Recycling

(I just don't know where the time has gone to this weekend I am just waiting for the Yorkshire Puds and then tea will be served.  I just haven't been on this planet this weekend head in the clouds not really being aware of time or place just simply being.) Since updated as we have now eaten tea which was delicious.  Have updated the Yorkshire Pudding Supper with the photographs.

I have been busy as usual.  OH thinks I am  a bit of an embarrassment because I take the time to try and re-use whatever glass bottles, jars come my way when it comes to preserving etc.  The only thing I don't scrimp on is new lids for each and every separate bottle or jar.  Perhaps recycling should be my middle name  - well I try and do what I can.

I found a load of beer bottles playing hide and seek with me earlier on which I must have put aside for recycling at some point and promptly forgetting about them, in readiness for  me going to do some home brew and all that., but the dratted manufacturers are putting on those plastic nasty labels that are neither blooming use or argument. C........ ginger beer. do you hear no more plastic labels.  Your beer is gorgeous your environmental issues need addressing (unless I have missed something).  Now G........ cider bottles the labels come off nicely thank you very much.    I have just spent the past hour and a half persuading the labels that they are going to part company with their counterpart the bottle.  Several boiling kettles of water later after leaving the bottles to soak and eventually gaining purchase with my cast iron finger nails (should have put the marigolds on but couldna find them) I eventually won the battle and got said labels off the bottles leaving a distinctive gluey residue which is going to be removed with the help of a green scouring pad and some washing up liquid, then I can rinse and dry them off and put them in their storage boxes in the Jam Pantry in readiness for when I do said homebrew which is likely to be in the next few weeks or so.  Why do you bother do you ask - because I am tight and I am not prepared to pay out more money to get new bottles until I absolutely have to.  Besides we  have paid for and have either had the contents of the bottles or friends and relatives have and then recycled them.  My grandmother always practiced this form or recyling well before it became popular her wines used to be served up in old whisky bottles purloined from here and there.  So it kinds of runs in the family!

My Mum used to make wine and beer too and I always used to help her out.

You can recycle many bottles or jars and you can find new replacement lids for nearly all of them from one source or another.  Lakeland have replacement lids which fit most standard jam jars, the lids also fit Sarson pickling jars (the newer ones not the older ones).  Larger lids can be obtained from John Lewis at £1 for a pack of 6 - these fit the larger jars that you normally get your gherkins in from the cheaper stores, and you can get mixed packs of jar lids from Ascotts, and also the Jam Jar Shop. 

Bottles can be recycled as well.  The ones that cannot be recycled I put to the recycling bank.

On a separate issue why do we have to have so much packaging with everything what happened to the good old paper bag or brown paper.  Surely there should be an onus on manufacturers to recycle as many of the jars and bottles as possible.  What about a bottle return scheme like we used to have with bottles years ago.  Its mad that we are raping and pillaging the earth even further for raw materials when we have a whole stash of prospective bottles to recycle. The bottles could be collected at a central point and then re-distributed to the original manufacturer. The bottles/jars just need sterilising or is that just being plain sensible.

Rant over soapbox moment gone.

Have to get ready for work tomorrow and get my hair washed, if its anything like last week it is going to be a very busy week.

Catch you soon - promise

Love and light

Pattypan

xx