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Garbage Inventory – The Results

May 20, 2011 By Emily McClements
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Photo by andrewgraham.nyc

Well, as with many things in my life lately, my garbage inventory didn’t go exactly as planned.  I tried to keep track of our garbage, but we’ve been busy – in and out of the house, and I just didn’t keep up with it as well as I had hoped.  I did pay attention to what I threw away, I did start to write a list of everything I threw away, but I kept forgetting to put it all in one garbage can like I was supposed to.

What I realized pretty quickly though, is that we really have reduced our our waste a lot.  Using cloth instead of paper, including my daughter and I starting to use family cloth (I’ll have to talk more about that another time), using cloth diapers and wipes, my daughter finally wearing underwear to bed instead of a pull-up, starting to compost, and reusing and recycling everything that we can has all helped to limit the amount of trash that our family produces.

But, we definitely still throw stuff away. Most of our garbage falls into these two categories:

  • Disposable diapers and wipes for my son – I cringe to admit that, but it’s true – we use them for overnight, babysitters, daddy and sometimes because I’m lazy with the laundry – it’s definitely an area we could improve in.
  • Food packaging – although we do buy a lot in bulk, there is still a lot of packaging with food.  Next week we’ll talk about some ideas for reducing food packaging waste.

And the rest is pretty much miscellaneous stuff: things the kids have broken or used, like a big wad of tape that my daughter pulled off the tape dispenser, tags or packaging from things we purchase (and we could probably be better about this too, but really we don’t buy that much new stuff, and while we recycle what we can, it’s still important to think about packaging), and some food that is not compostable.

So, while I am glad that I attempted to do another garbage inventory, I really didn’t find anything surprising.  I guess I thought that I would have some big kind of – Aha! moment – that I would figure out some other area of waste that we could cut back on.

Obviously, both disposable diapers and food packaging are a big ones, and things we can definitely do better about.

I’m going to make it a goal to just use one disposable a day (the overnight one) when we’re at home.  If I commit to staying on top of the diaper laundry, there’s really no reason that we would need to use sposies at home (but I’ll also have to coax hubs into using the cloth).

As far as food packaging goes, I’ve been thinking and brainstorming ideas both for myself and to share with you. Do you have any ideas for me about reducing food packaging?

So, if you did a garbage inventory, or even if you didn’t:

Are there areas that you could work to reduce your family’s garbage?  What steps have you already taken to reduce your waste?

10 CommentsFiled Under: Around The House, Green Living Tagged With: "green", cloth diapers, garbage, home, recycling, stuff, trash

Garbage Inventory Intro Default ThumbnailDecreasing Disposables – Start with a Garbage Inventory Default ThumbnailGarbage Inventory – Part I – You Are What You Waste Default ThumbnailGarbage Inventory – Part II – You Are What You Waste

Comments

  1. Betty says

    May 20, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    Well, The box could of been broken down and recyled. 🙂 Just something that caught my eye only because I recycle every piece of cardboard from cereal boxes to mailing boxes.. 🙂

    Reply
    • Emily says

      May 20, 2011 at 3:05 pm

      Oh, that’s not my trash Betty – it’s just a picture I used from Flickr. 🙂 Maybe I should have chosen a different picture?? I too recycle every bit of cardboard that I can!

      Reply
  2. Sarah says

    May 20, 2011 at 3:07 pm

    Food packaging is the one that really gets me. I always ask if we get take-out or something to not include plastic utensils, napkins, etc. I can’t wait until our CSA starts and we can start eating “unpackaged” food!

    Reply
  3. Becky says

    May 20, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    I use a combination of disposables and cloth as well. Cloth at home during the day and out for short trips. A disposable overnight and if we’re going to visit relatives for the day or if I’m going to be out shopping/running errands for longer than 2 hours. Carting around cloth diapers when out and about got to be a pain really quickly. We all do what works for us and, really, every single disposable kept out of the landfill is a great thing!

    Food packaging is definitely our worst garbage offender. We have almost NO bulk options where I live.

    Reply
  4. Marixa says

    May 20, 2011 at 5:16 pm

    We recyle everything we can, compost and use cloth diapers. Food packaging seems to be the worst.

    Have you thought about getting some pocket diapers for hubby? That’s all we use and they are as easy to use as a disposable one. And we bought a few night time diapers as well, you’d only need 2-3. We had to stop using pull-ups cause they were giving my son a bad rash, so I bought 2 cloth pull-ups. They’ve been wonderful!

    CAn’t wait to hear what you have to say about the food packaging.

    Reply
    • Emily says

      May 20, 2011 at 9:29 pm

      Hi Marixa,
      We actually do use pockets almost exclusively – hubs still isn’t so keen on using them. He can, we went for a period of about 6 months with our oldest without using any disposables, he’s not not as enthusiastic about them as I am.
      What kind of nighttime diapers did you get? That has always been my struggle. I have heavy wetters, my daughter is finally night trained, but we do have to take her to the bathroom at least once during the night, and I hate putting my son in a over stuffed, huge pocket diaper. I don’t like the idea of him in a sposie all night, but I also don’t like him leaking out of their diaper every night.

      Reply
      • Tabitha says

        May 4, 2012 at 10:52 pm

        I have heavy wetters also. My toddler has leaked in disposable diapers day and night. I use a hemp prefold with one microfiber insert in a pocket diaper. The KaWaii Goodnight diaper or BumGenius 4.0. Most nights she wakes up dry. It depends on how many hours she sleeps and how often she wakes to drink.

        Reply
  5. Barb says

    May 21, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    Our problem is mostly food packaging and plastics, though the plastic bottles go in the recyclable bin!! I know that I throw a bit too much paper in the trash. :o(

    Reply
  6. Kelly says

    May 22, 2011 at 5:30 pm

    We have really been trying to reduce our waste as well. Where we saw the biggest reduction was definitely when we started to compost however. Switching all our bills and bank statements to “paperless” has been awesome. As well as we recently got a butcher shop added to our mid sized town and we now to there with our own glass containers instead of getting the pre packaged meats at the grocery store!

    Reply
  7. Deb says

    May 22, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    Getting rid of junk mail, magazine subscriptions and going to paperless bill paying has made a big difference for us. Food packaging and packaging in general is my biggest annoyance. Especially those nights we end up getting carry-out. Then I feel guilty for not feeding my family a homecooked meal, as well as, frustration at the mound of take-out containers in my trash. Some restaurants here do a good job of using recyclable containers but not our local stand-by Thai place. I just need to be better about always having an easy meal plan in place.

    Reply

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