Mission accomplished! Rushden man and son complete six-month no black bin challenge

A Rushden father and son have completed their six-month challenge to reduce the amount of household waste – and intend to aim for another six months of reduced black bin usage.

George Dowsett and his son, Jake, began the task in October while taking part in the Greenpeace Big Plastic Count, and have successfully managed to go half a year without filling their black bin.

George said: “It wasn’t too bad, I think we changed the way we do things, but once we got into that habit it came quite easily.

"There’s a lot of things we’ve done to make this work.

"We’ll try and buy products that don’t have any packaging or aren’t excessively packaged, we’ll go to the refill shop we have locally in Higham, and reuse a lot of the containers.”

During the challenge in February, George said: "We’re trying to be a little bit more careful about the things we buy at the supermarket, trying to buy loose vegetables rather than pre-packaged vegetables and avoiding products that are overly-packaged.

“It’s felt fairly natural to be honest, we’ve been fairly good at recycling anyway, and we’ve just stepped it up a gear.”

Greenpeace’s Big Plastic Count in 2022 found that almost half of the UK’s household plastic packaging waste (46 per cent) is likely being incinerated, while 25 per cent is buried in landfill. George and Jake’s efforts have drastically reduced the amount of household waste they create.

George and Jake have inspired other local people to also be more aware of their habits, with many pledging to follow in their footsteps on the pair’s Facebook page.

Expressing his pleasure at others making an effort to be more environmentally conscious, George added: “It’s really good, that’s why we’re doing the social media side, to get the concept of trying to reduce waste in the public eye and in the media."

While the push to be more conscious of waste products is improving, it can still be a challenge to find products that aren’t over-packaged.

George said: “It has been hard, you’ve got to be a but more aware when you’re in a supermarket.

"For example, something like Pringles, we realised that you can’t recycle that really easily, so we just avoid Pringles, it’s not the end of the world.

"They’re nice, but they’re not that nice!”

With Christmas and Easter out of the way, and the pair becoming used to the lifestyle change, they are optimistic about the next six months being a smooth transition. The aforementioned holidays are often heavy on waste, with gift wrapping and Easter egg boxes creating a lot of rubbish, and being gifted it’s hard to keep it to a minimum.

George said: "Those things are done now, so I think the next six months should be easier, hopefully!”

April 22 is Earth Day, which hopes to ‘diversify, educate and activate the environmental movement worldwide’, and George and Jake successfully completing half a year of drastically reduced waste shows that making small changes can make a big difference.