How to accumulate less garbage

[Slabobbin]

I posted this in another thread but I think it needs its own thread. For a family who doesn't buy very many pre-packages things (try to buy in bulk and don't do processed foods) we have SO much garbage! My husband pretty much has to take out the garbage daily and he usually gets two large bags full (the kitchen bag and then a bag from all of the small cans in the house). I have read where some people only have one bag a week or less. I guess I need to start an inventory of what I throw away and see where the problem lies. Does anyone else have this problem? I would love to hear from those who end up with very little garbage at the end of the week.

[Malva]

For a family of 4 with a toddler in diapers, we had 2 garbage bags for the month of February and I'm sure half of it was diapers.

What has made a biggest difference is that we started composting. We're constantly taking out the compost.

We recycle everything that can possibly be recycled. I also sort the trash again to double check nothing in there can't be composted or recycled (especially after guests have been over). Often stuff like tissue paper or paper towels find their way in the garbage when it could be recycled.

[AngelBee]

Originally Posted by Malva

For a family of 4 with a toddler in diapers, we had 2 garbage bags for the month of February and I'm sure half of it was diapers.

What has made a biggest difference is that we started composting. We're constantly taking out the compost.

We recycle everything that can possibly be recycled. I also sort the trash again to double check nothing in there can't be composted or recycled (especially after guests have been over). Often stuff like tissue paper or paper towels find their way in the garbage when it could be recycled.

Wow!

[Slabobbin]

So tell me more about recycling. Do I need to call the local center or are they all about the same in terms of what they will take?

Can cans from food be recycled? We very rarely eat canned foods but I do buy canned artichoke hearts because I don't have the patience to do them myself, lol. I also buy canned pineapples for the same reason.

Can beer bottles be recycled? We like our beer, lol.

What about computer paper? Paper from sewing patterns?

[JanB]

Well, we had one bag of garbage this week. Usually we have two, so this was a light week for us. Things that have helped: We compost. This cuts down on a huge amount of garbage, because we generally have a lot of vegetable peelings and trimmings left over after making dinner, not to mention the fruit peels and cores, etc. And, uh, the entire heads of lettuce that we forgot in the vegetable drawer for too long and went liquidy. :

Nobody is in diapers at the mo, but cloth diapering obviously really cut down on our potential trash back when that was an issue. (And soon will be again.)

We recycle. Our city has curbside recycling, which you have to pay $5/month for : (nice, huh?) but we go ahead and pay up because I think it's worth it to cut down on the trash and not feel so wasteful. Once we started curbside recycling, our total garbage amount went down by more than half. It and the compost pile are probably the two biggest garbage savers in our household.

We also reuse a lot of food containers (hot and sour soup containers, cottage cheese tubs, etc.) for other purposes, i.e. storing crayons, growing seeds in, etc. My DH likes using glass peanut butter jars to store leftover soup in.

We don't buy a lot of disposable products, i.e. disposable Gladware, etc. I even got a reusable cloth sandwich bag for DH's lunch box so we could cut down on Ziploc baggie usage.

That's about it. Mostly it's the compost and the recycling.

[moon child]

Originally Posted by Slabobbin

So tell me more about recycling. Do I need to call the local center or are they all about the same in terms of what they will take?

it varies from county to county, so you should give them a call.

I'm lucky where I live as they take alot of stuff...
cans from food,
yes glass beer bottles,
all plastic bottles, all kitchen glass, all aluminum (even clean foil)
ALL paper, even glossy print catologs and all my shredded stuff
cardboard from packages etc
yard waste ( I don't compost at the moment)

we are a family of 4 and put out 1 can one week and 2 cans the next....
one of my goals for the year is to reduce our garbage to 1 can ever other week. I'm sure composting will help with that though.
So I'ld like to here others ideas too....

[Denvergirlie]

Same thing here. We compost everything possible, both to the pile in the backyard and to the worms in the basement.

We have city recycling, they take a lot of stuff, but not sour cream, yogurt container, certain numbers of plastics they don't take. Newspapers, magazines, cans, plastic, etc gets recycled.

We usually have 1 bag of trash every 10-12 days. But take out a trash can of recyeling every 4-5 days.

[DevaMajka]

Originally Posted by Slabobbin

So tell me more about recycling. Do I need to call the local center or are they all about the same in terms of what they will take?

I did a google search to find my city's recycling program.
I think most cities recycling programs do glass and cans and #1 and #2 plastics. Ours also does #5 plastics and all types of paper.

We recycle all that, and we compost. I also reuse most of the plastic tubs (margarine etc) for raw dog food. We use about 2 8gallon trash bags a week. (oh, and I cd.)

I'm really inspired by that family that has one bag of trash A YEAR! (I read about that a long time ago). What a goal!

[rainyday]

Originally Posted by Malva

We recycle everything that can possibly be recycled. I also sort the trash again to double check nothing in there can't be composted or recycled (especially after guests have been over). Often stuff like tissue paper or paper towels find their way in the garbage when it could be recycled.

Wow! Your city takes tissues and paper towels?

[velochic]

I called our recycling center and they use the numbers on the containers for recycling. They will recycle through #5.

I was disappointed to find out that if I put something in the recycle bin that cannot be recycled at my facility, they just dump it in trash. I was thinking I was being so conscious, and I was making more work for the poor guys. So, make sure you call your recycling center to find out what they do and do not recycle. It is actually worse in the end (or so they told me) to put something in recycling that belongs in trash. Does anyone know why this might be so?

[SageR]

We follow the "reduce" "reuse" "recycle" philosophy pretty closely and in that order. We have about 1 small bag a week. We go to the transfer station with one of those big barrels of trash and recyclables about once a month. What we throw away - wrappers from meats and cheese, freshness seals, the little plastic thingy from milk jugs.

We use cloth diapers, cloth shopping and produce bags, household cloth, we compost, reuse packaging, and we recycle - we can recycle glass, tin cans, cardboard and paperboard, #2 plastic, batteries, magazines, newspapers, office paper, and junk mail/circulars.

I would say the biggest impact has come from things we don't do. We stopped buying food that was only available in one use, non recyclable packaging. We never get fast food or food to go. I would say 80% of our food is produce we buy loose or dry goods from bulk bins. The rest comes in containers that can be reused or recycled. I'm super geeky about this - I actually look at the container's recycle symbol and won't buy something if it's not a #2. I think dh's meat has the only disposable packaging - and he has cut back on that so there is not a lot.

We don't use saran wrap or anything like that. We just use mason jars or for leftovers I'll just put the whole pot/pan in the frdge with the cover on. I do have aluminum foil but that gets used very sparingly and can be recycled.

We no longer get magazines or newspapers - we borrow them from the library or read stuff online. We got on the national do not mail list so we would stop getting lots of junk mail. We still get some, but it's manageable.

We just don't buy a lot of stuff, period. Anything that has packaging, we just don't use much. It helps to have a very limited budget (or very good self control!) for this one

[momofjoshnkylie]

We recycle everything that can be recycled and we have a composter. I actually want to get a second composter going as well. I think we are down to maybe 1/2 a bag of garbage a week.

[EnviroBecca]

I guess I need to start an inventory of what I throw away and see where the problem lies.

That's the way to do it!

My family of 3 throws away about one kitchen-size (13 gallon) bag per week.

Often stuff like tissue paper or paper towels find their way in the garbage when it could be recycled.

Did you mean "composted"? I have never heard of a paper recycling program that would take used tissues or paper towels--they are too gooey with non-paper substances, and the paper is very thin in the first place. We compost most of our tissues and paper towels, unless they're soaked with blood or milk or something that would attract dangerous beasts to our yard, or soaked with nasty chemicals. They biodegrade really fast.

It is actually worse in the end (or so they told me) to put something in recycling that belongs in trash. Does anyone know why this might be so?

Because if they don't notice and remove it and it gets melted in with the other items, it will contaminate the whole batch and it will all have to be thrown away.

[avendesora]

We compost, and that helps. We have curbside recycling for cans, glass, and plastic #1 & #2. We recently found that while our town does not recycle paper, there is a neighboring town that has a paper recycling drop off point, and it's right on our way home from Trader Joe's! (not that close, but I go once a month to stock up, and take my recycling when I go).

I'm working on cardboard. We have a lot of that since we buy in bulk from our coop. I don't feel bad about that waste, because if I were to buy it at a regular store, they would still be getting those boxes, taking the items out of those boxes, and then throwing the boxes away.

Aven

[srain]

We produce very little trash- about two garbage cans every six months, which is how often we go to the dump. It's the recyclables that really overhelm us, and we're trying to cut down on recyclable packaging, too. (Recycling does take significant amounts of energy.) We've stopped all the junk mail we can, but we can't prevent all the papers that come home from my son's school. I'll try to can or freeze a lot of tomatoes this summer, so we won't have to buy as many canned tomatoes. Our other main packaging is from tofu containers- our co-op does offer bulk tofu, but my kids hate it- and cardboard boxes from pasta. We can buy pasta in bulk, but it's significantly more expensive and inconvenient, so I'm not sure if we'll go there yet.

[moderngal]

Ditto to the others responses-- reduce, reuse, recycle.

*to reduce, we bring our own bags to the grocery store. I also limit buying individually packaged products and try to make sure I use everything I can before buying more of anything- and then I try to buy in bulk.

*to reuse, we cloth diaper. We find new ways to use older things- old clothes turn into rags, use an old wipes container for crayons, etc.

*to recycle, we are hard core recyclers- mixed paper, glass, metals, plastics. And we compost.

Can beer bottles be recycled? We like our beer, lol.

So do we. And yeah- wine and beer bottles are very recyclable!!