In my post about creating a family culture, I mentioned that I have been working to achieve zero waste goals in our home. The zero waste movement is one I had no experience with a few months ago.  But earlier this year, my husband and I started paying more attention to what we eat; this probably had a lot to do with Scribble starting solids, and us wanting to set the best possible example for him.  At the same time, we cut our food budget drastically.  In order to maintain our healthy diet along with our budget, I had to get really creative: trying vegan diets, and making my own cleaning supplies for example.  We cut out our trash pickup as a way of saving cash, which meant we had to become very knowledgeable about our county’s recycling options.  Plus, being forced to haul off my own trash motivated me to make less trash.

Back when I lived in a very progressive, small city, I didn’t think about how much waste I was producing, because the city offered curb-side, single-stream recycling. But in our small town, our recycling options are painfully limited, or at least I thought they were.  Through research I came to find out that recycling technologies nationwide are poor and that many of the things we recycle end up in the landfill in spite of our best efforts, usually because recycling is not profitable, consumes too much energy, or because individuals recycle items that are unsuitable (for example, someone might recycle a pizza box and inadvertently ruin a whole load of cardboard boxes). I realized that no amount of recycling will significantly reduce the amount of waste that ends up in a landfill. In the past I created waste without much thought to the consequences, but now I realize that I am responsible for the full cycle of the things I consume.  As a result, it has become really important for me to model responsible consumption to Scribble!

Around this time, I ran into Bea Johnson’s fantastic blog, Zero Waste Home, and was immediately hooked.  In particular, I loved her simple list of ways you can reduce waste in your home– The 5 Rs:

Refuse what you do not need.
Reduce what you do need.
Reuse by using reusables.
Recycle what you cannot refuse, reduce, or reuse.
Rot (compost) the rest.

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Johnson is tireless in pursuit of her goal to reduce waste in her family: she brings glass jars to the deli counter to store her meat purchases, requests baguettes in advance from Whole Foods and picks them up in a pillowcase.  She uses a rubber gum stimulator instead of floss, and buys only used clothes.  For most of us, that sounds really intimidating and flat-out impossible! For me in a rural area without a Whole Foods, it seems even more daunting.  But I’ve been making small changes for a few months now and I am happy to say we have reduced our trash to one bag a week (usually only partially filled; we have to take it out though because it is stinky!) and I think that with a few easy changes, we can easily reduce it by half that amount.  Here is what we are doing:

Refuse.  The best example of this is plastic bags.  I used to be one of those people who intended to bring their own bags, but would forget them at home.  Recently I’ve gotten a lot more aggressive.  If I forget to bring my bags, I will go through the self-checkout so that I don’t have to ask the workers not to bag my groceries. After being forced to check out and unload a cart’s worth of loose groceries a few times, I am doing a lot better about bringing my bags!  I also request no bag when I am simply buying one or two items.  Usually the worker is happy to oblige me.  I also have stopped buying fresh produce that comes in a bag– I buy loose onions and potatoes instead of the ones in netting. I am still on the fence about frozen vegetables, especially organic varieties.  Right now, I think it is better to support organic efforts when possible than to buy loose non-organic produce, even if that means using a bag.  I have, however, been recycling these bags (more on that below), but it is a time-intensive process so I am looking for better options.  I do shop a lot at our local market, and have mixed success asking the farmers not to use bags.  But at least they are frequently reusing bags from their own collections!

Buy in bulk.  There is a natural food store in the city closest to my small town, and once or twice a month I will bring reusable containers and fill them with rice, coffee, beans, spices, and loose leaf tea.  I buy the biggest blocks of cheese I can find and afford; today I bought a 5 pound block of all-natural, hormone-free cheese at Walmart for fifteen dollars– that is one half the price of shredded cheese per ounce!  Since it is hunting season, one of our family members just got us a large mess of venison.

Go Paleo. I kid! But really, my no-waste goals really started taking off when I went paleo (actually primal, because I still eat legumes and dairy occasionally) about a month ago.  Before that, I was still buying things like cheese, yogurt, beans, and rice frequently.  I don’t eat a lot of those things now, so I’m not consuming the packaging either!  We still buy these items for Scribble and my husband, but they last a lot longer when I am not eating them also.

Donate.  In the spirit of Kristin’s excellent post about living a minimalist lifestyle, we have recently started offloading a ton of stuff.  We had a yard sale to get rid of the big items, donated a lot, and are slowly getting rid of more.  In preparation for the yard sale, I cleaned out all our closets and recycled everything that could not be donated or sold; this was time consuming because it meant doing tedious chores like separating binders worth of paper and plastic sleeves into a recyclable and non-recyclable pile!

In spite of our efforts, we still have more to clean out.  Scribble gets a lot of toys from family and friends. Since we don’t buy him many toys we are truly grateful and excited for the things we receive.  Still, we have gotten duplicates from time to time and instead of returning these items, I have set up a box where I can put them, labels still affixed, so that I can donate them during the holidays to local charities.  One resource I am grateful for is my local MOPS group and their Facebook page. Through MOPS I have been able to find families and organizations that are looking for gently used baby items and toys, which ensured me that the items I donated would be well-loved.

Reuse.  Back when I was eating a lot of yogurt, I bought the largest tubs, and saved the tubs for use later.  I use these tubs for freezing produce I get from the farmer’s market, and for making smoothies (my regular cups are too small for my stick blender).  I also bought some eggs in plastic cartons at the grocery store, and now reuse the cartons and bring them to my local farmstand to have them filled.

Recycle.  Recycling is difficult for us because in our area, we can only recycle metal, plastics 1 and 2, paper, and cardboard products.  We recycle as much as possible, but sometimes I am stumped!  Now if I have something that doesn’t fit into one of those categories, I use Earth911.com to find a place for them.  I recently spent a few fruitless hours looking for a place to recycle vinyl, and had no luck.  We generate a lot of plastic 5 waste, but we don’t have the option to recycle that in this area.  Whole Foods does recycle plastic 5, but we don’t live anywhere near one.  So we set aside a box in the garage to collect plastic 5, and plan to bring it to a Whole Foods location when we are in the city shopping.  We do the same with glass, which is not recyclable in our area.  Terracycle is also wonderful resource for people who live in places without access to many recycling options.

We can recycle plastic bags at our local grocery store, but the bags have to be dry and free of food debris.  This is fine for the plastic grocery bags, but what about frozen veggie bags?  I have recently begun rinsing and hanging these bags up to dry, then recycling them.  It sounds like a lot of work, but we are also choosing to buy fewer packaged foods, which means we really usually only have 2 or 3 of these bags come through our home per week.

Going to restaurants less frequently.  Once I started working toward zero waste, I began to notice unnecessary clutter everywhere.  Fast food restaurants are particularly terrible about using too much packaging.  And paper that is grease-stained can’t be recycled!  It can feel too daunting to try and ask the workers to use less packaging.  The easiest option is to choose sit-down restaurants with regular forks and plates.  I can also bring my packaging waste home to recycle, but disposable cups and forks and spoons are rarely recyclable, so the best thing to do is to avoid them altogether.  I don’t mind this goal because it means that I am also indirectly eating fresher, healthier food and frequently supporting local businesses instead of chains.

Using fewer paper products. As a cost-cutting measure we stopped buying paper towels over six months ago and haven’t looked back.  I even asked my family for cloth napkins for Christmas, as we are currently using dishtowels as napkins, and I’d like to upgrade to something more cheerful!

What We Need To Do:

Composting. Thanks to our efforts, about 3/4 of our weekly waste is organic material.  Unfortunately, organic material still takes forever to break down in a landfill, so we need to figure out a solution to this problem.  Composting is the easiest solution, but setting up a compost system can be expensive and we don’t have a huge yard; I’m a little nervous about attracting critters to my yard and my neighbors’ yards as well! Tips are appreciated!

Diapering.  Right now we still use disposables at night and on trips, and we still have a few packs of wipes left. I am using Terracycle to recycle our wipes bags (Target brand), because they don’t have a recycling label, but the best course of action will be to move to cloth wipes.

Bring our own reusable items to the coffee shop and restaurants.  I have started bringing reusable cups when we go out for coffee, but a few times have found myself using a plastic spoon before I realize what I am doing! We are eating less fast food than ever before, so this is only an occasional issue, and it sometimes sneaks up on me when we decide on a lark to grab a snack.  I need to get into the habit of having a kit of reusable cutlery and a mug in my car at all times.

Refuse.  I have a hard time saying no to free stuff that clutters up our house, or gifts we can’t use.  This is an area where I need to improve! One big decision we made is to request no gifts at Scribble’s first birthday party, and I was really happy with the warm reception that our guests gave the idea.  We asked for donations to a local children’s home and our guests gave 175 dollars! It was really special.

Buy more sustainable version of products we use: Right now we are burning through the last of our health, beauty, and cleaning products (we have always tended to buy these items in bulk because it is usually cheaper, so we had months worth of these items left to use when we started this project).  Fortunately Terracycle is running a Garnier-sponsored beauty product brigade through which I can recycle lotion tubes and other products that don’t have a recycling logo on the bottom.  I have an Amazon Prime trial going right now, and need to take advantage of the free shipping to buy more sustainable version of items we used to use: toothbrushes, shampoo (or go No-Poo if I dare!), soap, cleaning supplies, and similar items.

I hope that by 2014 we will be able to reduce our trash to two bags a month!

So, is reducing waste a priority in your home? Give me all your tips! I am all ears and eager to learn more!

Decluttering and Minimalism part 5 of 9

1. A Simple Kind of Life: The Philosophy by Kristin @ Paleo Plus One
2. A Simple Kind of Life: Your Wardrobe by Kristin @ Paleo Plus One
3. A Simple Kind of Life: How to Declutter Your Home in One Week by Kristin @ Paleo Plus One
4. 10 Strategies for Preventing Toy Overload by Mrs. Lion
5. Our Slow Journey Toward Zero Waste Living by Mrs. Sketchbook
6. Minimalism and Babies by Mrs. Yoyo
7. Fall Wardrobe Essentials by Mrs. Bee
8. Decluttering Our Lives: What We Got Rid Of by Mrs. Bee
9. Culling down by Mrs. Chipmunk