Duh, right? At my house we don't throw much away as it is but we can do better. This year I am committed to throw away significantly less than I recycle or donate. And while most of us want to do this I've decided to declare this to the world as a more official conscious decision to assist in my motivation on those lazy days. Here's how I'll do it...
1. Move the trash out to the garage. Only recycling will be in the kitchen, that way significantly more effort will be required to throw something away.
2. Downsize our trash pickup service.We will be downgrading to the smallest trash can possible for our curb and the fewest possible pickups.
3. Track the trends. We are going to figure out what we are throwing out most at our house and we'll make conscious decisions about how to reduce those specific items.
4. Stop buying things that are trash and packaging heavy. Rather than choose an item because it's cheaper we'll start looking just as seriously at the packaging content.
This seems easy, and I hope it is. While we don't throw a lot away I'd still love to get it down to the bare minimum this year.
How about you? What's your green resolution?
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So much packaging can be recycled that it's easy to cut down on garbage. I've gotten our family of five down to two small white garbage bags a week. My kids bring home their yogurt containers from lunch because the school doesn't recycle and we use snack taxi- reusable bags for snacks to school and in the car. Limiting the amount of plastic baggies and such. Good luck - and keep it up!
This year I started a worm composting bin in my basement. We have a ton of paper (office and home!) that I have "processed" through my worms. The compost will feed my garden this spring a win-win situation! This article inspired me to be better at recycling our trash, I printed the things the recyclers take and plan to post it by the trash can so we don't miss as much recyclable stuff headed for the trash bin. Thanks for the inspiration!
In my town, we are only able to recycle #1 and #2 plastics. About a year or two ago, we found that Whole Foods takes #1-#7, and we've been taking all of our other plastics there ever since.
Every time we sort the plastics for their trip to Whole Foods, I'm amazed at how much we would have normally just tossed in the trash!