I've not had a single wheelie-bin of domestic rubbish collected from my home for over 10 years. When the council tried to deliver one of the ugly monsters it ended up in a Harry Secombe moment, with them pushing it in the front gate and my pushing it back out again, insisting I did not need it. I am happy to say I won. When I measured my non-recycled domestic waste, it amounted to just over half a wheelie-bin for the entire year. It is possible! So how is it done?

REDUCE

The key is to try to avoid producing rubbish in the first place. While the Government and shops must help, it is our own throwaway consumption that creates most of the waste. With a bit of thought you can slash your waste mountain, cut the CO2 emissions from its production and disposal - and save cash into the bargain.

The two main areas where I have done this is in my kitchen and bathroom. I use washable re-used cloths instead of paper kitchen towels, and instead of throwing away the dish-brush every time the head wears out, I simply compost the wooden head and replace it with a new one. The new fashion for throwaway wipes for everything is ridiculous. E-cloths mean that I not only avoid disposable wipes, but they're so good that I don't need to use scouring cream on the sink, either. Using one part organic vinegar to four parts water eliminates the need to buy plastic containers of window cleaner.

I avoid a huge amount of packaging by buying my fruit and veg from a local organic box scheme. It comes in re-used plastic bags, and they take away any bags I have for their other customers. Most of the rest of my fresh food comes from Fareshares, a local food co-operative that has large bins of loose organic muesli, rice, cous-cous, dried fruit and nuts. You bring your own bags and fill them up, thus eliminating loads of wrappers. The rest of my shopping comes from a local health-food store, so I'm almost totally supermarket free.

Rather than using foam cans and plastic bottles of soap, I use a shaving brush and natural soap. My toothbrush also has a disposable head, so I don't throw away the handle when the head is worn out. I've used cloth handkerchiefs for years, instead of buying paper tissues. The paper serviettes that I've been unable to refuse get put into a box for use by the loo. If I were female, I'd use a Mooncup instead of a lifetime's supply of sanitary products. Being gay has helped me avoid adding to the planet's mushrooming population, but if I did have a baby I'd buy re-usable nappies instead of disposable ones, thereby avoiding a smelly dustbin and saving more than the cost of a washing machine. Rather than recycling junk mail, I stop most of it at source by registering with the Mail Preference Service online.

RE-USE

Having reduced the waste created in the first place, you then need to think about how to re-use the things that you no longer want. The plastic bags from my Independent inserts get re-used as freezer or sandwich bags. I've also pledged to do away with clutter, and rather than simply dumping things, there are lots of other fun ways to dispose of them. The empty honey jars go to a local beekeeper for re-filling.

I regularly clear out my cupboards and take any reasonably good stuff to the Crusaid charity shop. Bulky items that don't fit on my bike are sometimes just left outside the door, and usually disappear within a few hours. A sofa and table got recycled this way. The other day I decided I had accumulated too many umbrellas, so placed them outside and off they went to a more deserving home! Bulkier items can be disposed of on the Freecycle website. This wonderful site allows people to post their unwanted items for free, and other members who need them volunteer to take them away. I recently disposed of my dehumidifier within a fortnight after my new wood-burner eliminated my household damp.

RECYCLE

I recycle just about everything I can. The home-made compost bin at the end of the garden has taken all of my green and kitchen waste for the last 12 years. It seems insane that councils waste our money collecting this stuff from people who have gardens. It is over 90 per cent water, and when it rots without access to oxygen in a landfill site it releases methane, a greenyhouse gas 20 times more harmful than CO2. Instead, mine provides me with lovely packaging-free compost, in which I grow my tomatoes. I also burn my wooden garden waste in the wood-burner or leave it in a shady corner of the garden to shelter some wildlife.

IMPORT!

I used to say when speaking to audiences about how to live an eco-lifestyle that I was down to about half a wheelie-bin of unrecycled domestic rubbish a year. But then I realised this was no longer true. I was actually a net importer of about 32 wheelie-bins of my neighbours' waste wood each year. All the wood for my burner is from my neighbourhood, mostly from the scrap pallets that I pick up on my way back from getting my Indy. I also help reduce the wider waste stream by, for example, stocking up on re-used clothes and trashy gay novels when I drop stuff off at the charity shop. The wooden floor in my hall came from a guy on Freecycle who had replaced his kitchen, and the reinforced glass wall for my new shower unit came from a neighbour's defunct dining table.

EBay, of course, is another good source of stuff, but it's not free. I use it for re-stocking my Denby crockery set with second-hand ware. Architectural rescue has become wonderfully fashionable but antique furniture, while never labelled as such, is also recycled. I haven't bought a single stick of new furniture and have never indulged in the eco-crime of disposable kitchens, instead refurbishing the one I had.

The last thing to remember is that while more than 80 per cent of us now recycle at least one thing a week, only 10 per cent of us buy recycled products. This means that much of the mountain of recycled waste ends up being exported to China. This is better than it being dumped, but it would be better if we bought recycled.

If everyone managed to live a low-waste lifestyle like this we could eliminate most waste collections, and David Miliband's very weak Waste Strategy, published last week, would not be necessary. Most of what I do cuts the time I waste shopping and saves me money. Imagine what the £3bn saved could be spent on if we all did this. Today, your first step is to start counting how many wheelie-bins of unrecyclable rubbish you produce each month. You can then measure and celebrate your success as you move towards a low-waste lifestyle.

Finally, despite politicians from all major political parties jumping on the anti-fortnightly waste collection bandwagon, the screaming headlines had no effect on the council in Eastleigh, Hampshire, where they introduced fortnightly collections 10 years ago. They defied the whingers and the voters rewarded them by increasing their majority. There's hope for all of us yet.

Donnachadh McCarthy works as a home and business eco-auditor (www.3acorns.co.uk) and is author of Saving the Planet Without Costing the Earth

What you - and the politicians - can do

DONNACHADH'S TOP TIPS FOR A LOW-WASTE LIFESTYLE...

* Buy fruit and vegetables in returnable containers from an organic box scheme or farmers' market, and buy milk in returnable bottles.

* Stop buying disposable products like paper handkerchiefs, razors, kitchen towels, plastic cups or products in unrecyclable packaging, likeTetra Pak.

* Dispose of all your unwanted furniture, clothes, books etc via local second-hand stores, charity shops or via your local Freecycle website.

* Get a vermin-proof Greencone composter that can take all your food scraps and garden waste.

* Buy re-used or antique furniture, building materials at an architectural salvage yard and products made from recycled materials.

...AND HIS WISH LIST FOR THE GOVERNMENT

* Make it compulsory that all drinks bottles be returnable, or be on a deposit scheme, and make junk mail opt-in only.

* Introduce separate food-waste collections for homes without gardens. All households with gardens to compost.

* Prosecute manufacturers for wasteful packaging and ban hard-to-recycle packaging products such as Tetra Pak.

* Require supermarkets to provide staple foods such as muesli, rice etc in bins, to allow for the use of re-usable bags, and introduce a refill service for items such as shampoo, vegetable oil and washing up liquid.

* Introduce 10p plastic bag tax and use the money to fund waste reduction in poorer communities.

* Require all companies by law to recycle waste and for photocopying and toilet paper to be made from recycled paper.

Useful websites

* www.naturalcollection.com (tooth- and dish-brushes with replaceable heads)

* www.freecycle.org (site where you can give and get local surplus items for free)

* www.greencone.com (vermin-proof composting bins that also take food waste)

* www.e-cloth.com (cleaning cloths that do not require scouring creams or powders)

* www.mooncup.co.uk (re-usable silicon sanitary product)

* www.recycledproducts.org.uk (UK directory of recycled products)

* www.mpsonline.org.uk (register here to stop junk mail being sent to you)