Reducing Waste

pretty hard in our daily lives, but there are certainly ways to deal with it more efficiently.

Types of Waste

• Packaging Waste – Nearly everything we consume comes packaged in some kind of container or wrapping. Cans, bottles, jars, boxes, bins; the list is nearly endless. The question becomes what to do with all this packaging after we consume what it contains.
• Food Waste – All too often, whatever we leave on our plate ends up in a landfill. We definitely want to avoid this! I will soon add a post on composting that will deal with this type of waste.
• Paper Waste – Junk mail, paper towels and napkins
• Wearable Waste – OK, I know that sounds weird, but I’m talking about clothing that you no longer wear but still takes up space in your closet or dresser.

Recycle Whenever Possible

Recycling is our major response to packaging waste. We keep two recycling bins with lids in our kitchen – one for cardboard and the other for plastic and glass. The contents of these two bins go out to the curb each week. There are a few exceptions to this as follows:

16-oz coffee creamer containers – we use these for food scraps that cannot go on the compost pile such as meat scraps. This kept the scraps from stinking up the trash can and don’t take up much room.

Coffee cans – These are the 2 pound tubs, a perfect size for used kitty litter

Ice cream tubs – The gallon tubs, with handles, have a wide variety of uses. We fill them with water to keep the freezer efficient when it’s less filled with food, use them as handy harvest buckets for the garden, storage for bird seed, quick sorting for small items, and lots more.

Milk and juice jugs – We fill these from our rain barrel and we use them to water various plants

Keep Food Waste Out Of The Landfill!

Any food waste that can be added to the compost pile goes in a small compost pail, which we dump daily. We have three compost piles, each one about a cubic yard. We turn these haphazardly and the finished compost becomes a wonderful soil builder for our garden areas.

Food waste on the compost pile breaks down nicely. But food waste in a landfill does not. This is a no-brainer for us.

Make Money From Metal

We collect metal scrap in a large bin in the garage. Most of our metal scrap is in the form of cans from food. We take the scrap metal to a local junk yard where we can earn a bit of money for it. It adds up slowly but a typical trip, when the back of our Outback is full, usually brings in 10 to 15 dollars.

The Problem with Paper

There’s far too paper in this house. But we’re working on it. We don’t use paper napkins at all and we only use paper towels when really necessary, such as for messy spills. Unless the spill is something really unhealthy, used paper towels end up in the composting bin. We generally shred older paper trash so we can add it to the compost pile Or, in the winter time, we crumple it up and use it to help start up the woodstove.

Plastic bags – some of them get re-used as trash can liners for the bathroom and bedrooms, but most get saved to give to the folks who use them for their plarn projects. We don’t actually get that many of these bags any more, since we take our own re-usable bags to the grocery store.