Apologies for the lack of updates lately. There are a couple
reasons – first being that this is pretty routine now, so things don’t often
stand out to us – and the other reason being that I’ve just been very busy with
other projects other than blogging lately. We did NOT quit zero waste, it’s
just becoming harder to think of things to write that don’t take a whole lot of
time. So if anyone has ideas or questions to be discussed, I’m all ears!
We’re not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.. Sometimes we fail on purpose and sometimes on
accident, and we’re okay with that. We’re still cutting our trash down to a
tiny fraction of what it was last year. But in the spirit of honesty, I want to
talk about some things that are difficult with Zero Waste.
The biggest source of trash for us, right now, is
unfortunately the garden. The fact is that not everything can be purchased in
sustainable packaging. Every time we buy soil (we don’t have enough compost to
fill our garden), it comes in a bag. Every time we buy mulch, it comes in a
bag. Every time we buy bird seed, it comes in a bag. We believe it’s important
to nurture our own little ecosystem and the benefits of growing our own food
and feeding the birds outweigh the burden of the trash. We are still keeping
our garden trash, but separate from our household trash because it is adding
up. We will probably have a full trash can of garden trash by the end of the
year, but the sustainability of maintaining our garden is a worthy trade. I
believe it’s important to grow food because it fosters appreciation of the time
and resources that go into growing what we eat. It’s easy to forget the long
journey our food takes from seed to plate but hard to forget it you pick it yourself from your backyard! :)
There are some things that we simply won’t buy in bulk
because they are too expensive. Chocolate chips are about 3x cheaper in a bag
than in bulk. Same for pasta. We try to buy in sustainable packaging, but
sometimes we know when we buy things that we’ll be adding trash to our pile. Last week we bought a bag of salt and vinegar chips, promptly devoured it, and added the trash to our collection. It
may be a lie to call this challenge “zero waste” because it’s obviously not ZERO,
but we are going for minimal waste. Our goal is still to produce one trash can
of household garbage for the year and other than garden trash, I expect we'll be successful.
Before you assume that something isn’t recycled, make sure
to check!! We thought we wouldn’t be able to buy cherries or grapes this year
because they come in plastic, but it turns out the plastic is recyclable. Do some research on plastic types, what the numbers mean, and what is recyclable curbside in your area. Some types of plastic cannot be recycled curbside, but can be
recycled at convenient drop-off locations like the front of the grocery store
where they take #2 and #4 bags. Any other #2 and #4 plastics can be recycled
there too!
I was asked several months ago to post about composting. I am BY NO MEANS an expert on composting, and there are many ways you can do it, and I encourage everyone to do research on types of composting to figure out what’s right for you. You can compost from anywhere, without anything fancy, and even without a yard. People compost in their garages, kitchens, patios, etc. We do vermicomposting with a tumbling bin. There is a lot of literature out there about the appropriate carbon to nitrogen (e.g. brown to green) ratio for compost, but the fact is that kitchen scraps will compost even with a less-than-ideal C:N ratio is, just at varying speeds. We keep worms in our compost to speed up the process and they turn our scraps into dirt lickety-split. Obviously since we have worms, our compost is kept in the shade, whereas if you do not have worms and want quick composting, you should keep it in a sunny place. This is our first summer with worms, so it’ll be interesting to see how they adapt to the heat.
Here’s an EPA link that discusses the different types of composting. Take a peek
and see if one of them is right for you! The biggest advantage to composting is
that you are keeping food waste out of the landfill. In the landfill, food
cannot break down properly due to the sheer amount of waste, and so it releases
toxic greenhouse gases like methane as it sits and ferments. By composting, you’re taking over 50% of
your waste out of the “waste management” cycle of weekly pickup, dumping, incineration,
burial, and gas emission. You can then turn your compost into nutrient-rich
soil for your own garden. Composting takes very little effort, but makes a HUGE
difference. Please try it!!
Since we haven’t done a trash update in awhile, here we go.
Our bag is about half full (or half empty??). We like to treat ourselves once
in awhile, even if it will
create some trash, because we are far from perfect and we also like to enjoy
ourselves. But we are also enjoying NEVER having to drag the trash can out to
the road on Tuesdays, and eating whole plant foods most of the time, and
learning new things about sustainability and how we can do our part to
alleviate the strain that our consumption has on the planet. Thanks for
following along guys.
