What a Waste

How timely.  The union that represents (among many others) the garbage collectors in my town has been on strike for about a week.  Tomorrow is Earth Day.  What does this mean?  An opportunity for us all to stop complaining about it and start looking for ways to REDUCE the amount of solid waste we are producing.

Here are some of the things my family has been doing, or plan to begin doing, to keep our waste to a minimum, and to prevent the waste we do produce from becoming a health (or olfactory) hazard.  Some of these tips are specific to the strike situation, and others are things we can all do year-round.

~ Compost everything you can.  We keep a little aluminum garbage can beside the regular garbage pail, and we keep it lined with a compostable wet waste bag.  You can even find these bags at Dollarama now. Once the bag is full, the whole thing gets dumped into the composter.  If you don’t have a composter, don’t want to buy one, or live in an apartment, see if you have a neighbour who composts and ask if you can start contributing.  Be sure you follow the guidelines for safe composting. Not everything can go in there, you know!

~ Recycle everything you can.  Mind you, the recycle collection is also cancelled due to the strike, but at least recyclables don’t start to rot and stink, so long as you properly rinse out all the containers.

~ If you have a child in disposable diapers, dump solid waste into the toilet before throwing the diaper in the garbage pail.  You are actually suppose to be doing this anyway.  It even says so on the bag of diapers!

~ If you have a deep freeze (or can spare some room in your regular freezer), place a bag in there to store things like meat scraps, bones, chicken carcasses, etc…  All the food stuff that cannot be composted but will really start to rot and stink within a few weeks’ time.  Keep it frozen until garbage collection resumes.

~ On that note, consider going vegetarian most of the week, or using a meat that has relatively little waste, like boneless, skinless chicken breasts.  Any fat we cut off those is either given to the dog or flushed down the toilet.

~ That’s another tip itself:  A lot of food waste can be flushed down the toilet instead of pouring it into a garbage pail.  Leftovers that have been “left over” for too long, old oatmeal, soups, etc… Look, it would have ended up there anyway if you had eaten it.  

~ The best thing to do, though, is not have waste in the first place.  Only make as much as much food as you need and if there are leftovers, take them in your lunch the next day or bring them to a neighbour.

~ Keep waste reduction in mind when you are at the grocery store.  Look at the amount of packaging in a given product and, where possible, switch to products with less packaging.  For example, get your soda in a 2-litre bottle rather than in cans.  Buy your wine in a box instead of 4.5 separate bottles.  You can get cereal in just a plain cello bag instead of a bag within a box.  Make the bulk food store your friend.

~ Use reusable grocery bags.  Not just for trips to the grocery store, but for everything.  Take one into every single store you go to.  Carry your work stuff around in them.   Tote your kid’s karate uniform in one.  Keep your library books in one so you can easily carry them back when they are due.

 

Here is one thing I would NOT suggest you do.  In fact, I advocate against it.

~ Bring your garbage to the city dump and just leave it on the side of the road. 

That’s what many citizens of my city have been doing.

This photo is not the best  quality – I took it with my camera phone.  It can’t be enlarged any further without pixilation, but I’m sure you can see the wall of garbage that is about 6-8 feet tall in places.

 

Tell me what YOU are doing for Earth Day!