Name

Ruth Bellord

Location

Near Sittingbourne, Kent

What do you recycle?

I compost everything I can from my kitchen and garden, and anything woody I burn and then put the ash on the compost heap too. And of course all the usual things like tins and bottles too.

How did you first get into recycling?

Probably when I was young – after the war when we were children, my mother used to say ‘Oh, you can’t waste that!’ We were jolly poor, so we just had to make sure we didn’t waste anything.

Tell us why you’re a Recycling Champion

I hardly throw anything away. I’ve got one of these huge wheelie bins, and my rubbish barely covers the bottom of it!

I always reuse my own bags for shopping – I never take new plastic bags. At home I have a woodburner in which I only use coppiced wood, which helps sustain coppiced woodland. It’s a sustainable form of energy.

I never use tap water for the garden, ever. A lot of the water from my house goes into tubs that so I can reuse it on the garden. I don’t live too far from the Medway estuary, so in the summer, instead of taking baths, I cycle down and have a dip in the water there. Last year I managed to keep going in until October.

Give us your top recycling tip

Keep a pot in the loo and use it to spend a penny – then you can put it on the compost.

I do it – and you should see the results in my garden! It looks absolutely lovely. It’s a sight to behold, especially in spring. I grow all my own vegetables, and I’m sure they do so well because I have such good compost.