Anyone else spending their January focused on their waste line?
Day 1: 16 grams trash, 664 grams recyclables.
I am on my best behavior to start!
The trash is wrappers from produce (bought in relative bulk). I could hypothetically recycle plastic film alongside things like plastic shopping bags but putting it in the curbside bin would just clog up the sorters. Longer term options would be to grow my own lettuce, carrots, and blueberries and/or shop in-store or at the farmer's market from the unpackaged loose selection and carry it out in my washable bags. A tab broke off of the gasket of the jar we use for sugar as well as the rip and ziplock seal of a plastic bag of sugar. It looks like bulk grocers like Azure Standard package sugar in paper bags I could compost. The two glass jars were finishing a gifted jam and a juice needed for my daughter's birthday recipe. We are not in the habit of buying that many juices or condiments.
I'm proud of myself for using these random products up on a salad and a smoothie. I'm also relieved we have a good worm bin composting operation for food and paper scraps. I would also be struggling without a broad selection of mason jars and plastic meal prep containers which we can wash and reuse.
The ambiguous territory I'm unsure how to handle is trash generated by family members that I am to some degree complicit in allowing into the house or am actively cleaning up on their behalf. I haven't counted the scores of plastic film from Lego build kits and shreds of painter's tape from my daughter's art projects today, but those would count toward our household total. There is also the ambiguous territory of wasted food that provided us no nutritional value but because it was composted is zero waste (a bruised section of eggplant). But progress, not perfection!
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