I know I'm a bit ahead of schedule (it's not February yet) but we started actively reducing the amount of garbage we create as a family since the beginning of the new year.
Already, we had less garbage than most of our neighbours but we have gone from about 1 to 1 1/2 large trash bags per week to less than 1/2 a bag per week. That's for a family of 4 and it includes diapers.
Area where garbage could be reduced most easily: the kitchen!
What helped most: composting all our kitchen waste.
We had been lazy about that. It was just easier to put it in the trash can than walk to the parking lot and dump it in the compost bin. Between all the eggs we eat (egg shells can be composted), the coffee we drink (coffee grounds and unbleached filters can be composted), the rest of the food prep that happens in our home and the fruits eaten as snacks, that's a lot of trips in the cold to the compost bin (but we're doing it!) and a lot of stuff that doesn't end up in the garbage.
Tip: We keep our compost container inside the refrigerator until it's full so we don't get any fruit flies or odors.
Other things that helped:
Picking the rest of the garbage apart to see if anything got missed and could possibly be recycled (a used tissue in the garbage can? It should be moved to the recycling bin).
I found it easier to sort the content of the small wastepaper baskets once in a while instead of taking every single little item to the recycling bin right away. So once a week, instead of dumping the content of those small baskets into the garbage, it's quickly sorted. Most of it seems to be recyclable.
Not being afraid of picking something out of the garbage and putting it in the compost or recycling instead (children seems to forget to put apple cores in the compost and guests put all sorts of recyclable waste into the garbage).
Compacting helped too. Obviously, if I'm not bringing in anything new, I have less to throw away.
One thing that doesn't help:
Our toddler is in disposable diapers. That's the drawback of not having a dryer. In the winter, it would humidify the house too much to be line drying cloth diapers indoors. I do have a dozen prefolds I could use comes spring and summer, I would just have to find covers in his size. I can just imagine how little garbage we would have if we didn't use 'sposies, maybe I'll have to try setting them aside to see.
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3 comments:
People who don't have a backyard can compost, too. Many companies make urban composters that don't take up a lot of room and can be easily placed on a balcony.
We're looking for ways in which to reduce the paper coming in and decided that tea is a good place to reduce waste. We drink tons of it and have found some good loose teas at our local health market. So as we finish the many boxes of tea in our cupboard, we'll be replacing it with loose tea. There are tons of tea infusers out there. We also have a teapot with a little infuser basket and that's how we'll be brewing all of our and our company's tea from now on.
We're looking for more suggestions, too.
Paper can be composted, too!
Tissue paper, paper plates, newspapers *if soy inks are used*
I'm kind of lazy about "fishing" through the garbage, too, to see if I missed anything.
I also have guilt about merely recycling paper. I wish there simply wasn't as much of it coming into my home! Arrrrrggg!!
It sounds like you don't really need this, but you can compost in your kitchen if you vericompost, or compost with red worms. It's easy! :)
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