Hi

I'd be interested to hear if anyone takes any measures to reduce the amount of garbage that their diet (or any other part of their lives) generates. Using a reusable shopping bag and reusing plastic produce bags is not an uncommon practice, but I'm wondering if anyone has adopted a more formal approach to reducing their waste (for example, not buying any food that comes with more than a sticker or rubber band/wire tie).

I'm trying to get to an under 10% waste household. I try to buy all produce in bulk, and whatever else in recycleable packaging. I compost my vegetal waste in the warmer months and throw biodegradeable scraps into biodegradeable garbage bags in the colder months.

I also try to buy produce with little or no packaging. At the grocery store, the bin sticker or rubber band bunches are good, but I prefer to skip the two-fruits-in-a-styrofoam-tray ridiculousness. Food that comes in plastic bags is not always avoidable. If the bags are sturdy enough, I try to reuse them around the house before they eventually get tossed.

At my grocery store I can shop into any of my own containers I bring from home, as long as I weigh the containers on the store scale and present the weights to the cashier to subtract. I do this with bulk nuts, seeds, beans, dried fruits, agave nectar, olive oil, spices, and sometimes fresh produce like dates, and mushrooms. I can avoid bringing home so many plastic bags this way. Also, jars of nuts are much easier to organize on my kitchen shelves than plastic produce bags of nuts.

At the farmers market, you can even avoid the bin stickers (though that's definitely not why I go to the market). Just remember to bring shopping bags.

I compost summer and winter (well, in the winter I just add my scraps to the bin knowing that they'll freeze and not actually break down until spring).

Yeah, frances, I should find a store that sells nuts in bulk bins so I can use my own container, instead of buying the prepackaged nuts every few days.

I wish there were a store that sold strawberries and blueberries in the same way, to avoid the waste, but I don't think I'll find any. I might just have to 'get off of' berries until they show up at the farmer's markets because from what I can tell the plastic boxes that they come in aren't recyclable--maybe I'm wrong, though.

Guys, I could go on and on and on about this. There is so much that can be done to eliminate waste, it's just Incredible! Have you seen the blog "unstuffed"? This girl is just amazing, she does SO MUCH! I love it.

I am lucky enough to live in farmland so in summer we buy produce at roadside stands, direct from the farmer, go to berry and other fruit farms, and buy local produce at our small local grocery store. It's not organic, most of it, but it couldn't be more fresh and it burned very little gas getting to us.

I compost in winter as well as summer, I just keep a garbage can full of dried leaves and a bale of hay next to the composter in the back yard and layer it, turn now and then with a pitchfork. Winter composting is totally doable, it makes it's own heat if you layer it right.

There are tons of step-by-step tutorials on the internet on making cloth shopping bags out of old sheets and such. It's very easy, even for a novice sewer. Anyone who wants to give it a go should do it, it's surprisingly simple and so satisfying.

I have a lunch container called a stainless steel tiffin that I use for school lunches. I've also got a stainless steel soup-type thermos, kleen kanteens and some plastic lock and lock containers for lunches (though I prefer not to use plastic whenever possible). I also found some pyrex containers with snap on lids to use for food storage in the fridge and freezer. Those were an investment but now that I have them I use them all the time and never have to buy or use any other kind of storage.

I have made baggies for bulk food and produce in the past that are simple enough for those with even the most simple stitching skills or a desire to try. Using unbleached cotton muslin or hemp fabric (wash and dry with a natural soap to clean them and shrink the fabric before cutting and sewing) cut a long rectangle, fold in half (the fold is the bottom of the bag) sew up both sides and either cut the raw edges of the fabric with pinking shears (they cut out a zigzig) or sew close to the edge with a zigzag setting on the sewing machine or sew another line of straight stitches closer to the edge (this prevents major fraying). When you use these bags for bulk produce just take them up to the counter open so the clerk can see what it is for weighing then flod the top over a couple of times and wrap an elastic band (recycled off produce) around the bag to secure it closed. I transfer everything into glass jars to store it in the cupboards or even the fridge if it's nuts or quinoa. I made a version with a velcro closure out of that clear plastic you can buy at the hardware store as a table covering but I'm not sure about that plastic...
If you are a bit more handy with the sewing you can stitch a clear plastic square to the outside of the bag, leave the top unsewn and insert a piece of paper with the contents of the baggie written down, cashier code for ringing it in, whatever.

Ladies, you all know about cloth moon pads, the keeper and the diva cup, right? The cup is incredible in case you are on the fence about it. Much better than you'd imagine after you get the hang of using it. Eliminates an enormous amount of waste that thing. I love it.

I make most of our home and body care "products" and buy baking soda and castile soap in bulk. All the cleaning gets done with that. And I have an excellent recipe for homemade laundry soap that is all I use (I put it into recycled liquid laundry soap jugs I score out of other people's recycling, ha!).

The kids and I try to avoid buying anything new, the "treasure shop" is our favourite place for clothes, books, toys, housewares, everything. We donate our old stuff there too (the Salvation Army sends torn and stained clothing that can't be sold here to the 3rd world if it is still wearable. They also sell to rag shops so they waste very little.). And I make most of my crafts out of recycled or rescued materials that would otherwise end up in the garbage.

I'm always amazed at the amount of garbage and recycling my neighbours put out every week. I didn't have enough recycling to put out our bins for 6 weeks last time and even then they weren't completely full and our garbage is a small can and is hardly ever full. And I don't even think I'm doing half of what I could be doing! There's way, way more... I'm working on it.

There have been things that I just straight up dont buy because of the packaging involoved in buying it. Its like trying to buy something covered in blood. Eeew.

Guys. Money talks. The consumer's dollar ***is*** their vote. End of story. If we didn't buy it, THEY WOULDNT MAKE IT. So I try to boycott wherever possible. Just in general.

-KP

Tam, where do you get the biodegradable bags? I've been thinking about them since I read this thread...

Kingpenguin, I boycott too. Nestle for one, everthing they make (which is a LOT and not just food products). I periodically write to the companies to give them feed back too, about packaging, ingredients, marketting etc. Sometimes I do this even if it's not something I buy, just to get things moving in a healthier direction in general. A real paper letter gets a surprising amount of attention...

I thought of one more and you may think I'm entirely kookoolala for doing this one but I've been saving dried lint to make paper with the kids this summer. We're going to try making huge sheets of it in different colours to cut up for greeting cards. I use scrap paper for this too instead of putting it into the recycler. Anybody else make paper? It's so FUN!

I reuse those plastic produce bags like one would use Ziplocks. I never buy baggies, nor trash bags. I had a huge stash of old plastic (ugh) grocery bags and just kept using them. My local health store has begun using cornstarch bags and they are the bee's knees! They are stretchy and strong: rarely have I poked a hole in one by accident. The health store gave me a bunch when I inquired about purchasing a case of them.

Other things I do: I use a bike and have a milk crate on back. When I do my shopping, I bring tote bags and backpacks, and if I have forgotten, I will just carry my items to the crate. It may look silly, but it's better than more plastic bags.

Dryer lint!! Squirrels use it to make and insulate their homes. They LOVE dryer lint.

I tile interiors with paper bags. I use plastic bread ties to make lampshades. I know a girl who crochets hats out of plastic bags (yes!)

I DO NOT SHOP at supermarkets that stock registers with only plastic bags. When someone asks me if i want a bag, I always THANK THEM FOR ASKING.

I dumpster-dive for clothes and furniture. Garage sales and moving days are great ways to do this. I feel like a mega-success when someone compliments my clothes and I can say "Everything I'm wearing came from a dumpster." I love how incensed that makes well-to-do girls who can't stand hearing that its something they can't just go out and *buy* at some haute-store.

kingpenguin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dryer lint!! Squirrels use it to make and
> insulate their homes. They LOVE dryer lint.
>
> I tile interiors with paper bags. I use plastic
> bread ties to make lampshades. I know a girl who
> crochets hats out of plastic bags (yes!)
>
> I DO NOT SHOP at supermarkets that stock registers
> with only plastic bags. When someone asks me if i
> want a bag, I always THANK THEM FOR ASKING.
>
> I dumpster-dive for clothes and furniture. Garage
> sales and moving days are great ways to do this.
> I feel like a mega-success when someone
> compliments my clothes and I can say "Everything
> I'm wearing came from a dumpster." I love how
> incensed that makes well-to-do girls who can't
> stand hearing that its something they can't just
> go out and *buy* at some haute-store.



Dude, You ROCK!!! I want to see some pictures! Please, how do you tile with paper bags and make lampshades out of bread ties?
Have you seen that craft where you iron layers of ruined plastic grocery bags together so you can sew them into things? Check out craftster.org, there are a few terrific frugal crafters there.

I am not brave enough to fish around in dumpsters but I have no problem scooping things out of curbside trash. No problem at all!

coco,

Biodegradable dog waste bags are from Bio Bag, and the biodegradable trash bags are from a company called Full Circle; they're in Michigan, so you mayn't be able to get them in Canada : (

My parents live in Mich so it's a possibility, I'll check it out!

coco,

If they live near a Meijer, they should be able to get 'em!

The Mama is away for 2 weeks in Florida (must be nice!) with hub so I'll ask for those bags when they get back. Might as well make what garbage we do create as biodegradable as possible.

If I could, If we had a big space for a workshop, I'd save every little bit of everything for art projects. I love found object art and it can be made with just about anything. Sure, ultimately it's still just junk, garbage if you will. But it's interesting to look at and if made to withstand the elements can be put on display and saved from the landfill. Wouldn't it be cool if every street corner, telephone pole, park bench, phone booth etc had a nifty little art installation?

We've been making a rubber band ball out of produce bands because the collection was getting out of hand. I confess that I did have to buy some to get it to a good size for working on but now it's just huge and we can add to it as we get them. It's nearly the size of little's 9 year old head! That's a lot of rubber bands.