Being Green – Reuse

The ultimate of being green is to reuse rather than trash. Here are some activities that have worked for me and I’d love to hear about ones that have worked for you:

• Re-purpose. Think of a new use from an item that you would have previously trashed or recycled. Some examples:
  • I have some plastic trays that were used by a caterer that would not go through the dishwasher well…but worked great under pots on the deck to catch the water run off.
  • The candles that come in a glass container with a lid made wonderful canisters. I use mine to hold tea bags and packets of sweetener. To clean out the wax, set them in a shallow pan of boiling water until all the bits of wax melt and can be poured out. Wipe clean with a paper towel. Soak in water to get the labels off then put through the dishwasher.

• Thrift stores. There is no consistency in thrift stores – but it is often worthwhile to at least check out the ones near you. Yes – the selection is totally unpredictable and there will be times you will not find anything you can use. But when you do….it is usually a terrific bargain and the reuse is just an added positive.
• Donate. When you clean out closets or otherwise identify things you no longer need…decide if some of them can be easily donated to a charity. Some charities will even pick up from your porch!
• Freecycle. Post items that you want to give away …or pick up something someone else is giving away. To find a group near you – check out http://www.freecycle.org/ and let the reuse begin! I have gotten rid of a partial package of roofing shingles, an old ice cream freezer, and a box of art project supplies!
• Bring your own Bag - Use canvas or reinforced paper/plastic bags from conferences or received as gifts for charitable donations when you go shopping rather than using the stores plastic bags.

What's in your trash?

My household is down to one, not full, trash bag per week. We’ve done the easy recycling of plastics, cans, glass, and paper; it’s easy because our community has wheeled recycle bins, unlimited amounts, and trucks that come once a week - as often as the trash pickup. Over the years the items handled by our community recycling program has enlarged from newspaper/cardboard to all paper, from limited plastics to many more plastics (and more plastics are labeled clearly now so we know they are recyclable; much of the grocery packaging that used to be styrofoam is now recyclable plastic) and we no longer have to separate by type at all…it all goes into the rolling bin.  We still have to take the plastic shopping bags back to the store for recycling but we are getting fewer of them now that most of our purchases are carried home in reusable bags. So - what is still going in the trash? Here’s an inventory for this week:

• Milk carton, other food cartons
• Plastic wrap
• Used tissues/paper towels/cotton balls
• Broken strand of Christmas lights
• Styrofoam
• Used up ink pen
• Dried up marker
• Orange and banana peel, plate scrapings, vegetable trimmings (peelings, bad places, inedible parts)
• Old sock
• Small bags (shopping and food wrapping)
• Chunks of cat litter

Our household has a goal to reduce our food waste this year both because we want to maximize the nutrition we get from the food we buy; reducing our trash is a side-effect. Our primary strategies are:

• Pay more attention to our handling of left overs
  • not lose them in the refrigerator
  • freeze them for later if we are tired of the entrée already
• Make orange zest from every orange eaten so the peeling is reduced somewhat (and there is a flavorful addition available for other cooking)
• Instead of throwing away bread that has gotten a little stale, make bread crumbs (toasting or drying in the oven in a 200 degree F oven makes them crispy) to use instead of crackers with soups or croutons in salads.
• Collect tea and coffee grounds for immediate use as a soil addition or get a mushroom starter kit to grow your own crop of mushrooms.

There is a part of the trash that is potentially compostable but I’m not quite ready to do it…so it stays a part of the trash. I have started putting food scraps into the trash rather than down the garbage disposal these days (less water pollution) so the potentially compostable part of the trash has increased slightly.

It’s harder to image how the rest goes somewhere else than the trash. For bigger electronics like computers or cell phones, there are places to take them for recycling (Best Buy, for example). For things like a broken strand of Christmas lights, it takes too much effort to figure out what to do with them other than put them in the trash.

That’s a quick ‘state of the trash’ at the beginning of 2012 in my household. What’s in your trash?