That's Garbage!

I don't think I have talked about how we deal with our waste, so I decided to do a post sharing what we've been doing in that area.  We have done a drastic reduction of waste this past year by changing how we purchase food.  Almost everything that we buy now comes from the bulk section or the produce section in the co-op.  We use cloth bags or reused containers to put our food in, which causes us to have virtually no waste from food.  I also learned that Allied Waste takes plastic film/bags for recycling, so I keep a bag of those under the sink to keep them out of the landfill.  (Note:  As I have mentioned before, plastic recycling isn't that great, and there isn't necessarily even a market for soft plastics right now, so recycling is not a sufficient reason for us to continue being OK with using more soft plastics.)  Looking through the soft plastics bag, I see that we primarily have cheese wrappers and cereal bags from the giant bags of cereal that we still buy at Winco.  While we both eat bulk oatmeal half of the week, and I have started making quick breads and scones for myself, Matthew still eats a few bowls of cold cereal each week, so we generate about one to two big bags per month.  I'd still like to figure out another way for him to get his cold cereal cravings satisfied without Winco cold cereal, and I'll probably work on that over this summer.  With all of these changes, I have found that our waste is now primarily fruit peels and vegetable trimmings.

I came to the realization months ago that buying a plastic bag whose sole purpose is to hold stuff that will be thrown away seems silly to me.  So I stopped using plastic bags.  Enter in this solution:

 For months, we have been using this milk jug for almost all of our waste.  We take it out every few days and empty it into the apartment's dumpster which is actually good because it never gives banana peels and cantalope seeds a chance to smell terribly gross.  However, the plastic has gradually absorbed odors and become pretty gross even with regular rinsings and washings, so we bought this stainless steel container that I found used:

 It should be a lot easier to keep clean!

While I have been speaking about garbage waste, I also want to talk about recycling waste.  This is another area that we have drastically reduced in the past year.  A couple of years ago, I found a container to put our recycling in that holds about as much as a paper bag from the store would.  Until a year ago, we would empty a full container every week.  These days, we take out our recycling maybe once a month, and a lot of that has been because we've been cleaning out school papers, so I am looking forward to seeing what happens now that we are done with school!

Our co-op does a couple of really cool things that can help people reuse instead of recycle.  For one thing, all of the plastic containers used for dairy products like yogurt, cream cheese, and cottage cheese can be reused in the bulk department.  Not only can you bring in your own to reuse, but they also accept containers that they will sterilize and make available in the store.  They even allow you to tare the container so that you don't pay for the container's weight.  Matthew and I try to avoid buying new plastic containers, but we currently buy one container of cottage cheese each month and two containers of cream cheese.   (I'm interested in learning how to make these things as well, but that has not been one of the things that I have done yet!)  It's nice to know that we, or somebody else, can reuse the containers, though.

Another cool thing that the co-op offers is milk in merlons.  This particular merlon is from Lochmead Farms in Junction City.  There is a refundable deposit on the bottle, and the co-op recollects the bottles and sends them back to the farm where they clean them and refill them with milk.  Pretty nifty!

So, that is where we are at right now.  In the near future, I hope to continue to reduce our use of new plastics.  I also hope to build a worm bin to turn our food waste into wonderful compost.  Fruit peels certainly aren't bad for the planet.  However, unfortunately, waste that goes to the landfill doesn't have a chance to get in the dirt and break down properly, so it instead rots and emits a lot of methane which is a greenhouse gas.  Since this is the case, it would be good if we could give our waste a chance to do its thing and turn into a lovely dirt.  I've looked it up, and it looks like a simple thing to build and maintain, but we might be moving soon, so I'm waiting until we have our next place!