Going Low-Waste: 1 Trash Bag and a Pizza Box

Lately, I’ve been obsessing over trash.

In our household, my husband is the Trash Police. He’s diligent about making sure only the bare minimum heads to the landfill and, after reading this book,  I’m on board his anti-trash rampage.

So I conducted a week-long experiment. How little trash could my family create in one week? Is it possible to reduce our trash to just one bag, and could we accomplish this with very little effort?

Tomorrow is trash day, and I’m happy to report my family of four successfully created just a single bag of trash and a pizza box, and we did it without breaking a sweat. Here’s how:

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Cloth diapering: I’d heard cloth diaper horror stories from many moms, but I’m stubborn and vowed to try it with my second daughter anyway. I bought these on sale and, overall, I’ve found cloth diapering to be much more manageable than I expected. So I instated a “mostly-cloth”  rule with regard to diapering. I say “mostly” because we continue to put her in paper diapers overnight (In my opinion, they’re much more absorbent). I also keep a stash of paper ones in the car for changes on-the-go. But by using “mostly” cloth, we save an average of eight diapers per day. I’m geekily proud of this.

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Recycling: We recycled absolutely everything paper, plastic, aluminum and cardboard, unless of course there was an item I could reuse.

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Composting: I bought a simple, no frills bin and kept it under the sink. I like that it has a lid; also, it’s big enough to hold a decent amount of scraps. This way I’m not hoofing it to the compost bin outdoors multiple times per day. Easy!

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Ragging it up: We’re a messy family: Just an hour ago, Ani spilled the dirty remnants of her water color painting extravaganza all over the floor of the play room. Usually I’d head straight for a roll of paper towels for such a mess but, this week, I reached for rags instead. Spills (and there were many spills!) were no match for the repurposed clothes I made into rags. Simple.

Areas for Improvement:

Like any good minimalist, I (naturally!) inspected the contents of our singular bag of trash. The biggest garbage producer – by far! – was food wrappings, particularly from individually-wrapped items (We love granola bars in this household). The second-biggest player was tissues.

Action Items for Next Week:

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Make handkerchiefs cool again!  They’ve got a bad reputation (Think: cardigan-clad grandfathers with perpetually runny noses), but who cares? I’ll remove the tissue boxes from their usual locations and replace them with handkerchiefs. Just call me Gramps.

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Sleuth-it-out at the supermarket!  On my next trip to the store, I’ll be on the lookout for food I can buy loose. I’ll also actively search out items that aren’t individually wrapped. While snack packs are indeed convenient, I’m betting I can make equally awesome snacks in bulk with a little legwork.

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Eat in! Seeing that sad, grease-stained pizza box in the trash really bums me out, and it gets me thinking about the garbage one accumulates by ordering take-out. All those cute little handled boxes from the Chinese restaurant? Landfill. Paper bags, plastic utensils, napkins? Unnecessary. Next week, I’ll cook every night. It’s healthier, too! (But no promises for the week after that.)

Did you know? The average American throws out 4.5 pounds of trash daily.

I weighed our one bag and pizza box: 9 pounds, 8 ounces.

Not bad, but I think can do better.

This little experiment of mine has got me thinking  about whether it’s possible to reduce next week’s trash to half a bag or whether, sometime in the future, we could become a zero-trash-producing household.

Can we reduce our trash to half a bag next week? Challenge accepted.