Things that you do but know you shouldn't...

[babyonboard]

For us..

I refuse to reuse cooking oil..it always has a nasty taste..seems very wasteful though..

We use disposable nappies..we tried washables, but it's too much work and looking at figures on how much energy washing reusables costs I'm even more convinced.
We now buy the 'moltex' biodegradable ones..since we had them..no nappy rash etc, but still feel a bit guilty..

We do the bulk of our shop in the supermarket most weeks..theres only so much you can get from local butcher/farmers markets etc..

I buy lithium batteries..nothing worse than a battrey running out at a cruial moment and these last for ages..

so...

supermarket shopping
not always recycling the cat food tins...so yukky to clean

Too numerous to mention. I'm not the 'greenest' person.

I hadn't even thought about the ones you mention (do people really reuse cooking oil?)

I sometimes get peed off with the size of my cardboard recycling pile and bin it instead but I am doing so well with my new food recycling bin so I feel that redeems me!

I also haven't flown anywhere for years.

Disposables are my big guilt-trip thing. Have tried cloth nappies but...

What finally convinced me to use cloth was the way the bin smelled. Oh boak! And it's been cold here, can only imagine if it ever warms up. YUK. We've got no garden or wheelie bin, have to haul bin liner down to large bins in car park.

'Twas getting the damn things onto the DSs that put me off using cloth ones. Seemed so much harder than putting on disposables! That and the fact that they seemed to make DS1's eczematous legs much worse... Oh, and the fact that it seemed nigh on impossible to get a pair of trousers on over the top...

But this is just feeble of me, I know. What is good is that everyone I know who's become a parent for the first time recently is using clothies.

I don't recycle glass or anything else regularly
We use disposable nappies (but use cloth sometimes)
I use the tumble drier when I don't always need to.

I don't think you should feel bad about not reusing cooking oil because that is bad for your health anyway..

Using disposible nappies (although I have once used natures own ones, does that count?!), not re-cycling my paper, wine bottles etc and do the majority of my food shopping from the supermarket.

cooking oil..hmm..
mu gran uses it over and over..
and so do most of my friends..

it doesn't taste good fair enough..but how can it be bad for you..surely the heat it gets to rids any nasties!?
as for my gran.. she still lives as if in the ww2..lol
she'll freak out if they don't have 6 bags of sugar and flour..a sack of poataoes and onions, 10 tins of beans etc..

and we have a washer drier..it's the best thing we've ever bought..
we got it when I was getting very sick of the baby washing all over every surface in the house trying to dry it..and it improved my mood..so selfishly i feel great about it...

use a dishwasher

sheer laziness but is so nice only to have to wash knives and pans
Do recycle an awful lot though, and don't use a hose...

i'd love a dishwasher..and as my d.p insists on doing the washing up..and does it by running hot water constantly and washing each thing under it at a time it might even be less wasteful for us to have one..

Dishwashers are OK if you run them on a full load. I usually switch mine off midway through drying to save on the electric.

Our dishwasher only uses 14 litres of water and we only run it once a day - I'm convinced it uses a lot less water than constantly washing up by hand, especially as for some reason we have to run the tap in the kitchen for ages before the water comes hot!

babyonboard, get one - we got ours two weeks ago and I'm just in love with it!

I don't quite get how you can reuse cooking oil? Apart from in a chip pan, obviously?

I read somewhere that dishwasher do use less water than washing up by hand.

My "sins" -

Flushing tampons sometimes.
Shopping at Tesco (it's the only place I can get some of the things I want.
Have an organic veg box but end up throwing stuff away every week (so wasteful).
Don't recycle cans or cardboard (do paper and glass only).
Throw compostable waste in the bin (keep meaning to get a compost bin).
Throw the water from the tumble drier down the sink rather than use it to water the plants.

I do use cloth nappies and washable wipes though .

Ahh - Fio read it too...

oh, so dishwashers aren't so bad?

[thinks of another sin]

I flush tampons too. Always thought they were cotton and would biodegrade eventually
Am only finishing current stocks before I join the mooncup posse though...

hmm..
forgive me if I'm stupid,
but why is flushing tampons worse than putting them in bins..

surely not..
doesn't most of it get filtered pretty locally..

I think reusing oil increases the amount of cholesterol.