The Week Without Trash Wraps Up

So living completely without trash is a bust.

My downfall started Thursday at a trade show, when a free grilled cheese sandwich appeared at my booth at 2:30 p.m. after I hadn't eaten lunch... on a styrofoam plate.

Compromises had to be made Friday for free decaf at Caribou, too. And/or a box of Junior Mints (I swear I haven't had them for years. Something about not being able to have them did me in).

WALL-E is sad about my lack of willpower. Image from www.firstshowing.net

But! There are several useful lessons I learned from my week "without trash":

1. Buying bulk foods is really fun and easy (and cheap).

2. Cooking at home and then taking leftovers for lunch in a pyrex is delicious, cheap, and trashless.

3. Trash = money. The less trash I throw away, the less money I spend (I saved SO MUCH this week).
- I didn't eat out or pay for coffee.
- I bought more basic foods at the grocery store, which aren't taxed the same way as processed foods.
- I planned my eating a lot more carefully and wasted a lot less food.

4. Napkins, towels, and rags cut from old t-shirts are better than paper products.

5. If the produce will be peeled, it doesn't need a plastic bag.

6. A worm bin would greatly reduce the amount of trash I produce.

I'm relieved to be able to guiltlessly eat chocolate and cheese again, but I think I'll keep some of these habits going as long as I can. Buying in bulk really is fantastic - fewer preservatives, less packaging, and you control the amount you buy. Amazing!

If you have kids in schools, check out this article about encouraging your school to weigh its trash.

On Being Green at Work

My colleague and I discussed green teams on our way home from a training today - how it's really important for employees to own "greening" the workplace and come up with their own ideas about ways to save resources.

This green suit by Stacy Adams came from zootsuitstore.com

Today, I discovered three ways work today was not conducive to being green:

1. Having to go to a meeting at a coffee shop that does not serve things in "for here" cups. It's awkward not to buy something...
2. Having to drive places.
3. Having to pay to park places with exact change. Having to procure said exact change by buying things. Like Kit-Kat bars. Which I eat. And then dispose of the remains.

Of course, there are three ways work is conducive to being green:

1. Paying for a good portion of a bus pas as an employee benefit.
2. Having a refrigerator and microwave in the break room.
3. Providing reusable cups, silverware, and dishes in the break room.

There are others who have thought about this a lot more than I have:
* Jill Velez from Whole Foods discusses ways to green up the workplace (thanks to Regi for the link!)

* Robin from Green Options shares 5 ways to green your coffee.

* Stephanie Rosenbloom and Michael Barbaro for the NY Times chart Wal-Mart's rise to the top of the (green business heap?)

In other news, don't forget to shop at thrift stores. You may just find an $8000 work of art.

Chocolate Bar

Confession: I ate a chocolate bar. With a wrapper.

To appease my guilty conscience, I recycled the outer paper wrapper and turned the inner wrapper into a Valentine.


Here are a couple I've made - trying to take this picture really makes me appreciate the good photographers on Etsy. It's tricky to get good shots of greeting cards. The one in the middle is made out of, you guessed it, recycled CDs. 10 CDs down, 40 to go...

Now I'm off to go unglue my fingers.

Worm Bins and Potato Chips

Another day, another day without trash..! 3 down, 4 to go.

I almost broke down and went to McDonald's today. I saw the woman at the security desk with her McDonald's bag and really, really wanted to take it away from her. But no - I held strong, and remained trashless - and probably added about a week to my heart's lifespan. McDonald's marketing people are darn good.

To deal with the compost/veggie scrap situation, my cousin Karen recommended I get a worm bin. This may be my next venture, although I don't really have a good place to harvest compost. Maybe if I join a community garden in the spring?

In other news, Potato Chip Dave went a whole year making only 30.5 pounds of trash and recycling. Here I was thinking I was so clever with my paltry week without trash! Dave, an L.A. steadycam by day, wanted to show you can reduce your waste while still consuming the potato chips and beer you love - so he did.

image from sustainablog.org

Today's trashless accomplishment: I have now successfully trained myself to use the hand blow dryers - an amazingly tough habit to re-train myself to do.

In bizarre news - if only I could convince my building's property management company to install poetry in the restrooms like this Japanese experiment, maybe we would all use a little less toilet paper.

Trashless Weekday

An update from your trashless incipient bag lady:
I have a really impressive collection of last week's produce bags growing in a cupboard. I need to sew myself some reusable bags out of old T-shirts or cheesecloth or something.

In other news, I have not found the medallion. I did, however, have a delicious trashless dinner:


Grown-Up Mac & Cheese (recipe appears courtesy Eve Thomas)
- Saute diced onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms in olive oil.
- Cook whole wheat pasta.
- Melt cheese with milk and a spoonful of flour.
- Mix together in a casserole dish, top with bread/cracker/matzo crumbs. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes.

I made it through the work day having thrown away only two sticks of gum - a bad, bad habit held over from my junior high days - and a couple of paper towels when I forgot to use the hand dryer. Oh, and I also threw out a couple of disinfectant wipes at the gym. I tried to leave my treadmill unsanitized and the desk attendant gave me a dirty look.

So we're up to about a ziplock baggie full of Jenntrash this week.

Things I learned today:
1. I have an instinct to reach for paper towels when things go wrong. It's like my adult baby blanket.
2. In the end, it's not really possible to buy anything at Trader Joe's except apples and lemon curd without creating plastic waste.

Thanks for sticking through this with me.. 2 down, 5 to go!

No-Waste Grocery Shopping

I love my coop's bulk foods section - it's actually cheaper to buy whole wheat pasta, brown rice, granola, etc. Do I sound like a tree hugger much? "Ooh, granola... brown rice..." Chocolate covered espresso beans are expensive - $13 a pound - but totally worth it. Espresso bean treats aside, I spent a lot less on groceries this week.

As my mom is wont to say about my vegetarian diet, "Where's the protein?!" I have a carton of tofu and about 12 cans of black beans I'm working through from last week... not so much in keeping with my rules, but I'll make the exception.

The only things I bought in new containers were yogurt (impossible to buy except in plastic tubs), and this fig spread and sheep cheese that came in cute glass jars that I want to pot things in. I returned my Castle Rock bottle for my $1.50 deposit (yesss!) and bought bulk eggs in an old crate.

In other news, I broke a pie plate on its way to Goodwill - the kind of tempered glass that can't be recycled. Sigh. Klutziness is not green, but perhaps cannot be helped.

For dinner, we got deli sandwiches at Nelson's - at least we only threw away a piece of wax paper.

Tally so far: grapefruit peels, carrot tops, fallen tortilla, fallen pie plate, wax paper.

1 day down, 6 to go.

Day Without Trash #1

My first 12 hours of trashlessness: HARD, and not nearly as trashless as I would have imagined they could be.

For one, I have a lot of food sitting around in packages from grocery shopping last week: tortillas in a plastic bag. Cheese in a plastic wrapper. Grapes in a plastic bag. I can keep these bags for my trip to the grocery store, but I already have some pretty bag-ladyish tendencies (see the collection of cardboard boxes under my bed) and very little storage space. I'll just keep them until I can't, I guess.

Two, I'm a clumsy person. I drop a lot of things. It's helping to have a kitchen towel and cloth napkin on hand at all times, but when food goes on the floor...

Three, sometimes it doesn't make sense to eat at home. Today is busy: between 3-hour choir rehearsal and a fundraiser, Caleb's going to spend most of the day in a different part of the city. I sent him with a home made veggie platter for choir treats this morning, but didn't make it to the grocery store to find something for us to eat for dinner en route from Roseville to Como.

Still, so far I've only thrown away carrot tops, grapefruit skins, and a tortilla I dropped. If only I had a compost pile..!

Week Without Trash: Rules

So I've been watching and thinking all week about how exactly I'm um, going to do this week without trash thing.

Unlike "giving up chocolate for Lent," giving up trash is actually going to change important things in my life. Like actually going without chocolate. Chocolate comes in bars, which come in wrappers. Augh! Cheese too!

There is something brilliant though - bulk foods at the coop down the street - that should help. Chocolate covered espresso beans, here I come... (look out, colleagues). I've put down my deposit on my milk bottles and cream bottle for the week, also a brilliant solution from Castle Rock Farms.

Also brilliant: I don't have to worry about being tempted by the box of Clif Bars in my desk because they are being recalled for fear of killer peanuts.

I'm going to give myself a couple of outs. For example:
1. The supply chain. Coffee in the break room at my work is made with individually wrapped coffee grounds and disposable coffee filters. It's shared among a lot of people, so my responsibility is .. less. Like carpooling. Or that's the excuse I'm going to use this week. Some other week I'll go a week without CAUSING any trash, and actually bother to bring the french press into work.

2. Fruit and veggie peels. I know food waste is the biggest portion of municipal solid waste, but there's no way I'm giving up some of the best winter produce (grapefruit, bananas, kiwi fruit, squash), even just for a week.

3. Eventually disposable stuff that I use for more than a week. I'm focusing a lot on food, but things like toothbrushes, razor blades, etc. - those are allowed.

4. Dental floss, kleenexes, toilet paper.

Outs I will not give myself:
1. Recycling apart from paper. Lots of this ends up getting landfilled by the recycling company anyway, and I'm going to remove the temptation for myself to get takeout plastic clamshells and say, "They're plastic. They're recyclable..." With prices for recycled goods in the ditch, I'm going to do my part to create less supply.

2. My boyfriend Caleb has promised to throw anything away for me, and that way I won't be throwing anything away, right? Wrong!

3. "Reusing" paper and plastic for trash and recycling.

I'll go tonight at midnight to 12:00 a.m. February 1.

Aah.

Pre-Game: Waste Sort!

In prepping for a week without garbage, I figured I should watch what I'm throwing away in my ordinary life. Gentle readers, please feel free to think how much better at life you are than I am. :)

image from the City of Lille website.

I threw out a lot of stuff today. The stuff I threw away falls into a couple of different categories:

Totally avoidable.
* gum wrappers, gum
* disposable coffee cup (bad Jenn!)
* Clif Bar wrapper

Awkward to avoid, but avoidable.
* paper towels in restrooms
* band-aids

Tough to avoid, because I don't have a compost pile.
* banana peel
* grapefruit peel

Not sure how to avoid.
* tissues (I tried handkerchieves a few years ago and ended up getting sick a lot - I'm superstitious enough about my health to think these two things are related.)

Things I will not be avoiding.
* toilet paper

Lessons from today: I need to bring my own coffee mug and find snacks that aren't wrapped in plastic.

Old CD Craft Project #1

So my first study in making stuff out of old CDs: "Do scissors cut them?"

Yes they do! And they helped me make my first old CD mosaic.

9 CDs down, 41 to go...

Things I learned:
1. Scissors cut CDs with little effort.
2. Scissors do not always make 100% clean cuts.
3. The foil gets everywhere.

Two more ideas I'm excited about from Instructables:

A CD rack from old CDs
CD ROM fish (slightly less practical)

Garbage

I was inspired by this article from today's New York Times - not necessarily by the (heartwarming?) idea of garbage haulers trained by cops to be on patrol for anything seeming to be out of the ordinary, but by a quote from a Waste Management hauler in Roseville, CA:

Garbage collectors are also informal, hands-on economists, Mr. Garcia said, explaining that when times are good, everyone produces more garbage and that the absence of trash is often a sign of a foreclosed home. “You can tell how well a particular restaurant is doing from the amount of trash,” he said.

Trash Mountain, a representation of the trash an average Minnesotan family of four makes in a year. Gross. Image from publicradio.org

This idea is common across the resource areas: energy consumption is considered one of the strongest indicators of a country's economic health.

The paradigm disgusts me a little bit - our quality of life, our lives, our wealth - directly correlated to how wasteful we are?

I think with a little more effort, we can make drastic improvements. So next week, I'm preparing to live a Week Without Trash!(tm).

I will probably disgust myself. I will probably fail. I will probably try to slip things in the recycling that can't actually be recycled. But if my entire host family of five in Morocco can make a single pail of vegetable waste in a week, certainly I can try to make less than a single pail of garbage next week?

I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I'll be trying to figure out what to do with all those CDs on Instructables. (Thanks Regi!)

On Old CDs

Over the New Year, I sorted through my CD collection and decided to get rid of a few old mixes I'd made.

And by few, I mean 50.

so many... so pretty!

I hear Earth 911 will tell me where to recycle them, but I'd much rather make an art project out of them - preferably one that doesn't involve melting them and releasing VOCs, etc.

Any ideas? I'm taking suggestions!

On Commuting by Bus: 4 Month MetroTransit Report

Thursday marked my four-month anniversary of commuting by bus.


Here I am, posing with my Metro Transit fan memorabilia.

Why, you may ask? (Well, you're reading a green blog, so you're probably not going to wonder why.) If you need that little extra push to visit metrotransit.com or your local public transit website, allow me to tell you the ways in which my life has changed for the better because of it:

I see sunlight once per day. Even though it's cold as all get-out (to the tune of -2!), it's nice to have a few minutes of mandated outside time. That, and I get to wear my ridiculous rubber boots into work as long as I change into high heels once I'm in my office.

I save a ton of money. It's subsidized my my employer as well as my building's property management company, so I only pay $23.60 per month. When I commuted by car to Apple Valley this summer, I spent $200/month filling up my tank. When you take parking downtown into account and car wear and tear, I'm saving even more dough.

I make new friends. One guy was actually pretty cool and I might go see him play trumpet sometime. One lady told me that she, "kept the seat warm for me" (thanks...). You get to know your bus drivers.

I read a lot more. It's only 15 minutes each way, but that's a lot of free reading time.

I'm on time most days. I think it's because I have a deadline for leaving my house. I know if I'm not out the door at 7:39, I'll be late for work.

Less stress. Bus riding generally makes me feel healthier and more active, but one muscle has definitely atrophied since I've stopped driving: my middle finger.

Sigg

In other news, I've finally succumbed to more than a year of obsession and purchased a Sigg water bottle.


I think it's a half liter. It cost me $20 at the co-op down the street. It's supposed to help motivate me to go to the gym and to stop storing food in plastic containers - both New Year's resolutions.

And I LOVE IT. Here's hoping I won't lose it.

Responsible Shopper!

Responsible Shopper helps you make environmentally preferable purchasing decisions.

image from Horizon Magazine.

A program from Co-op America with business profiles and tips, Responsible Shopper gives you some of the information you need to make more informed purchasing decisions. Look what they have to say about Target, Cub Foods' Parent Company, Supervalu, or Toyota.