Garbage: How much do you create?

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Originally Posted by RoseQuartz

Your answers are all very intriguing. Especially you Gardnr, what on average is in your garbage? I wonder what specifically low garbage people buy at the store that's so different from a higher level garbage producing family?

I know some is buying from bulk bins etc. I have anaphylactic allergies so that for me is a no-go, but I'm always looking for new ideas.

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Hello, I described above. It's a few qtips and kleenex (not sure why I don't go to hankies but I don't), the occasional bag tortillas come in, carrot bag, bag from potatoes...that's what is in this week's so far. and of course, the catbox detritis. Today will add the packaging from 1# organic chicken breasts and the foil wrapping from a lasagna serving frozen awhile back.

This morning I emptied a dish soap bottle and bathroom cleanser bottle-those will go in recycle while the lids go in the garbage (not recycleable).

It is CSA season so most of our veggies come from there. i bring them home in cloth bags. i reuse and reuse and reuse plastic baggies from the produce aisle so nothing new there. I buy Debblies' green bags for produce as much as possible. They really work! https://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...+bags&tbm=shop

We take our lunches most every day-leftovers in reuseable containers.

We put far more volume into compost than garbage. Today's dish contains: 3 egg shells, ends of onion and we'll add some spinache stems, turnip stems and roots, mustard green stems before the weekend is over as well as my coffee/filter daily.

We buy very little food in boxes or bags.

not sure why your allergies prevent bulk bin buying? Are you concerned with contamination? If yes, most stores will sell you the full bag of items they use. If you have a high use product sold in bulk, go this route. Save a whole lot of plastic packaging and money!

We generate rather a little lot of trash. I'm not happy about it, but there it is.

milk jugs for instance. Two and three gallons a week we pitch. Wine bottles.. Cans of tomatoe sauce. Sacks of used cat litter.

Now, we do compost everything that can be composted or we would have hideous amounts of garbage.

We have a 35-gallon container that is picked up one time a month.

I commented previously, but the internet ate it...

We generate just about one 13 gallon size bag of trash weekly. There are two adults and two dogs in my family. We fill the recycle bins at least bi-weekly, if not weekly. Hubby does not actively recycle, and I've been known to go behind him and pick stuff out of the trash to recycle. Part of his disenchantment comes from occasionally seeing one trash truck driver take ALL the curbside stuff - garbage, recycling, lawn waste and even used oil. Sigh. I guess some times they don't have enough staff to run three trucks on the route.

We used to compost, but don't any longer. Unfortunately I found it attracted too many bugs and bad wildlife.

I live alone. My city requires trash to be put out in special trash bags--15 gallons or 30 gallons. You pay for the trash bags--a 15 gallon one is $1.50--and curbside recycling is free.

My garbage is mostly cat litter, food scraps and food containers. I fill up a 15 gallon bag every two weeks. Recycling goes out weekly. I'm in the middle of a project to get rid of the huge amounts of paper in my house, so I'm half-filling the 30 gallon recycle bin with paper every week. We can recycle pretty much everything, so the bin is 3/4 full or full pretty much every week.

The cat litter I use claims to be flushable, but this house is 120 years old and I don't trust the plumbing. It's a small apartment and I have no way to compost. Buying in bulk doesn't work for me; I just can't eat the food fast enough. So I think I've reduced the trash as much as I can, and I focus on other ways to help protect/save the environment.

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Originally Posted by iris lilies

milk jugs for instance. Two and three gallons a week we pitch. Wine bottles.. Cans of tomatoe sauce. Sacks of used cat litter.

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Maybe I missed it earlier in this thread, but they don't recycle where you live? Since we don't have a cat, I've never researched the recyclability of cat litter, but here we can recycle all of that curbside. I thought that recycling was far more common in metro areas.

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Originally Posted by catherine

On another note, I've noticed that one of the "occupational hazards" of being a composter is seeing everything in terms of "brown" or "green."

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DW thought I was up a tree when I took the lint from the dryer and put it in our composter. Browns is browns....

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Originally Posted by SteveinMN

DW thought I was up a tree when I took the lint from the dryer and put it in our composter. Browns is browns....

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Exactly!

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Originally Posted by SteveinMN

DW thought I was up a tree when I took the lint from the dryer and put it in our composter. Browns is browns....

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I always put dryer lint in the compost:~)

I had never thought about dryer lint. I'll have to start doing that.

I'd not thought of dryer lint either!