Submitted By: Kim Curiel (kimcuriel@yahoo.com)
After hosting Thanksgiving dinner for 28, we realized we hadn’t taken down the trash can, and in fact, had forgotten to take the can down for two weeks prior. Could three weeks of trash possibly fit in that small blue can? It did. A small miracle perhaps, but one that we’d been working toward for several years. Maybe it’s not work at all though, maybe it’s just plain laziness. Nobody here wants to bring the trash can down the driveway or take the trash out. No one wants to jump up and down on the garbage to pack it in. Not making garbage in the first place just seems easier to all of us.
So, how do we have so little trash?
We avoid disposable containers and bags, etc.
We avoid buying things in containers that are not recyclable, so we can recycle any containers we use, but before they go in the brown can we often reuse the containers for many different purposes. We avoid buying things in packages, particularly small or individually packed items, instead we shop at the Farmer's Market. Paper or plastic? I always say, “Neither!” because we bring our own bags everywhere, so we don't have plastic or paper bags around. In the summer we pick fruit and grow vegetables that we then can in reusable jars, so we don't have to buy as many jars or cans of food in the winter. We all use reusable containers for lunches, so we have zero waste there. Recently a friend and I had lunch together. She and I both had salad and a drink. She’d bought hers at Trader Joes which came in a plastic box, with a plastic container of dressing, a plastic fork, and a plastic bag of croutons. I picked mine from my winter garden, put it in my pyrex dish and brought a lime to squeeze on it. She had a can of Coke, I had my cup that I keep at work and made myself some tea with the mint from the garden. At the end of lunch she had a pile of things that she needed to recycle, while I had nothing at all to throw away.
We divert all of our food scraps
Fortunately for us, we have a large flock of chickens who eat almost all of our food waste. But even if we didn’t have chickens we could be feeding worms in a wormbin. That’s a very simple box with redworms who will devour just about anything you would normally toss. In a few months time you’re left with a wonderful additive for your garden. We could be using the food waste bin that the garbage company gives out, but we feed the chickens instead.
We turn our yard debris into mulch
We have five acres of land, mostly left as natural oak woodland. We used to feed our yard waste to our goat until she died; now it gets composted along with our chicken manure. Once a year we have a huge chipper come out to shred up our brush for the fire department, and ask them to leave behind the chips for mulch. .
We celebrate with reusable gift wraps and decorations
For birthdays and holidays we wrap gifts in fabric or newspaper or create treasure hunts for larger items. We avoid decorating with disposable items, choosing instead cloth table clothes, and natural floral displays. In the fall we’ll hang colorful dried corn on the door alongside a display of gourds and pumpkins (that will later get eaten by the chickens). In winter we’ll cut some boughs from the bay trees for wreaths with berries from our local holly lookalike, Toyon. In spring, I’ll collect some of the flowers coming up in our yard. And summer is for displaying the beauty of Diane Hurst’s Farm flowers.--always stunning and 100% compostable.
We've given up disposable paper products
Paper products were a tough thing to give up. It seemed so easy to just toss instead of washing. After a big party however, it was clear to me that if my guests’ plates and forks weren’t going to fit in my trash can that they probably weren’t going to fit in the landfill either. There really isn’t an “away” that we’re throwing things to. Our stuff is going to be there. Some of it forever. Then I had the amazing realization after a trip to IKEA that I could by porceline plates for just .75 cents each (which is actually less per plate than Chinette disposable plates!) and a sixteen piece set of steel cutlery for $2.00. Now when we have big parties we just haul out our IKEA ware and have a washing wrap up afterward. It doesn’t really take all that much time, no more time actually than stomping down the can did. Other paper products, we realized could be avoided in much the same way. For instance, we use cloth napkins, hankerchiefs, cloth kitchen wipes, and microfiber dust rags. Toilet paper is still paper, but it’s 100% post consumer recycled. The TP tubes get donated to preschools for craft projects. Reusable water bottles and coffee cups seemed like a no-brainer.
We give stuff away year round
Instead of taking advantage of the twice a year extra trash pick up days, we give stuff away year round to our local thriftstore, Nifty Thrift , which is also our favorite store to shop. We bring our used books to the Lafayette Bookstore for store credit on used books, or donate children’s Books for the Barrios in Concord. We take advantage of local collections of batteries, CFLs and electronics which often benefit our schools.
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It's really about reducing and reusing before we have to recycle, let alone toss. Everyone in the house is aware of what goes into the trash can and will haul things out if someone makes a mistake.*gasp* We aren’t perfect by any means. Perfect would really mean zero waste across the board. We aren’t there yet. But every item that goes in the trash gets a second look.
Here’s a list of some of the specific things we avoid, in order to reduce our garbage, and what we use instead:
|
AVOID
|
INSTEAD
|
| Paper
plates/plastic cutlery
|
Buy an
inexpensive set of real dishes
|
| Paper
napkins
|
Cloth
(thrift stores have them for 25 cents)
|
| Kleenex
|
Handkerchiefs
|
| Wrapping paper
|
Cloth,
newspaper
|
| Disposable decorations
|
Things
from nature
|
| Yard
waste
|
Compost
|
| Food
waste
|
Worms
or chickens
|
| Individual packages
|
Buy in
bulk
|
| Containers
|
Can
your own
|
| Paper
or plastic bags
|
Bring
your own
|
| Plastic water bottles
|
Stainless steel
|
| Paper
coffee cups
|
Reusable cups
|
Benefits & Payback
You might notice you save a lot of money along the way. It seems funny how we’ve been convinced it’s easier to throw our money away, literally, as we toss out our plates, forks, napkins...etc!
The smaller your garbage bin the less you pay each month. A 96 gallon bin is $64.85 per month and a 20 gallon mini-cart is only $18.75 per month.
Informational Links
wastediversion.org - your cutting-edge resource for cutting waste
One of Kim's favorite quotes: "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." Baba Dioum, Senegalese Ecologist
