The Month We Tried to Halve Our Bin (Without Becoming Insufferable)

For months, the wheelie bin outside Danbury & Lovejoy HQ (also known as our slightly scuffed Sussex semi) had been groaning by Tuesday. Cardboard leaning out like a drunk uncle, carrier bags crammed with “I’ll deal with that later” clamshells and rogue yoghurt pots. It wasn’t very D&L. It wasn’t very anything, really – just chaotic.

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So we set ourselves a small, slightly ridiculous challenge:

Could we halve our landfill bin in one month – without becoming insufferable?

No spreadsheets, no guilt-ridden manifestos. Just a quiet experiment in the background of real life, alongside the usual slow-cooker suppers and household-bill wrangling.

We hadn’t really stopped to think about how to reduce household waste; we just kept wheeling out an overflowing bin and hoping for the best.

Week One: The Bin Audit (And the Slight Horror)

On the first Sunday, we did what no civilised person truly wants to do: we tipped a week’s worth of rubbish onto an old sheet in the garden.

A still, grey Sussex afternoon, kettle just boiled, the distant sound of a neighbour’s hedge trimmer… and us, poking through our own habits with a gloved hand.

What we found wasn’t glamorous:

• So. Much. Plastic film.
  Bread bags, salad bags, the crinkly sleeves from multipack loo rolls.
• Takeaway containers we’d sworn we were “keeping to reuse” (spoiler: we weren’t).
• Food waste in the wrong place – a few sad, furry carrots and half a lemon, quietly decomposing in the general bin instead of being composted.

But threaded through the horror were easy wins. Half the bin, we realised, was made up of things we could either recycle properly, compost, or avoid buying in the first place.

We made tea, took a deep breath, and decided on three gentle rules for the month:

1. Everything has to earn its place in the bin.
2. We set the house up to make “good choices” the lazy default.
3. No martyrdom: if we’re exhausted or ill, perfection is cancelled.

Then we shopped.

The Kit That Made It Feel Effortless

Before we changed our behaviour, we changed our stuff. A few small, sensible buys made the whole experiment feel oddly luxurious rather than punishing.

• A neat worktop compost caddy with a charcoal filter – the kind you actually don’t mind looking at next to the kettle.
  Try something similar to these countertop compost caddies (#ad).
• A set of glass storage containers with clip-on lids.
  Perfect for “mystery leftovers” that deserve better than being flung into the bin three days later. Think along the lines of these stackable glass containers (#ad).
• A sturdy, lidded indoor recycling box, so we weren’t relying on our future selves to trek to the outdoor bin every time we finished a tin of tomatoes.
• A simple label set – just chalk pens and stick-on labels – to rescue the “what on earth is in this tub?” situation in the freezer.
  These kinds of pantry & freezer labels (#ad) are ideal.

The point wasn’t perfection – it was making the easiest thing also the right thing.

Week Two: The “Put It Down, Look Again” Rule

By the second week, the novelty had worn off. No one wants to conduct a moral evaluation every time they finish a yoghurt.

So we introduced one simple habit: before anything went into the bin, we put it down and looked at it for two seconds.

That tiny pause did interesting things:

• The soft-plastic bread bag?
  We realised our local supermarket collected those – so it went into a hanging tote on the pantry door instead.
• The cardboard pizza box?
  Torn in half: greasy bit in the bin, clean bit flattened for recycling.
• The embarrassing half lemon?
  Sliced and dropped into a jug of water on the counter. Suddenly we were “lemon water people”.

We also quietly started practising “use-it-up” cooking.

On Thursday night, instead of giving in to the siren call of a takeaway, we peered into the fridge and played a quick round of Ready, Steady, Don’t Bin It. That slightly sad carrot, half a pepper, a few wilting spinach leaves – all chopped into a slow-cooker stew with tinned tomatoes and lentils from the back of the cupboard.

A freezer-friendly, money-saving stew that also kept two takeaway containers out of the bin? That’s pure D&L.

If you’re in the mood to do the same, you might like our comfort-food ideas in Slow Cooker Comfort Dishes for Chilly Autumn Evenings, and the gentle, practical tips in 21 Simple Ways to Cut Your Household Bills in the UK (Without Feeling Miserable).

Week Three: The Leftover Revolution

By week three, we were feeling bold.

The glass containers and labels were working overtime. Sunday became Leftover Tetris Day: we’d portion out anything remaining from the week – the last ladle of cottage pie filling, a scoop of chilli, a spoonful of roast veg – into lidded tubs, label them, and stack them neatly in the freezer.

There’s a particular pleasure in opening the freezer on a drizzly Tuesday and finding:

• One tub labelled “Emergency chilli (one greedy portion)”
• Another: “Odd veg – add to soup”
• And a third: “Pasta sauce – 10-minute dinner”

Each one is a small victory over waste and over future you, who will always be tired and tempted to lean on Deliveroo.

Supporting players that quietly earned their keep:

• Freezer-safe glass dishes – easy to go from freezer to oven. Look for oven-safe glass dishes with lids (#ad).
• A modest stick blender – perfect for blitzing “those veg on the turn” into a silky soup. For example: basic stick blenders (#ad).
• A basic meal-planning pad on the fridge door, so we remembered what was already in the house before writing the shopping list. You can find simple versions such as these magnetic weekly meal planners (#ad).

All simple tools you can weave into a bigger slow-living routine: a batch-cooking Sunday, a Thermos porridge on Monday morning (see our Thermos Porridge with Apple & Cinnamon recipe), and a bin that’s gradually less full and less guilty-looking.

Week Four: Has It Worked?

At the end of the month, we repeated the grim-but-oddly-satisfying Bin Audit.

This time, the difference was obvious even before we tipped anything out: the bin lid closed easily. No cardboard sticking out, no rustle of overflowing bags when you walked past.

On the sheet, the proof:

• Far fewer food scraps. Most peelings and offcuts were going into the compost caddy.
• Takeaway containers almost gone. Not because we became saints, but because batch-cooked slow-cooker meals were waiting in the freezer on the nights we were tempted to cave.
• Less random plastic. We’d learned which packets could be recycled and were quietly avoiding the worst offenders in the supermarket aisle.

We hadn’t halved our bin every single week – life happens – but the average was comfortably lower. More importantly, it didn’t feel like a “challenge” any more. It just felt like… how we lived.

Thinking About How to Reduce Household Waste at Home?

If you’re tempted to try this yourself, here’s the Danbury & Lovejoy version – gentle, practical, and rooted in real life:

1. Start with one ritual, not ten

For us, it was the Sunday Bin Audit and a cup of tea. You might prefer a Friday evening “leftovers into tubs” session or a Monday morning bin check before work.

2. Invest in three helpers, max

We’d suggest:

• A countertop compost caddy (see these caddy options (#ad)).
• A set of decent storage containers (glass food storage with lids (#ad)).
• A small indoor recycling station – a lidded box, a basket, or something that looks nice enough to live in your kitchen.

Once those are in place, it becomes much easier to keep food and packaging out of the main bin and gently reduce household waste week by week.

3. Choose one “use-it-up” meal a week

A slow-cooker stew, a traybake, or a frittata – something forgiving that swallows odds and ends from the fridge.

For inspiration, have a look at Slow Cooker Comfort Dishes for Chilly Autumn Evenings and pair it with a simple meal plan on that magnetic fridge pad.

4. Replace guilt with curiosity

When something lands in the bin, ask:

“Could I have bought this differently? Stored it better? Cooked it sooner?”

No judgment, just a quiet note for next time – very much in the spirit of our calmer money guides like cutting household bills without feeling miserable.

5. Celebrate the small wins

The night you make a meal entirely out of things that “needed using up”. The week the bin goes out a third empty. The moment you find a labelled tub in the freezer and feel like your own fairy godmother.

At Danbury & Lovejoy, we’re never going to be the household that fits a year’s worth of rubbish into a jam jar. But a month spent learning how to reduce household waste – with the help of a few sensible tools, a slow cooker and a bit of humour – felt less like
punishment and more like an upgrade.

And now, when bin day rolls round and the lid closes with a satisfying, modest click, there’s a quiet satisfaction in knowing we’ve lightened the load just a little – on our wallets, our waste and the wheezy old wheelie bin outside the front gate.