Waste and a Conference

Did you see lovely Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's documentary about Britain's waste problem?

 

It made my heart break to see how wasteful we have become as a society. 

As a household we are pretty good at using everything up rather than wasting it - and I don't think I will ever see the day that a pot of hummus lasts long enough to expire! If it smells ok, we eat it and largely ignore best-before dates.

I can't bear to bin anything, so usable items go on ebay,  Snaply, Freegle or the charity shop. Our waste clothes that are worn out go in a bag which gets handed to the charity shop as 'rag bag' - they get it collected and recycled for sofa stuffing.

The subject of waste was on my mind today as I stood for hours at an industry conference, on our exhibition stand. 

Professionally, it was a good day. But what a waste! Metres and metres of carpet was laid on the floor of the enormous exhibition hall just for the event.

I naively assumed that it was permanent, or at least stored and re-used. But unbelievably it isn't- it gets 'recycled'. 

After two days it is hardly dirty. Next week there will be another conference, and every week after that for years to come - what amazing waste of resources to use fresh new carpet every time.  Every stall has pens, stuffed toys, stress balls and brochures, USB sticks, diaries and desk tidies - all will one day end up in the bin- and all so that various companies can sell each other software. 

Makes me even more determined to live a simple life. I hate 'stuff!'

On the plus side, I haven't spent a penny today (that wasn't on the company credit card) and have eaten very well, so no-spend November is still going strong.