One Month Anniversary

We did it!  We went a whole month without taking out the trash.  At the end of the month, here's what we had generated:

Let's look inside:

What do we have here?  At least what's visible from the top includes...

1. A dog food bag (curse you, plastic liner!)
2. A yogurt wrapper (yes, we have a machine.  I am going through a paranoid pregnancy phase and not making it from home, "just in case"...whatever that means).
3. A popsicle wrapper (from when I got the stomach flu.  Yuck, bad memory).
5. A worn-out sock.

In actuality, not taking out the trash for a month was not too hard.  We have made incremental changes, and bit by bit, are producing less and less waste.  However, there was one surprising down side to not taking out the trash for a month:

Fruit fly invasion!  No good.  We fashioned this vinegar contraption to catch them, and it has worked wonders.  Sergio suggested that we take out a really, really small bag of trash once a week to avoid this problem.  It's probably the best solution.  Part of me wants to be able to walk around saying, "I haven't had to take out the trash all month!" Somehow the words, "I take out a very small bag of trash once a week," sound less like a badge of honor.  But, I know the important part is not generating a lot of trash, and no matter how you slice it, we're on the right track.

Zero Waste Christmas

Last year, Sergio and I decided to have a live pine tree for Christmas instead of a cut one or an artificial one.  We got one that was about eighteen inches tall in a little birch bark pot at the local nursery and hung a tiny strand of lights on it.  Santa only gave the girls one gift each, so the little gifts fit nicely under the tiny tree. 

We kept the tiny tree outside on the deck all year, where it flourished.  However, this year, Ruby is especially enthusiastic and was begging to bring the "Kissmas tree" into the house to decorate right around Halloween.

So, against our better judgement, we brought the little pine tree inside.  It did well for the first week, and then started to look sad, and then very sad.  A little research yielded the following:

1. Live pine trees like direct sunlight
2. Live pine trees do best with indoor temperatures for about a month, at maximum

Nuts.

Currently, the little pine tree is back out on the deck and my fingers are crossed.  Please, mother nature, bring him back to life!

In the meantime, I searched for another zero waste alternative to a cut Christmas tree.  After some creative Internet searching, here is the result:

 

Ta da! Fabric tree. The fabric panel was on sale for $4.99/yard at Ikea, and for two yards, I got the whole tree.  It's hung in the hall, from the line where we usually display the girls' artwork.  It has a few ornaments pinned to it, and if you look closely, you can even see the tiny strand of lights that I salvaged from the little pine tree.

 

 

I know some people pledge their allegiance to Traditional Christmas, and therefore, this wouldn't work for everyone.  But, I never really have, so I think this works great.

Home Stretch to Goal Number Two

Goal number two is to not take out the trash for a month.  Goal number one was to get down to one bag per week.  The biggest hurdle to goal number two has been smell, but I figured out that carefully rinsing potentially smelly items prior to putting them in the trash solved the problem pretty fast.  I last took out the trash on October 28, and today is November 18, so we are in the final ten-day stretch to meeting goal number two.  Things look very promising.

There has been one painful setback, but I don't think it will prove fatal.  I got the flu and forgot to call the diaper service to ask for four more weeks' worth of compostable diapers.  Fortunately, I am no longer sick, and the diapers will arrive on Wednesday.  We have three compostable diapers left to get through maybe half of Monday, but the second half of Monday and Tuesday loom large.  So, I sent Sergio to the store tonight to get a small package of regular disposable diapers to get us through until Wednesday.  Gulp.

Are we terrible people?  I don't think so.  But, this small setback made me realize how bad I have come to feel about generating trash in cases where I know we can avoid it.  The last time we thought we were going to get close to the month mark, the trash filled up at just past two weeks and we took it out and restarted our count.  But this time, even with a few diapers headed to the trash, I still smell victory.

SPUD Continued

Reading back through earlier posts, I realized that I promised on multiple occasions to post photos of the bulk bins at Sunflower Market, but never did.  Perhaps it was because my romance with Sunflower was too short.  I still think Sunflower has a great personality, and I hope we can stay friends.  It's just, well, I met someone new.

SPUD has been so amazing that we haven't been back to Sunflower once since we started getting our groceries from them.  Here's what the food looks like when it arrives:

Unlike the single-use plastic bag Hell of Safeway delivery, SPUD groceries come in reusable crates.  (And also unlike Safeway delivery, you can't choose any delivery window you want.  You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.  Remember, this keeps the routes sensible and eco-friendly.  Also, I know these two delivery services aren't entirely serving the same audience.)

Here's what comes inside:

Note that it's just normal people food.  You don't have to switch to a diet of carob chips and lentil patties (no offense whatsoever to either of those foods or the people who enjoy them) in order to reduce the trash in your can.  Note also that every piece of packaging inside the crate can either be reused by SPUD or recycled by them (see next photo for more details).

Next time I place an order, I'll try to remember (how's that for honest) to take a screen shot about the points system associated with making purchases.  Basically, every item has a point value based on how far it had to travel from the place where it was grown or manufactured to the SPUD warehouse. The lower you keep your total mileage number for your order, the more points you get.  And points are redeemable for free food! There's a built-in incentive to be mindful about making local choices.  The one thing on that list I can't wait to recycle is corks.  Ahhh, a glass of wine sure would be nice.  I'll pencil one in for about eight weeks from now.