Waste not, want not...

I hate sending stuff to landfill. I don't know if I'm normal in considering where my rubbish goes every time I put something in the bin, but I do. All I can see is it sitting there, taking up what used to be a nice piece of greenfield land.

So whilst contemplating our hayfever sufferer's bins in recent weeks (i.e. containing mountains of tissues), Jon and I decided that it didn't make much sense to send a bin-load of waste containing 99% tissues and a few crisp packets to landfill. So in in recent weeks have trialled a new system whereby only the kitchen bin contains landfill waste. The other bins (bedroom, bathroom etc.) are biodegradable only, and go to the allotment compost mountain. The tissues provide a lot of the 'brown' (i.e. high carbon) matter to balance out the 'green' (high nitrogen) from vegetable waste and grass clippings. Our kitchen bin now goes out once every 2-3 weeks (normally when something in there starts smelling a bit iffy) in the bin bags the council have given us, which are normally only 1/3 full because they're HUGE!

One of our main culprits for bin stinkification is orange peel. I've always thought that worms aren't great fans of it as it's acidic, so it's one of the things that doesn't go in the compost all the time. But, as I've said, I hate chucking stuff in the bin. So whilst reading Michelle Magorian's "A little Love Song" this week (such a lovely book) I had a lightbulb moment when the main character saves orange peel to make marmalade. "Duh - I could do that" I thought.

So today I chopped up our breakfast orange peel and popped it into a tub with some sugar as I figure that will keep the aromatic oils in shape. Each time we have an orange the same will be repeated. This may in time require a larger container!

Having done this I thought I'd have a gander online, to see if I could find anyone else as mad as me, and (as I often find) moneysavingexpert.com came to my aid. To my relief I'm not the first person to do this (let's not forget oranges were a luxury item until fairly recently), and they even had a recipe by Shirley Goode for 'Miser's Marmalade'...

Save peel from 2 large oranges for marmalade. Chop finely and soak overnight in 2pt (1.1ltr) of water. Simmer for 1.5 hours. Make up to 1.5pt (925ml). Stir in 2.25lb (1kg) sugar plus the juice and pulp of a large lemon. Boil rapidly to setting point. Pot in hot sterile jars. 

...and someone suggesting saving the peel in sugar to preserve the oils. Bazinga! So I will continue saving my orange peel, and make it up into marmalade as per the recipe, detracting the sugar used for preserving the peel.

Brilliant. One less thing to go to landfill. Now to find some alternative for plastic food bags... :-/