Giving up garbage.

[bennelson]

Hi folks.

For the last few years, I have been trying to give up something tough for Lent every year.

Last year, I decided I wouldn't eat any CORN SYRUP. That was tough. It was also very eye-opening, and that's a big part of why I did it.

Oh, by the way, I am Christian-ish, but not Orthodox. However, I have found that unusual religious traditions still tend to be fairly well respected in public in my area.

So, if I want to do something really odd, instead of having to explain the whole story to every person I meet, I can just say "I'm giving it up for Lent."

(PS - Before I accidentally religiously offend anyone here, please let me explain that that I respect the premise of the tradition, and believe that I am sticking to the spirit of it. By giving something up, it makes us more appreciative of that of which we have. We can reflect and give thanks for that.)

So, for Lent 2011, I am considering giving up garbage.

That may be nearly impossible in American culture, but I want to try to the best of may ability. It has REALLY gotten my brain going.

The really tough one is that you almost can't even buy food without getting packaging with it that is non-reusable or recyclable. Even fruit is covered with stickers or comes in a bag.

I think if I work my way up, I can do it.

I rather enjoy those "Take and bake" pizzas. They are pretty good. Far better than a frozen pizza, and much better than a Dominos or Little Caesars.

But even with those, you end up with a big cardboard tray and giant sheet of plastic wrap that gets thrown away.

So, I tried a new experiment tonight.
I went to the pizza place and brought my own pan.
I asked really nicely if they could make the pizza on that.
They agreed!

I also asked them not to wrap the whole thing with plastic. I would just carry it home very gently, and not trip.

As an unintended consequece, I found that I can not NOT eat the cheese on the pizza while driving home without it covered with plastic. It is just too tempting, and there is no force field protecting the pizza from my attack.

Anywhoo, here's a little web video about it.

YouTube - Eco-Pizza?! Take n Bake my way.

[RobertSmalls]

A while back, Ben Jones posted about garbage collection traditions in Japan. This got me to thinking about my own garbage can, which I like to call the "landfill bin" when other people are around. What's in my garbage that can't be composted or recycled?

Used cat litter, soiled rags and other hazardous waste, animal-based food waste, products heavy with adhesives, documents too sensitive for the recycle bin.

That's everything! I could burn some of those, and bury others in the lawn (far from the garden), but I'm content to have the above hauled off to a landfill.

Now, what else ACTUALLY ends up in my trash? Cellophane - they don't accept it for recycling at the curbside, so I landfill it. Also, I don't compost. Hence, vegetable waste, and paper packaging soiled with vegetable waste, end up in the landfill. I also landfill styrofoam, and products that are too complex for me to break down into their recyclable components. e.g. a broken radio would go straight into the landfill, even though I could recycle its screws for steel, and its case for plastic.

I produce little enough trash that I could easily go through January without dragging my 55gal can to the curb. Maybe I'll try giving up garbage collection for January 2011, which would mean five weeks without a pickup. However, combing through my trash right now, there's no way I could give up garbage production.

Good luck, Ben, and if the goal of the exercise is to be more thoughtful about what you do and its impact on what you're going to have to throw out, well, I'm sure you'll succeed.

[strider3700]

would you consider things that you recycle to be out of the question? we can now sort pizza boxes/meat/bones/bread/standard compostables and it's picked up at the curb and taken for composting. The plastic wrappers from just about everything can be rinsed then recycled at the curb, clean cardboard, metal and paper also get recycled. styrofoam and glass we have to take to the recycling center ourselves so I bag it and run it over every few months.

This leaves very little other then disposable diapers going into the garbage and when my daughter is potty trained soon I hope we'll have almost nothing going into the dump.

[bennelson]

Wow, Strider, I am jealous of the recycling you have in your area.

We have the basics - a couple types of plastics, steel, glass,aluminum, and paper.

Pizza boxes are actually always used as an example of something that you CAN NOT recycle. (And we don't have and composting services. I've never tried composting a pizza box myself....)

We don't have any type of recycling at all available for styrofoam.

A while back, I had a lot of "packing peanuts" from shipments I received. I called the local shipping store if they would take them, and they did.

So, sometimes you CAN recycle things you think you wouldn't be able to. I also had an old, dead car starter. I took it over to the autoparts store. They always require cores when you need a new starter, so I figured they would just take an old one!

Robert Small's idea of calling it a "landfill bin" is a good one. I'll have to remember that.

PS: I also have a one month old baby. Figuring out how to NOT make garbage with a baby will be interesting.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by RobertSmalls

What's in my garbage that can't be composted or recycled?

Used cat litter, soiled rags and other hazardous waste, animal-based food waste, products heavy with adhesives, documents too sensitive for the recycle bin.

We shred and/or burn documents with sensitive information, unless the info is only on a small portion, then we cut that out and tear it into small pieces and recycle the rest.

In Europe it's illegal to just throw out electronics. There are special collection places from where they are shipped to India and taken apart by children which breathe in all the toxic fumes (see Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes). Supposedly that's better for the environment than burying it.

Most medium-to-large stores have a battery collection bin. You pay a deposit for a new car battery unless you give up your old one. Sometimes you can find a bin for old cell phones.

Many pharmacies collect expired medicine.

It's easy to find places that will pay you for metals.

That's the dangerous stuff. As far as "normal" waste goes, our country is in the stone age of recycling. No organic matter pick up. Noone's heard of recycling styrofoam. Paper is recycled. PET(E) is the only plastic that anyone accepts. Glass is collected, but rarely is it divided into clear ("white") and colored, no green, brown, etc. I once asked my waste company about why glass isn't divided into colors and the clueless secretary answered "But white is also a color, isn't it?" TetraPak type liquid containers are supposedly recycled by a papermill somewhere, but I can't find anyone in my area who accepts them.

Now, I'll add that the Poland is supposed to recycle 60% of its waste within 2-3 years or it'll get huge fines from the EU. Last year our politicians were celebrating rasing our level of recycling from 7% to 8%. Wow. Looks like we're close to the 60% goal.

Now that I'm done ranting...
Ben, I wish you good luck with reducing (hopefully eliminating) the amount of garbage you produce. Please keep us informed.

BTW Are your housemates also participating in this?

[strider3700]

Realistically you can't "safely" compost pizza, dairy, fats, meats, bread... at home your piles are very unlikely to be large enough to get hot enough and you'd have to be a guru at making compost constantly working on the pile to keep it right. I don't attempt to compost any of that at home even though I extensively compost vegetable matter.

The city was getting to the point of needing another landfill and that was going to be very expensive so the food bin program was brought in. What they do is pick up compost bins weekly, and on alternating weeks either 1 can of garbage or the recycling. So this means I'm allowed 50 lbs of garbage every 2 weeks. It's easily doable if you put a few minutes of effort into it and don't have kids making diapers.


A lot of other stuff can be returned for refund up here, tetra packs, most if not all booze/softdrink bottles and cans, I think even some detergent bottles have a deposit on them. the places that take back the bottles and stuff also take electronics for free, we pay an eco fee when you buy them and that depends on what it is. I think my 32" lcd tv was an extra $35 to cover recycling.

If you're trying to prevent garbage with babies I highly recommend cloth diapering. We loved it until my daughter started getting serious rashes constantly. We went back to disposables and she's better but not cured. My son is in cloth 90% of the time so I do a lot of laundry. It's worth it. Many of the wipes you'll find can be flushed so long as you don't try to do too many at once. Beyond that babies don't make much garbage because they don't use much. rice cereal comes in cardboard boxes, solids in glass jars but we prefer to make our own.

[Higgy]

We can recycle cardboard, including pizza boxes here. It's also illegal to throw out computer parts as well. Funny thing is, outside of our city they can recycle styrofoam, but inside the city we don't have that. We do a lot of recycling and composting in our house. Funny thing is, we have 2 kids including one in diapers, and we maybe...MAYBE fill a big bag of garbage once a week. Usually it's have a large bag. When I look down the street people are throwing away 2 or more full bags of garbage and I wonder...how the heck do they go through so much garbage? I don't understand it.

[RobertSmalls]

Ben, have you seen anything interesting in your garbage lately?

[bennelson]

No, I really haven't.

I haven't been paying particular attention to it lately.

However, just the other day, I commented to my wife on how the compost bucket is one more thing on our kitchen counter (we have a small counter...)

She brought up the old idea that I had of using our "slide-out" which holds 2 x 13 gallon garbage cans to instead hold a three-way garbage/compost/recycling container.

We would shrink the size of the garbage can to make room for the compost. When we would "throw something out", we would have - all in one location - the choice of whether it should be recycled, composted, or landfilled.

[TimJFowler]

Ben,

Thanks for bringing up the issue of trash. My family also composts and we recycle all the materials that our city accepts (type 1 & 2 plastic, paper, corrugated cardboard, aluminum and steel, glass). We also TRY to limit purchasing stuff with excess packaging (buying bulk at the grocery store, etc.). But, actually eliminating ALL trash is a huge challenge!

I've started listing some of the things we can reduce that regularly end up in our trash can. So far, I've come up with: Coffee Cups (away from home), Plastic Produce Bags, Razor Blades, Kleenex, Paper Towels, Disposable Diapers, To-go Containers.

The disposable diapers are a recent addition to our 'landfill bin' and I plan to switch over to a washable diapers soon. While I'm quite happy about the expansion of our family there is an increase in our trash production.

I've written an article here -The Downside of Takeout | EcoDaddyo.com. I'm interested in hearing what other folks are doing to reduce their personal waste stream.