Selfsufficientish.com

The realityof Council reycling programmes has been brought home to us in televison and newspaper (thankyou daily mail) exposes. One showed a recycling centre where waste was supposed to be sorted, they simply dumped it into landfill. Cheaper than sorting it. Another looked into waste going to somewhere like china where this stuff is sorted on the streets.
Spyware attached to your bins and all of that. Its really is all about the council hoping to charge more for collecting rubbish or reducing their collections to once a fortnight. The guys that collect my nicely sorted stuff chuck it into the same space. ie plastic/bottles/cans, they do seem to put the paper into a seperate bin. The answer, for the brave, is shown above, give your packaging back to the help desk of the supermarket. I must admit I don't have the nerve to do do it yet. Hundreds of thousands of people doing this would bring about a change from the suppliers.

John

Hi Jondy,thank you for showing your interest in my way of doing things to help reduce some of our waste. We shop a Swanley ASDAs, I will ask at the desk if they would take packaging back on Tuesday OK,I will let you know. May you and yours live long and happy. John. J.R.P.

Hi Jondy,I asked in the ASDAs we use at Swanley about taking back any packaging. NO they don't,only empty cat food tins and mobil phones they will take. I was told if there's no money to be made ASDA don't want to know. But they do have a recycling area in their car park. So they are doing their bit to help us already. John. J.R.P.

Hi ALL,whilst looking at www.vortexs-veg-patch.blogspot.com website on the allotments uk website it was great to see some photos of my container system being used to grow something. With this in mind please visit his website to see some proof that it works in the simplist of ways. John. J.R.P.

Try this link instead

http://vortexs-veg-patch.blogspot.com/

Hi Legendarone,thank you. May you and yours live long and happy. John. J.R.P.

No probs

Hi everyone,may I take this opportunity to wish you all a very Happy Christmas,and a very Happy New Year 2007 too.
I will look forward to shareing some more ideas with you in the future.
May you and yours live long and happy. John. J.R.P.

Hi ALL ,for those who have a polytunnel and want to recycle rain water,which does not fall on their crops because they are covered by the polytunnel.
May I share another new idea of mine with you which I believe as not been tried before AS IF I HAD a polytunnle which I believe is a good idea to use.
MY IDEA IS, I would make up a system to catch all the rain water which would normally run off the polytunnel, which I then would make go into a water butt done in a simple way.
First I would buy some cheap plastic guttering or long lengths of plastic pipe which I would saw down the middle to give me two halfs each time,these I would support by putting 2-4 say 10ft bean canes or less at the furthest end corners,and I would sink them in about 1 foot,then I would laydown alongside my polytunnel all my lengths of guttering until it came out enough to flow into 2 water butts,one on each side of where I would walk in,putting 4 canes to support where the ends of each gutter over lapped each other,so that no water leaked,held in place by what ever you had like tape or string. This I would do on both sides right next to the cover so my guttering was sloping down towards my water butts resting on bean canes spaced out in 4s at each overlap joint.
I would then put a length of guttering along the back of the futhest end sloping from one side to another a bit,resting on the top of my 2 side gutterings where the 4 canes are on each corner,but a bit shorter so that any rain water will drip down into the side ones,held in place by what ever you are using.
Next is how I would get my rain water into my guttering which is away from the side of my polytunnel. I would use any sheet of plastic for example,bin liners cut in 4 - 6 inch wide long strips or green bags or even shopping bages would work over lapping each other too..
NOW COMES THE BEST BIT,I would get a real of sticky tape of some sort which will stick to the polytunnel cover material,I would then lay all my lengths of plastic in line with my guttering so that some of it can be stuck to the polytunnel cover and some lays in the guttering not stuck. JOB DONE.
What I would have then is a polytunnel with a attached flap like system that lays inside my guttering which slopes down into my two water butts supported by bean canes,I would then lay some more bean canes down on top of the flaps inside the guttering to help hold it in place. This way would also work if my polytunnel was on a slope too.
It's up to you now whether you try it or not,I have over 8,000 small water buts I use so I'm ok. May you and yours live long and happy. Happy New Year 2007. John. J.R.P.

Hi ALL, if you went to see or exhibited something growing at the CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW this year or in the past, would you like to see the way I grow things exhibited there, as I've been sent an invite TO APPLY to next years show, because my projects are to do with saving lives, reusing waste, and growing things, which all come under the heading 'Gardening with Climate Change'. Of cause I wont the answer to be Yes, and the reason why, but if you don't then say so, and the reason why, as they say it's good to talk if it helps to solve a problem. May you and yours and what you grow live long and happy. John. J.R.P.

John.

I think it would be an excellent idea for you to go to the Chelsea Garden Show and exhibit your gardening ideas.

It would provide at the very least a thinking point for a lot of people, and it would get your ideas out to a lot of people who would not otherwise have the space/ideal climate/land to grow food crops.

I wish you the best of luck with that one, and please let us know how you get on.

Go for it John - good luck!

Thirded!

Nev

Thank you very much for your support.
May you and yours and what you grow live long and happy. John. J.R.P.

Hi ALL, for those of you who are interested in my reuse of waste projects ideas, I will be showing my container gardening ideas off to others on Saturday the 9th June, at the MOTTINGHAM FESTIVAL, held on the Mottingham Sports Ground ( Foxes Fields ) Grove Park Road SE9, from 1 - 5pm. I will be set up next to the Tombola and refreshment stand.
If you are interested in having a good time why not come and see me and others, I'm sure it wont be a waste of your time. John. J.R.P.