Not quit "zero" waste.

This morning, my municipal delivered this baby, and took my old one. When I ordered it, the woman said: "Just so you know, you have to keep it at least 6 months, otherwise you will be charged!".

Not much confidence in me?

I have to admit, my first impulse to order a smaller can was to save money. I am on a mission to lower our everyday living costs, so everything is on the table.

I normally shop in bulk, or at the farmer's market, BUT, a few days ago, I went for a "quick shop" for dinner. Big mistake. As I was making our dinner, I realized that this one meal alone was generating: 3 plastic containers from cucumber, tomatoes, strawberries. 1 plastic bag from salad. 1 plastic bag from pasta, 2 styro plates from the chicken.

I was ashamed. First: Never shop on impulse & hungry.

Second, I thought about how much of my hard earned money is actually going to the "food", vs. how much is going to the packaging & selling? The package has to made, packaged, shipped, unpacked, filled with food, stickered, packed up again, shipped, and then put on a shelf. Every step has to be handled by a machine or person. Then I empty it, put it in the recycle bin, it has to be picked up, sorted, and recycled (if I am lucky, I hear not all recycles REALLY make it to a new life

Crazy, right?

Don't get me wrong, this is not the first time I have pondered on this.  Though I do not anticipate that we will become a "Zero Waste" family (see this family, who generates ONE QUART of garbage a year! Good tips :)..) over night,  I am taking the first steps to force my family to rethink garbage. Though we compost & recycle, we still generate a fair amount of garbage every week. We went from a 60 gallon can to a 30 gallon. That is still a tremendous amount, if you think about it. My family alone generated  240 gallons of trash a month that went to a landfill.

Now we have half the size of a can, let's see how inventive we get :).

Maybe in 6 months I will call our municipal again and challenge them to an even smaller can, or NO GARBAGE??

Live consciously.
Heike

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