I think a lot of us have desire to send fewer items to the landfill. Got any tips to share?
We finally took the plunge to add a Compost bin for our city waste pickup and switched to a smaller trash bin. (Now we have 48 gallon trash weekly, then alternating weeks for 96 gallon compost and 96 gallon recycling cans; all are hinge-lidded cans provided by the city trash service). Our compost can is for household items (food waste, napkins etc) and yard waste (leaves, branches, weeds etc). But for the past few years had been dropping of the yard waste at the local Waste Diversion center when over at that corner or townā¦. we just used my old minivan (no seats - kept them out through Covid isolaton) as a sort of pickup truck. That was a big step, kept many van loads of yard waste out of the landfill.
Iām still deciding how to deal with the kitchen compost. At our church Earth Care meetings, others have said they use a small can on counter with 2 gallon compostable bags. Those bags are pricey so Iām experimenting with other ways.
Iām a big advocate of REUSE ā¦ donating items to charity where possible. Per the Bag A Week thread, there are many of us doing same as we try to declutter our empty nests.
Iāve finally reached the point where we donāt use new plastic bags at all from the grocery store. The last couple of things were produce and meat/poultry. Now I have āstrongā plastic bags I reuse for meat/poultry - these can be washed out as needed and reused - and I have earth friendly produce bags that are lightweight, so donāt add to the price per pound Iām paying. Itās nice going to the cashier and telling them I have āallā my own bags - for everything. Itās also super rare around me.
For laundry, weāve also ditched liquid detergents for solid, flat ones from Earth Breeze. No more laundry bottles to be recycled. These are super easy to take on our trips too. Iāve found with our hard water I need to use a whole sheet instead of a half sheet, but I can do that.
I need to figure out what to do with glass bottles. Around me they donāt recycle them, so we save them up and take them to NY with us when we go to hopefully get them recycled there, but I donāt know that they do recycle vs landfill. My youngest mentioned getting a machine that would turn them back to sand, but I think those are expensive. It doesnāt mean we wonāt get one though - and let all of our neighbors use it too. I need to look into them more later this summer - or if anyone on here happens to have one - feel free to post your thoughts on it!
we have ditched paper towels, napkins, spray cleaners, shampoo and conditioners, and laundry soap bottles, Still trying to find a dish soap alternative that doesnāt come in plastic. I use mason jars for storage.
i follow a blog called Sunshine Guerilla that has lots and lots of good ideas, if anyone is interested at that level.
Weāre happy to have modest recycling and to use reusable bags at the grocery. We used to do composting pre-Covid, but we had to bring frozen food scraps to a weekly drop-off site. Itās recently started back up, but itās 2x/month and we now have a French door fridge with an even smaller freezer space, so weāre looking for better options. Looking forward to learning from others on this thread!
This is timelyāNew Jersey is just about to start a bag ban for both plastic and paper bags in stores. I normally carry my own anyway, but I know that a lot of people are still going to be taken by surprise, even though the law passed quite some time ago.
Iāll admit I will miss occasionally getting the TJās paper bags, which I use to collect my paper recycles. but I can work around that.
We started doing our own composting a couple of years ago - super easy and it produces fabulous compost that our plants thrive on. I thought it would be a real pain but it doesnāt require much effort at all and the results are worth it.
Several comments: @garland, Do you know if itās an actual plastic bag ban, or one that just defines what a single use bag thickness is? In my state, we voted to ban single use bags, but after it made it through the court case, simply turned into a definition of how thick a bag had to be to not be classified as single use.
Weāve had food waste recycling into our green waste container for several years. The container, provided by our waste company, sits on the kitchen counter. The company that processes it has what seems to be a very viable model: they are able to capture the gasses from the decomposition and sell that, and the compost generated to local farms and yard supply businesses. And twice a year, there is a free compost day for end consumers: fill the back of your truck (this is done w a backhoe) or for us smaller needs folks, shovel it yourself into your own containers, be it buckets, soil bags, or whatever.
Anyone reuse water used to rinse fruits and veggies, or from steaming them? Or from getting hot water up to temperature? We use this water on our outdoor plants. These two activities, along with our gaggle of rain barrels has helped us with keeping our water use down. (And the two young people leaving home helps as well.)
Our medium-sized compost bin is just outside the back door, close to the kitchen. Weāve been pitching stuff in there for at least 10 years and itās still not full. Itās amazing how much the material settles.
There must be some great soil in the bottom of it, so we need to open up the small door and see!
My permaculture guy in Puerto Rico is trying a home biogas digester from here:
Heās also as āGreenā loving as they make humans so is always trying new things. Heās even building his house from the earth. If anyone has FB and wants to follow along with his experiments, including the land he and his wife just bought as they convert it to a farm, search for Jardin De Aibonito - Garden of Aibonito.
His description:
Growing food, fuels, fibers, flowers, and farmaceuticals for people. Utilizing restoration techniques to transform a dirty, dusty, arid mountain into a lush, productive garden paradise!
We have one of those countertop compost bins. In fact, we had a smaller one for several years that seemed to fill up daily. We make our own compost but the bin in our backyard is far from the kitchen so when the handle on our kitchen bin recently broke, I replaced it with the larger one. And this time, I did buy the biodegradable bag inserts so I no longer have to rinse/clean the bin after emptying it. I got the inserts for something like $15-20 and there are enough bags in the box to last a year. My husband takes care of the outdoor compost; he uses it to fertilize our garden.
We used to go through a lot of paper towels - used one per person every night as a napkin and with six people, that added up. I finally decided to buy cloth napkins a few years ago. It was eye opening to me when I saw how much longer a roll of paper towels now lasts, and certainly helpful when there was a shortage during the pandemic! Iād really like to stop using them altogether and just use fabric cloths in their place, but just havent been able to make that switch.
Where we live, they take everything for recycling and we donāt need to sort it. We keep two cans in the kitchen, one for garbage and one for recycling. We fill up the recycling more quickly than the garbage.
Whole we do have reusable grocery bags, we still manage to end up with lots of plastic bags. If I stop at a drug store or someplace where Iām just getting a few things, I try to manage without getting a bag. The ones that do end up at our house get brought back to the grocery store for recycling.
We have a rain barrel to collect water we use in the garden. Our yard waste is collected by the county but we donāt have bins for that - we have to use brown compostable bags.
I joined a local Buy Nothing group on Facebook. You can get rid of almost anything to be reused by someone. When our decking material was delivered wrapped in a giant tarp, I was able to give that tarp to someone looking to cover a project for the winter, for example. Itās amazing what you can find on there used too. We bring our own bags to the store 90% of the time, and get paper bags to use for recycling the other 10%. We also reuse those, just dumping the contents into the bin and putting the paper bag back in the kitchen recycling container. Our recycling is everything in one bin collected every two weeks. I try my best not to use plastic bottles but could do better. I also use the laundry strips from Tru Earth. They were actually great to send to college too.
I HATE the grocery store plastic bags. I try to always bring my own but during COVID some stores were discouraging them. I cringe when the bagging staff puts like 2 things in each bag. Hate to be bossy but I will say āplease fit as much as you can in a bagā.
Definitely believe in second hand, thrifting, refinishing furniture, giving our stuff for repurposing.
Less stuff, less stuff, less stuff! Trying hard to get H to buy into āless stuffā overall!
I need to do better at reducing paper towel use. I prefer cloth napkins and have acquired lots of them so rarely use paper. Trying to get in the habit of just dedicating one cloth hand towel to wipe my hands on when cooking instead of paper towels. No big deal to wash a few extra hand towels!
Food waste. Donāt compost per say but trying to do a better job of using up perishable foods so there is less garbage. At least once a week I literally play āWhatās for Dinner In My Fruit/Vegetable binā - I take out all the odds and ends of vegetables, chop it up and do either a stir fry or sheet pan meal. I take leftover fruit -specifically berries - that are getting older and I zap them in the microwave with just a little sugar so I end up with a sweet fruit ājamā of sorts - I use it with yogurt, in smoothies, on oatmeal, over ice cream, etc.
I (a husband) usually clean up (eg plates, counters, etc) after dinner. I found that I seemed to use lots of paper towels. Several months ago, I came across this article on CNN about Swedish dishtowels (https://www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/reviews/swedish-dishcloth-cellulose-sponge). They really work; my paper towel usage is down to one to finish my clean up. I ordered them from Amazon. In reading Amazon reviews before I ordered I found that if you decide to order, order from Swedish companies, not Asian company knock offs.
Iāve been composting as long as weāve had a house. I donāt do anything fancy in terms of worry about what goes in it. I just throw mulched leaves on it from time to time in addition to the kitchen waste and give it a stir if Iām feeling like I need a little exercise. We have a bin behind the garage and another pile of stuff that doesnāt break down as quickly (branches). Our cityās yard waste gets composted so they get some yard waste. If you mulch your leaves (run the lawn mower over them) they take up much, much less space. I keep a garbage can of mulched leaves next to the compost bin.
Otherwise I use reusable bags. Take things to Goodwill or the local animal shelter. We use cloth napkins, not to be green, but because I grew up with them. I have cloth towels in the kitchen, but do use paper more than I probably need to.
We use cloth napkins, cleaning rags, and grocery bags,* and the Seattle area has a pretty good recycle, compost, and landfill system. I need to switch back to reusable produce bags; our grocery store wouldnāt let us use them for a while. My latest win is signing up for Ridwell. Every two weeks, someone picks up our plastic film (so much!), textiles, light bulbs, batteries, and category of the visit(last week was eyeglasses). Finally, finally the boxes of dead batteries and light bulbs are gone from the garage, where DH had been āstoringā them. And Ridwell is helping me slowly clear my dresser and closet, because I have a deadline to fill the textiles bag.
