Our story It began in a foreign country in Western Europe. It was the summer of 2018. We made a move and later, another decision that would change our lives f o r e v e r. The city was Berlin. The year was 2017, in the … Read more...
How much garbage do we really create?
You are what you eat, but how about how much garbage you create? Let’s dig into our little garbage container and peek what is in the three bags.
As we have said many times earlier: we are trying to consume less, mostly less plastic, and keep the household clutter-free. Sometimes things just come to us. This can be simply avoided. Always buy what you really need, write down a list to avoid extra purchases, do not shop hungry and alone.
Our shopping habits
Anyway while on our new path, some may probably wonder how much garbage we are creating in a week. I have to explain a bit about our buying habits. Since we are vegan, we buy mostly fresh produce, oftentimes beans and tomatoes in a can, rice, and pasta. Unfortunately, the two latter come in plastic bags, which we are looking to skip as well or buy bags of rice in bulk. Also, we are lucky that we can save ready-made food from the workplace’s canteen, which keeps us away from buying plastic-wrapped grocery items. Needless to say, when buying things, we look for items made of metal, wood, glass and we are trying to buy food packed in paper, cardboard, glass, and tin cans.
What is in our garbage bags?
As said earlier, we have a little cardboard box, where we store three little plastic bags. We are collecting paper/cardboard, packages, and garbage. Organic waste is collected to a bowl, which we empty daily to our building’s organic waste bin.
Below are descriptive photos of our garbage bags on a random week.
1. Paper/cardboard
It contains Alpro yogurt container’s paper wrapping, toilet paper roll’s inside, some teabag wrappers, and a towel’s tag.
2. Packaging
Here you can see a bag of rice, kidney beans can, and a cookie wrapper. You can’t see Alpro yogurt container, as we reused it for something else.
3. Garbage
Here you can see mostly tissue paper, wet tissues, floss, Alrpo yogurt containers aluminum lid, some dust, and lint.
The photos above change weekly, depending on our consumption habits. But we are glad that we have managed to keep our three little garbage bags quite minimalistic. We are not into buying things and consume plastic – so I guess we have a head start.
Please read our other article, how we are sorting garbage in our kitchen.
Zero-waste is not possible
You most likely have come across the photos of the waste jars of zero-wasters all around the world. Their little containers hold almost nothing of what they trash in a year. Their jars look perhaps like an average person’s hourly trash, if even. Don’t be intimidated by the little waste they are creating. It is impossible to live completely waste-free, as things may break down, things that are not recyclable and are made of plastic. Though you can come across households, which contain no plastic and traditional paints whatsoever. Goals, uh?
But it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to eliminate plastic from your household or consume less. Yes, please do that, it is good for our planet and your wallet. Buy less, buy only what you need, try to find it without plastic and try these three zero waste disposal options, before trashing the goods.
Just make a clear plan for yourself of what you want to bring home and how you can have a clear overview of your expenditures. Such little container with three little sections works the best for us.
How have you organized your garbage collection and how you avoid plastic? Share your experiences with us!
Sorting garbage in the kitchen
With little space in a small household, it is smart to come up with creative ways how to sort garbage. Read below, what option we came up with?
With a new home usually comes emptiness, also in the garbage and in the recycling section. With a limited place and a buy less mindset, we decided that we need really a little section for the waste. Moreover, if we are looking more into a zero-waste and plastic-free household.
We would need three containers for the garbage: paper/cardboard, waste, and packages. Yep, just three sections, as this is what the rules are in our building. Usually, there should be also a fourth section for organic waste. We were used to collecting it. I guess we have to come up with something if we want to keep the garbage container emptier.
Working out a simple solution
The other day I was doing grocery shopping and I put my purchase in a cardboard box. I found a suitable one in the middle of the aisle, laying on the floor. The stores are oftentimes giving these away by the cash checkouts, some can be found by the bins and at the end of aisles. In bigger stores, you can find workers constantly stocking up the shelves, just like I got ours. Luck was at my side, as the box I had brought home was just enough to fit all three small plastic bags for our sorting purposes.
We are trying to become plastic-free step by step. But we do not believe in trashing bags and containers that we already have just to be free of them. Instead, we are using up all the suitable plastic we have somehow brought home with purchased food. We are getting the weekly specials of many stores weekly. I find the idea of such bundles great, but the papers come in a plastic sleeve. For some time it was fun to go through the offers, recycling them and using the sleeve for the garbage collecting.
We do not really like the weekly bundles, so I guess we will put out a sign not to receive any advertising, as this is just too much. So we will start receiving less garbage in the mail.
A small box is all you need!
The little cardboard box has enough room to fit three little bags. We really do not fill them much, as we really do not have much garbage or packaging. Cardboard or paper is something we gather the most. Good thing is that it all gets nicely recycled. When the plastic bag is full, we do not throw it away but reuse the plastic as long as possible. With waste and packaging, we can’t always practice it, due to messy contents. If there is an option we will do that, so we can reuse plastic more times.
The ideal would be to fold three boxes out of the newspaper and keep the garbage area organized that way. I guess something to try out in the future!
*UPDATE: before going to our summer holidays we taped a sign outside of the box saying: “No ads!”. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.
* Fall UPDATE: we added to the sign: “and no free newspapers!” As many free papers come with ads in between. It worked this time. This little hand-made sign of cut-out letters from the store booklets saves paper and more plastic coming into our home.
… A note from Eve:
I am proud of our garbage system! It’s encouraging to see how little garbage we make as a family of 2. When we walk on our street home, we are baffled by the bags and bags on trash sitting out. We are glad that we know is a better way, and we are living proof of this! By not buying much processed and packaged food, we have cut our garbage down considerably.