Project Done. THANK GOD.
One day. ONE DAY. That’s how long it took us to accumulate that pile of trash. If you’ll recall, we kept track of our trash for a whole week so that we could really see how wasteful we are. As you can see above? ONE DAY. Have I mentioned that? ONE DAY.
I definitely learned a lot over the last week. To start things off on a positive note, I’ll start with the good things I noticed.
- While my box/can cooking style might not be that exciting for my family, it makes it so that most of our dinner-created trash is recyclable!
- And we actually recycle that stuff!
Not much of a positive list, huh? But really – that last part? Big deal. We sent recyclables away with the trash every week for YEARS. Now that we actually take the stuff to the recycling center, we’ve made big progress. Below are pictures of one week’s worth of recyclables we take in. Stuff that we used to send out with the garbage.
That’s something to be proud of, right? Yes. And now that I’ve boosted us a bit: time for THE BAD.
- Most of our trash consists of disposable diapers. Which is why most of you use cloth diapers, I know.
- I do so little from scratch, we make hardly any compostable waste. Which is sad, really. MrZ is still going to set us up a compost bin, just in case I some day I attempt to cook with real ingredients, we’ll be able to do something with the waste.
- Another huge portion of our waste comes from packaged items I only buy to make it easier to be lazy. As in, I buy the boxes of oatmeal in packets for NikkiZ’s breakfast instead of a larger container of oatmeal that I scoop servings from every day. One week’s worth of lazy-style oatmeal creates quite a bit of waste, I learned.
There are several things we’re going to attempt to modify in our consumption habits so that this project in six months will hopefully yield better results. All in all? Totally glad we did it. Even though it was embarrassing to look at all week. And the rest of my family? Who did not ask for this project in the first place? Was very glad that I stopped taking pictures of our garbage every night.
Another picture of one day’s worth of trash. ONE DAY.
I’m glad you’re doing this! If more people paid attention to the PACKAGING used when shopping it would make a major difference. My husband liked to buy pre-made salads at the store and I put the cabash on that due to all the packaging. Enough to drive one completely batty, if one is the “easily driven completely batty” sort, which I most definitely am.
A dozen Diet Cokes in a week?! WOW! Junkie
It’s funny though, how much being aware can make a big difference in these things though!
i am totally impressed with you doing this project.
My friend told me a story of how a guy stood at the till next to him in the supermarket and stood there and unwrapped the food he bought – or at least he extra wrapping that wasn’t needed.
Good on you for trying to be green! I have been talking about this recently in my blog too. But here in Australia life is so much easier.
We have solar panels and water tanks installed into rental houses and the council provides 240L wheelie bins for rubbish and recycling. I bin for each. This is great because we fill the recycling bin every week, and we just put it out with the rubbish.
Every bit counts, and it will be interesting to see how it all turns out. Dont give up! It really is easy to do when you change your habits.
(I know… It took me AGES to change)
I think the whole project should be put on the positive list. Good job!
There isn’t a recycle pick-up? The extra effort of having to take the recycle in yourself should push that one to the positive list.
In NYC, we get fined if we put recycables in the trash. It is a hefty fine too. There are two recycle pick-ups each week (paper one day, glass another, etc.).
Wow I am rerally impressed MS Zoot with your efforts, we all need to get onto recycling more. I am lucky as the London borough I live in provides a recycling service and when we were renovating the flat we were good and took all the old carpet, wood etc to the local recycling plant which burns everything to make energy to heat the city. Maybe you could start a campaign to get your lcoal council service or US equivilant to provide a dorostep service?
I think its great you are doing this. I think awareness is the key to change. With all the cans you accumulate, maybe you could sell them and have the kids donate the money to a shelter or something (maybe more diet coke, just kidding).
My only thing is I freak when I see your stuff on the stove. I rented a condo when I was young and the neighbor’s stove was the culprit of me learning early insurance is your friend. The electric surged and the stove turned on.
Two things: I love that you even kept track, I would be scared to see what we accumulate at my house… Yikes! Your project inspires me. I may have to do the same
Second, and this I have been meaning to tell you for a long time: We could TOTALLY drink beer together. Your house has EXCELLENT beer-taste, a rare thing in my experience. Alas, grabbing beers together would be a challenge since you know, I live in DC!
we recycle mason jars in a much different way. the hubs puts them in the dishwasher and they’re used for drinking glasses. they’re actually really good drinking glasses. our house has this sorta “vintage-eclectic” thing going on so the mason jars don’t look so outta place in the cabinets.
OK, that’s pretty impressive that you’re willing to do it, document it, AND share it.
Now. Seriously. BUY 2 LITERS, WOMAN!
ACk! Are you throwing away the coke points without entering them?!?! you can send that bit of garbage to me if you don’t mind
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I too am a diet coke addict and go through AT LEAST 12 in a week…
I noticed a large chunk of the pile was junk mail. We get the same thing and I wish there was a way to get them to stop. I have not done the experiment but I would guess 10% of my trash is junk mail.
Is it wrong that most of what I got from this post is a craving for diet coke?
For all the things I think I do to conserve and help the environment, I didn’t think about our week’s worth of trash. I might need to actually consider doing this!
wow i am impressed you did this…it would have driven me CRAZY. We have recycling piled up in our house, and that is okay, but the garbage? not so cool. I just recycling was EASIER here in this town. Do they pick up anything for you? They started after Katrina, a new company but now they aren’t picking up much of anything…So we have stuff just piled up….
This is an admirable experiment and it looks like you learned a lot. *clap, clap, clap* We are always trying to reduce waste in our house and we’ve actually done fairly well. We’re down to one small bag of garbage a week.
Now, listen close: I swear upon all things holy that cloth diapers are not that hard. I’ve been doing them for over a year now. For daycare (which won’t do cloth), we only go through about two pack of diapers a month. That’s it. Environment aside, think about the money you’ll save!
is that 12 diet cokes in 1 day? That is what is in the picture. I thought I drank a lot, but TWELVE? You have me beat!
I wouldn’t dream of asking you to give up beer or diet coke, but how about not buying those cans? Making cans creates a ton of toxic waste (red, toxic mud, which sounds sort of sci-fi, except of course that it’s not, you know, ALIVE! or anything). I know you recycle them (and yay for you for doing that!), but perhaps you could go for glass bottles or the bigger plastic bottles for diet coke (which I believe are less bad than the cans).
)
(Disclaimer: aluminum is my environmental pet peeve. I think the save-the-trash project is a really great (and brave!) idea. I’m not trying to be all nit-picky and judgmental about your cans!
All I can think is, that’s a lot of sodas for one day. I’d suspect my husband was living with you, but he doesn’t drink Diet Coke.
WOW. This is inspiring to me. I have been REALLY lazy about recycling since we moved, because our house sits on an acre and the driveway is forever long.
Looks like I’m going to have to step it up. I don’t even WANT to know what our trash looks like… especially since we use disposable diapers too, and also bottle liners.
Thanks for the eye-opener!
thats’s a really cool project. Kudos for sticking with it =)
We don’t have recycling pick up here either (I live in BFE, NM) so I have to take my stuff to recycling bins. We do have them in my little village so that is nice.
Did you all really drink that many diet cokes in one day? We changed from soft drinks to ice tea about 4 years ago and it makes a huge difference in our pockets and we lost weight (bonus!). After everything I’ve read about soft drinks I rarely drink them.
Do you get a lot of credit applications and things like that? You can opt out of getting those by going here https://www.optoutprescreen.com/?rf=t
If you get a lot of magazines and other stuff go here http://www.greendimes.com/
sorry….greendimes.com was not the one I wanted to post. This is the link I meant to post http://www.41pounds.org/
Okay, you have to tell us: is that one day or one week of diet coke? If it’s a day you made me feel better, if it’s a week I’m a junkie. I drink 3-5 cans per day. On the plus side I do recycle them all and I do the body a favor b/c I used to drink 5-6 Coke classics every day. What you’re doing to get greener is awesome and a lot to take on with an infant and toddler in the house.
I don’t think it’s that much trash since part of that can be recycled. Especially with you having a family of 5. We probably have about that much and there is only my husband and I.
Hey, Miss Zoot- I am loving that you did this! I teach high school science and it’s amazing to me how people prefer to remain ignorant, so they won’t have to ‘feel bad’ about the way they choose to live.
Note to Sonja: plastic is generally a petroleum product, made from non-renewable resources. Aluminum, while producing horrible waste to initially produce, if I’m remembering correctly, is 100% recyclable and that process is not nearly so enviro-icky.
I think I saw a milk jug there. One change we made a few years ago was having milk delivered from a farm. They’re not organic certified, but do follow the organic rules (that certification is expensive!). Anyway, I chose a dairy that was already delivering to my block so that I wouldn’t be sending another car out using gas. The milk tastes better and comes in glass jars that they take back.
The oatmeal one I understand, my kids like the dino eggs oatmeal – it doesn’t come in a giant bin.
But here’s the thing, if we ALL made improvements then that would be dramatic. You don’t have to live off the earth and not generate any trash to help make it better.
Now if I could only get my kids’ school to recycle.
Mmmk so I’m watching SNL and beginning to understand why you love NPH so much. Awesome! lol