Has anyone been able to drastically reduce their garbage?

[Shagbark Hickory]

I'm working on a special project.

I'm trying to see how long I can go without setting out the trash. My goal is to be able to go 2-3 months. I'm reasonably confident I can do 1 month but not sure about anything longer than that. I've been separating the trash so that the only thing that goes in the trash can is food and stuff that can't be recycled or fed to the in-sink-erator.

Where I live we can choose our trash collector and service is optional. We don't have public compactor sites where we can throw stuff out but we do have a free recycling bank. Although I can afford the cost of having the trash picked up and think the convenience could be worth every penny, it sure would be nice to save that money and I'm willing to get creative to try.

I'd like to compost as much as possible. It's challenging to minimize your waste. When you have to think about every last thing you have to get rid of, it really opens your eyes to how much ends up in landfills and how much we take trash pickup for granted.

If anyone has any pointers, I'd love to hear them.

[Better Today]

1. Yep, I put out 1/2 of a tall kitchen trash bag of trash every week into

the can. This means I could go 3-4 months before the can would need to be picked up (52 gal, I think), however weather conditions keep me from actually doing that. I put out my can once or twice a month, unless it's freezing out, otherwise it gets a bit stinky.

The biggest change I seem to have from others on my block is that I cook my food, buy at the store, but very little in packaging, and of course any allowable package is recycled. We make iced tea in glass bottles every night, so no bottle or can trash to speak of, no bottled water at all (undersink filter instead). . . It's definitely doable, but most people are too busy and too interested in watching tv to actually use products that don't require packaging.

[Arctic Dave]

2. We have been able to reduce ours by a significant amount. One small can a month.

The only things that get tossed is certain plastics and glass (they stopped recycling glass and some plastics in our city). Most food goes into the compost pile.

[JDPriestly]

11. Do you throw foods with animal fat or other content in the compost?

Or are you vegetarian?

I'm not being sarcastic. I don't put anything with animal fat or content in the compost. Bones have to go into the trash.

[Arctic Dave]

12. We eat very little meat and when we do we tend to get a decent cut with little

throw away (flank steak is our #1). This summer I plan on expanding our garden.

[Shagbark Hickory]

14. I'm not vegetarian. The biggest problem that comes to mind is the packaging that chicken and beef

comes in. I don't have a lot of boned stuff but it's the styrofoam packaging that the stuff comes in. I use mostly chicken breasts or ground beef. I guess I can rinse those trays off but worried about the smell.

[appal_jack]

31. bones/grease options

If you have a woodstove or live in a rural location where burn-piles are still legal, you can burn bones. The phosphorous and calcium from them will remain in the ashes, making the ashes an even better fertilizer than they otherwise would be.

As for animal fats, my dogs eat most of what I don't (in moderation - my dogs are slim & healthy). I'm also a fan of cooking collards and other greens in bacon or sausage grease (fact of the matter is, I could stand to shed a few pounds), so the dogs only get the trimmings from people's plates, etc., and always mixed with veggies (they love cooked green beans, etc.) and a decent dog food like Iams or Purina 1.

Animal fats will also burn just fine in an outdoor burn pile, but I wouldn't introduce them into a woodstove for both flare-up issues, and for the fancy emissions-controls that most modern wood stoves have. Even burning bones might be questionable in the newer catalytic-type wood stoves. If you are shopping for a wood stove, I would recommend AGAINST the ones that use catalysts (unless your state requires them), as I have found the catalytic models to be fussier and harder to maintain properly.

Where I live in NC, one can legally burn any natural (non-lumber) wood up to 6" in diameter, with a permit and/or after 4 PM. I only burn downed pine limbs occasionally (and only those too big to chip or use otherwise), so I don't often follow my own advice of above. Instead, I compost all food scraps, bones and fats included, in two stages. First, the compost goes from the counter-top kitchen pail into a large Rubbermaid-Brute brand garbage pail just outside my front door. The Brutes are nice because the tops lock-on securely enough to keep out possums and raccoons (so far at least). I leave the compost collecting in there until the pail fills all the way up (once every month or two depending on how many I'm cooking for, etc.). The occasional batch of wood ashes from the stove goes into that same pail, which reduces attractiveness to animals further.

During that month time, the compost ferments a bit anaerobically, and by the time the pail is full, it's true that the contents smell awfully ripe. Then I haul the pail (via tractor - it's heavy when full) down to my outdoor compost pile, and dump it on top. Nature does the rest, and around a year later, I have some great black earth. Apparently, this pre-fermentation plus the ashes makes all the bones and fats unappealing to animals, as they have never been a problem at the outdoor pile.

My system probably would not work on properties under an acre, due to that initial smelliness just after dumping the bucket, but honestly, the smell dissipates within an hour or two of dumping.

-app

[amborin]

3. in Britain, they've had to drastically cut back

[Shagbark Hickory]

13. I know. In some areas they are on fortnightly (2x month) pickups. So is Toronto, ON, CA

I came from a place that had twice weekly pickups to a place that had just one weekly pickup and at the time I wondered how people cope with just one pickup a week.

[Nihil]

18. Even then, there is a lot of inertia against doing anything.

People are asked to reduce their waste, shown how to do so,
shown why it is important to do so yet so many are just too
f*cking lazy to make the effort. (It's not just an American
problem!)

The services available vary from area to area for roadside
collections (our is tins/paper/cardboard every fortnight)
but there are recycling/processing places at all of the
council dumps that will separate out good gear for resale
and collect all sorts of things for efficient recycling
(e.g., metals, compostables, cardboard, engine oil, glass,
fluorescent tubes, CFLs, computers, monitors, other electronic
& electrical equipment, dry cells, car batteries, ...)
before compressing the rest for land-fill.

In addition, other things like Tetrapak containers (foil and
plastic lined cardboard packs for fruit juice) are collected
in some places but not others (ours for example - grr - so we
save them up to recycle them via a collection point near my
sister-in-law whenever we are heading over there).

All of my neighbours will recycle glass, tins, paper, cardboard,
plastic bottles (they don't take other plastics in our area)
but I'm one of the few with a compost bin and even fewer with
a "green cone" (digester that takes meat, cooked food and other
non-compostable organic stuff). Sadly, the green cone doesn't
work too well in the Winter (and not at all in the snow we've
had recently) so it only really gets fed in Spring/Summer/Autumn.
Our rubbish then tends to be used tissues/paper towels/STs and
the remaining unavoidable plastic & plasticised card packaging.

I'd appreciate (sensible) suggestions of what to do with that
last portion but back-garden incineration or vitrification
probably wouldn't be accepted by the management (Mrs.Nihil).

:hi:

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. Can't you recycle the paper towels?

I've been wondering about this. I've been separating out the paper towels that haven't been soaked in anything nasty and was going to bag them and recycle with the rest of the paper.

[Nihil]

28. If they were clean, they wouldn't be going in the bin ...

:P

I know what you mean but, in practice, we use them to mop up spills,
to clean down kitchen work-surfaces and to absorb oil or whatever
when cooking so the number that would be in a condition to go to
recycling is pretty small.

The only exception to the "too mucky to do anything but bin them"
is when they've just picked up soil or whatever from the garden
(e.g., from wiping garden chairs/table) in which case they are torn
up and composted.

Thanks for the thought though!
:hi:

[BeatleBoot]

4. Great post, Here's my 2 cents.

We are lucky to have curbside recycling, so that's the first step for me - paper, cardboard, glass, cans, plastic. That reduces a lot.

During the summer months (Michigander here), I bury a lot of the stuff that usually goes in the garbage disposal back in my garden. Anything biodegradable including coffee grounds and banana peels.

Which makes for a very fertile ground to plant veggies and such in the summer. Learned that from Dad who grew beautiful vegetable gardens back in the day.

But the latest thing I started just this past weekend is going without the canned shaving cream and going with the old Burma Shave soap cake and brush applicator for when I shave. The soap cake comes in a little cardboard box, so that gets recycled, and I don't have to look at the shave cream can in my garbage.

Now I'm looking at Windspire vertical windmills to power my house, but my town doesn't have a code ordinance for it yet.

[Shagbark Hickory]

15. What about popcorn? Both popped and unpopped?

[brewens]

5. I live in a fourplex and only use about half of my share of the garbage capacity.

We have two large cans of which I should be allowed to fill up half of one. I put out one 13 gallon bag per week and it's not ever stuffed full. That takes up about 1/4 of one of the cans.
The drunks and other idiots that live and hang around here have both cans overflowing by the end of the week. They throw all their beer cans, bottles, boxes or whatever in there and don't even bother to squash or break any of it down. I at least recycle all my cans, cardboard and plastic bottles.
When they first started the recycling collection here, the biggest right-wing idiot I worked with was pissed about it. He said, "I don't have time to pick through my garbage." This guy will be squalling like a little bed wetting mamas boy if they raise his taxes to pay for a new landfill!

[Sherman A1]

6. Did so for years before we were forced to have a single trash hauler by our

charming county government (thereby forcing us to pay for the service). My city has a great recycling center and we took everything we could there, reducing our trash to about one, possibly two kitchen bags per week. I would then take them to work and toss them in the dumpster about once a month in the winter and weekly in the summer months.

Since we are now required to pay for weekly service, I have no incentive to recycle (I still do, but may quit doing so as it is just one more thing to do). We are provided with a single stream recycling cart that goes out one day ahead of our trash collection, but again it actually makes more sense for me now to simply put everything in the trash.

During the years we did without a service, we would save about $150.00 per year.

[Shagbark Hickory]

16. The county here had a study done and put in a plan to do the same but people revolted.

There was a study done that recommended using private haulers but using exclusive contracts, one hauler per area. Although I see merits to universal trashcare, I would only favor it if it was run by the government as we all know how corrupt the procurement process is for exclusive rights when it comes to trash hauling. Heavens knows how many people get "whacked" in the process.
Anyway the new system was due to be put in place Jan '09. The haulers began picking up their carts/bins and in a last minute ruling, the plan was out the window.
The company that was supposed to take over our area exclusively bought out about 3 of the companies which limited our choice. Then they jacked up the rates. We still have a choice of a few other companies but they were expensive too or I had issues with being the only customer of theirs in my neighborhood and making them drive so far out of their way just to pick me up.

The people here got mad. They wanted choice & competition. Sound familiar?
Neighboring counties have compactor sites you can dump stuff if you're a resident and they check ID.
I'd like to see one hauler, operated and billed by the county but not a mandate to use it. And compactor sites would be nice. But I don't think they can do this because the landfills are all owned by the same companies that do the hauling currently.

[Sherman A1]

26. That is exactly what happened here with exclusive contracts for areas

I will say that the contractors do the pickups better now than when we had a competitive process, but now I am paying for the service where before I just did without as mentioned. One of the big reasons I decided to stop in the first place was due to many missed pickups from a variety of contractors.

So my new world costs me about $170.00 per year for the benefit of putting out 1 to 2 kitchen bags a week.

[Shagbark Hickory]

29. I think the choice is working though.

People complain about there being a zillion garbage trucks going through the neighborhoods all week but the fact is, it is (or was- before one big fish ate some smaller fish) very competive. They used to match prices.
Under the competitive system I was paying $46/qrtr.
The company that had rights to take over was going to charge $63.
They never did take over but bought out the hauler I was using and jacked up the rates to $65.
I then switched to a hauler charging $55.

The quality of the service WAS better with the company that charged more but you get what you pay for.
For $220, I'd DIY if it was <6 trips to the recycling bank. I could offer the neighbor a few bucks to drop a bag at their curb on rare occasions. I could always take some trash with me to a gas station when I need a fill up.

When I see a bin that says "Pitch In!" I will take that to be an open invitation to do exactly that.
:D

[truedelphi]

7. Good luck on your project.

I was amazed at how shrunken our filling in of the Garbage can has gotten to be. Simply by doing the compost thing. (Goes without saying that we receycle the plastic paper and glass and metal.)

We are lucky to ahve a huge back yard for a huge compost container.

[stuntcat]

8. it sounds like you know the things to do!

We've been working on it a long time, now I've gotten so I think of every single piece that makes it into the trash LOL

Arlington is great about all the stuff they'll pick up. And styrofoam or any other plastic that's questionable can be left in some public bins a couple of miles away. Luckily I have room to compost. We're down to 2 bags a month of just plain trash, so the big black bin outside only has to go out every few weeks. I know that's still a lot, but we're working to make it even less.
I've learned to shop better. Like buying things in bulk to save packaging.. which is all recyclable anyway, but it sure saves cash. And I don't buy things anymore if the package looks like I'd have to trash it.

A big hangup for me has always been about food.. I canNOT stand to waste food, so I always make sure I'm using things in the order I got them so nothing will ever go bad. My husband used to think I was being neurotic but now he's totally gotten into how much money I save. And he's proud of us not setting out the big trash every week, like the neighbors do. Compared to the rest of them, we're living light.

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. The City of Toronto has a special "green" bin now that they collect ALL food & pet waste for compost

I don't know how this is possible but they collect all food and pet waste in one bin, on a weekly basis. No bags allowed except you can line the bin with it and bags for the dog poop.

That must smell great.

Anyway you are probably way ahead of me if you are more than one person in your household.

[abqmufc]

25. Link to Toronto's program

The comments made above made me want to see this program. Here is a link to the cities website. I have something to bring up at the next Albuquerque (New Mexico) city council meeting. Talk about job creation with massive benefits!

http://www.toronto.ca/greenbin/card.htm

[Shagbark Hickory]

27. Just for the heck of it, why don't you also mention their provincial health plan.

You never know.:shrug:

[XemaSab]

9. I really want to start composting

It's the last holdout for diverting stuff from the waste stream.

[JDPriestly]

10. I bury my vegetable garbage in the back yard as a form of composting.

I don't bury orange peels. Those I put in a regular compost pile in the backyard along with old leaves that I am encouraging to decay.

I also have a worm bin. The worms eat left over and outer peelings and waste from vegetables as well as some paper and even cardboard. Then I take the liquid from the worm bin and fertilize plants with it. That does not get rid of all of my paper but it gets rid of some of it. I use newspaper for other gardening purposes. But the local paper uses a soy-based ink that is safe for the garden.

Plastic is a problem.

You can also make tiny little pots for starting seeds out of newspaper. Wet the newspaper really thoroughly before you plant it with your baby plants in your garden or larger pots.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. What about pet waste? That is typically bagged too.

[Javaman]

21. We got ours down to about maybe a pound a week. If that.

we are lucky to live in a city were we are able to recycle everything. We compost all our scraps.

They only thing now I'm looking into is, figuring out a good way to grind up the bones left over from our meat for bone meal.

[Shagbark Hickory]

22. What do you do with styrofoam? Or polypropelene (#5) like yogurt cups?

[Javaman]

23. We are really lucky, there is a place nearby called, "cycled plastics"

they take everything. They are a private company that recycles all plastics, not just 1 though 7. They melt them down, then re-purpose them back into tiny beads to be used again. They even take plastic utensils!

[abqmufc]

24. Fantastic experiment a blog of this would be great!

It makes me think. I suspect my wife and I could do this (2 - 3 months with only one trash pick up). The problem I find is weekly I'll have 3 times more recycling than garbage.

Even though it's recycled it still causes impact in the process. One little trick we've pick up is using mesh bags (such as bags used to wash delicates) for our veggies at the market rather than the plastics bags offered at the store. Clerks are usually impressed with that level of commitment.

The recycling of pet waste is something I need to look into.

[Shagbark Hickory]

30. You're right. From an environmental viewpoint...

If all I was trying to do was reduce the frequency of pickups, then in theory, I'm still producing just as much waste, just setting it at the curb less often.
In this case though, I'm trying to stick with the one 96 gallon cart they give out so I have to reduce waste.
About a year ago, I learned that we could recycle all sorts of things not just bottles and cans so I put all the cardboard stuff and every last scrap of paper in the recycling bin. I ended up buying a 60 gallon wheelie cart for recyclables and I take that to the curb every other week usually. So that fills up quickly too. I will have to crush and reduce there too.

As for dog poop, and I have a great deal of that to deal with, I looked into in-ground doggie septic tanks but I decided against it. I forget why. There is a water feature behind my house. That could have had something to do with it. I suppose I can flush the stuff down the toilet but I don't want to bring 10 lbs of soggy wet turds into the house.

[FedUpWithIt All]

32. Excellent thread. Thank you.

:hi: