How have you reduced your garbage/landfill footprint?

[Sally PB]

Our local grocery (Meijers) has bag recycling bins at the front of the store. I've been taking the bags the groceries are bagged in back for a long time. Plus bread bag types of bags, plus ziploc type bags. Now they are taking lots of different types of plastic "films." Plastic wrap, the plastic wrapper around toilet paper and paper towel bundles, etc.

Since I have to buy a tag for every bag I put out for garbage collection ($3), it is something of a personal challenge to me to see how many weeks I can go for one bag. It's just DH, me, and our dog here. Plus chickens, of course.

I'm thinking of using chicken and dog food bags as garbage bags. I can put the tag on anything.

 

[Chookchicken]

We still get our bags for free at the grocery store, so there is no incentive to bring your own bags. I am guessing that the mesh bags are better for your fruits and vegetables?

BTW, we do recycle our plastic grocery bags. If we get paper bags (not too many these days), I will shred them up for use as coop litter.

We still get free bags for our produce here too. I don’t need plastic bags for anything so they just go to landfill. Here they also no longer offer free shopping bags so lots of people use reusable shopping bags. I think at some point they’re going to stop supplying free plastic produce bags too. They’ll very likely start offering brown paper bags instead which will be good for our compost.

 

[gtaus]

I'm thinking of using chicken and dog food bags as garbage bags

That's a good idea. I have been saving up all my chicken feed bags for something.

 

[gtaus]

We still get free bags for our produce here too. I don’t need plastic bags for anything so they just go to landfill. Here they also no longer offer free shopping bags so lots of people use reusable shopping bags. I think at some point they’re going to stop supplying free plastic produce bags too. They’ll very likely start offering brown paper bags instead which will be good for our compost.

I would prefer paper bags to plastic bags just for the idea that I know I can compost paper. In fact, I would shred the paper bags to use as coop litter first, then compost the paper shreds in the chicken run compost system, then use the compost in my gardens. Can't do any of that with plastic bags.

 

[Weeg]

I've been looking a lot into this lately. Really trying to reduce my carbon footprint as well, theres just so much pollution out there.
I do my best to not buy products packaged in plastic, but that can be really hard. I've done a lot of shopping for reusable products on Etsy! Love the dental power options and plan on switching to that once were out of toothpaste. Also love the corn starch floss that comes in little cardboard containers. Etsy has a LOT of great eco friendly/zero waste products.
Along with that, using reusable bulk bags, grocery store bags, and if we need to get plastic bags from the store, we keep them and put our vegetables in them when they go in the fridge.
These are some of the eco friendly products I have favorite on Etsy. If anyone wants links I would be happy to post some.

Since you can't see the names of the products at the bottom, in order-
Recyclable paper shipping bags (for my own easy shop), Bamboo activated charcoal dental floss, eco plastic free sponge, peppermint tooth power. You can ignore the doggy diaper in the corner. Young female labrador owner, she isn't spayed yet.

 

[Weeg]

I've been looking a lot into this lately. Really trying to reduce my carbon footprint as well, theres just so much pollution out there.
I do my best to not buy products packaged in plastic, but that can be really hard. I've done a lot of shopping for reusable products on Etsy! Love the dental power options and plan on switching to that once were out of toothpaste. Also love the corn starch floss that comes in little cardboard containers. Etsy has a LOT of great eco friendly/zero waste products.
Along with that, using reusable bulk bags, grocery store bags, and if we need to get plastic bags from the store, we keep them and put our vegetables in them when they go in the fridge.
These are some of the eco friendly products I have favorite on Etsy. If anyone wants links I would be happy to post some.
View attachment 2978303
Since you can't see the names of the products at the bottom, in order-
Recyclable paper shipping bags (for my own easy shop), Bamboo activated charcoal dental floss, eco plastic free sponge, peppermint tooth power. You can ignore the doggy diaper in the corner. Young female labrador owner, she isn't spayed yet.

I also buy Scratch and Peck feed which comes in a paper bag. Make my own Raw dog food so no need to worry about plastic dog food bags. Cat food bags on the other hand, that I could use ideas for. I like the shopping bag idea! I've seen videos for that but never looked into it.

 

[STACEYH]

My city/town does a recycle bin for paper products. It has made my house trash to be very little, I use reusable shopping bags. I usually take a trash bag to landfill every 4 or 5 months.

 

[gtaus]

I like the shopping bag idea! I've seen videos for that but never looked into it.

I have seen a number of YouTube videos on making shopping bags out of chicken feed bags. They look great, but, as a guy, I am reluctant to go anywhere carrying a bag. If using reusable shopping bags becomes a thing here, I think that is when it would be OK for me to carry a chicken feed shopping bag into the store(s). Might strike up a good conversation with someone else who has, or is thinking about, raising a backyard flock of their own.

For those still patronizing their local public library, I would think a chicken feed library book bag would be very neat. I don't get into town much anymore, but back in the day I made good use of our library. Today, however, we can get lots of the same stuff (ebooks, magazines, audiobooks, even movies) as digital downloads on our electronic devices and don't actually have to visit the library. That is very nice for me, living out in the country, and not going into town much. I do wonder how long a public library can get funded if people are just able to download everything. Having said that, I think digital media downloading has reduced our landfill footprint as less people buy physical copies of movies, music, and books that eventually find their way to the landfill.

 

[gtaus]

My city/town does a recycle bin for paper products. It has made my house trash to be very little, I use reusable shopping bags. I usually take a trash bag to landfill every 4 or 5 months.

What!? You only have 1 garbage bag every 4 or 5 months? That is amazing. Here I thought I was doing good with only 2 bags of kitchen garbage every month.

 

[gtaus]

I've done a lot of shopping for reusable products on Etsy!

I was not aware of Etsy. Will have to check it out. Glad you found products that you like and thanks for sharing.