My Waste!

             Okay, so I have an interesting assignment this week. I am to keep track of the waste I produce in two days and measure/count it. Then I am to research waste-reduction strategies and make a list of as many as I possibly can. THEN (caps for emphasis) I am to implement a strategy or two and see if it will lower my overall waste production in the next two days. I started this Saturday and ended the whole cycle today. I don’t 100% feel that the amount of trash I accumulated throughout the first two AND the last two days really is close to the amount I usually throw in the bin. I ate mostly left overs since I make large amounts of stuff and eat it throughout the week and I made a couple of sandwiches. So even though earlier in the week I threw away some food packaging when I went to Costco and opened a couple of boxes and threw them away, I threw none of that away this week, nor ran out of sandwich stuff to throw away the packaging from that (cheese and meat bags). To measure my created waste I put everything in the seven gallon waste bin in my room. The first two days of waste I put in the bin is as follows.

• Six paper towels
• Four banana peels
• Coffee filter + coffee grounds
• Twelve tootsie roll wrappers, the small ones (don’t judge me there was tons of left over candy!)

                 As we can see by my extreme waste use (sarcasm card raised here). It usually is much more, as mentioned earlier, but this is what I used Saturday and Sunday.  Seems the biggest issue is the paper towels usage, and I know I go through quite a bit of them in a week as I use them to clean spills in the kitchen and many times if I do not have a napkin handy and the paper towel is I use it…such as this weekend. And I usually don’t use bottles anymore, and have a good reason to not use it after learning about all that bottled water stuff from the last blog. So nothing really recyclable in this set.

                When I researched waste reduction strategies…I came across quite a bit of them. The very first page that popped up when I “googled” the term was the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality which can be found here. These mostly apply to businesses but I found a couple that I liked that have to do with things I do that I may not have done in the last four days but definitely apply to me. Also I went here to the EPA website which gave some decent tips as well.     

• Make double-sided copies whenever possible when printing.
• Make scratch pads from used paper.
• Fill the printer with paper already used on one side and print drafts on the other side.
• Rent instead of buying equipment that is used only occasionally.
• Use durable towers, tablecloths, napkins, dishes, flatware, cups, and glasses.
• Buy reusable coffee filters or unbleached disposable filters.
• Reuse trash can liners or eliminate where possible and discontinue use in cans with dry trash only.
• Consider using cloth roll towels, hot air dryers, large paper rolls in restrooms, or buy lighter/smaller paper towels.
• Buy products in concentrate, bulk, and in refillable containers. They reduce packaging and can save you money!
• Feed your soil with compost; make compost at home, or buy it in bags or bulk.

                I could go on but I think these were the ones that applied to me the most. I print quite often and when I do I try to use my black and white printer that can do the whole double-sided print thing. I also have another color printer but it does not do double-sided stuff.

                Okay, I just checked my waste for the last two days and it didn't turn out too bad after implementing some of the waste-reduction strategies.

• Three paper towels (Ripped into a couple pieces to use for my napkin use)
• Three dryer sheets (Had to wash the clothes)
• Five tootsie roll wrappers (Candy was running out or this number may have been exponentially higher)
• One shredded cheese bag (empty of course)    

                The strategies I implemented were really a rehash of some of them ones above. As I didn't go out and get cloth napkins or smaller paper towels, I decided to use what I had but rip it into pieces and use those as napkins instead of using the whole thing, as I previously have been, then crumpling it up and throwing it out. And I took the waste from the first two days and mixed it with the waste from today just now…forgetting to separate them both for a picture…so I have a picture of them both mixed together…BUT I did totally reuse the trash liner in the process…thus using another strategy! And I buried the five banana peels I would have thrown away and am slowly making a little compost mound in the back. Again, I didn't really use anything recyclable so nothing to talk about there.

All the waste from four days.

                As for which strategies I will continue to use…well all of them. Some of them I already use, others sound much better than what I am currently using. Purchasing cloth napkins sounds like a good plan and to just wash them with the rest of my clothes at the end of the week. Continuing to create my compost pile will assist me with my plants as I usually end up paying for garden soil when I plant new stuff…which happens more often than I would like. I already use my messed up prints as scratch paper and I buy in bulk when I know I will use it all.  So these strategies I know I will continue to use.