How have you reduced your garbage/landfill footprint?

[STACEYH]

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.

I live alone.

 

[STACEYH]

I

All our fallen branches get chipped up for the coop or run. No more runs to the landfill with that stuff. For larger tree trunk rounds, they are used in new hügelkultur raised beds to grow people food. Gave some rounds to my neighbor who has a wood stove in his house.

Does he use his ash? Or can you get it. It is good dust bath fill for chickens. Great for garden and fruit trees (really anything growing).

 

[gtaus]

I live alone.

Even so, only 1 bag of garbage every 4 or 5 months! That is amazing. Unless, of course, you are like me when I was in the Navy and only was actually at home maybe 1 month out of 5 months. Heck, I tell my wife I used to buy a 4 pack of toilet paper for the year, and I was not kidding. But I was gone maybe 8 months out of the year at sea and the rest of the time in port I was on the ship for 3 meals a day. My life has improved since then...

 

[gtaus]

Does he use his ash? Or can you get it. It is good dust bath fill for chickens. Great for garden and fruit trees (really anything growing).

You know, I should have asked for some burnt ash when he cleaned out his fireplace. Too late now, they are moving in a few weeks.

I have been thinking of building some kind of outdoor fireplace to burn some scrap wood or those branches too big to chip up. Dear Wife is not much into sitting around a campfire, but a little campfire ring would give me some ash for dust baths. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[STACEYH]

Even so, only 1 bag of garbage every 4 or 5 months! That is amazing. Unless, of course, you are like me when I was in the Navy and only was actually at home maybe 1 month out of 5 months. Heck, I tell my wife I used to buy a 4 pack of toilet paper for the year, and I was not kidding. But I was gone maybe 8 months out of the year at sea and the rest of the time in port I was on the ship for 3 meals a day. My life has improved since then...

No, I live in my house. I buy fresh veg. when I need to. Meat from butcher packaging goes to recycle. I might use a large bottle of shampoo a year. I keep jars to reuse. I don't use paper towels. I just don't use a lot of things that aren't recyclables.

 

[gtaus]

No, I live in my house. I buy fresh veg. when I need to. Meat from butcher packaging goes to recycle. I might use a large bottle of shampoo a year. I keep jars to reuse. I don't use paper towels. I just don't use a lot of things that aren't recyclables.

That's just great. Not that I am dumpster diving, but I have noticed that we are throwing aways lots of paper towels in the garbage bags. I seriously doubt I could get Dear Wife to give up paper towels, but I was thinking that I might be able to set up a bin or bucket for the waste paper towels and throw them into the pallet compost bin.

The other bulk item in our garbage is the meat packaging trays, which we cannot send to the recycle bin - as far as I know. So, they end up in the garbage. I have not been able to think of a second life for those meat trays, so they just get tossed.

But, yea, those 2 items alone take up a lot of the bulk in our garbage bags.

 

[STACEYH]

That's just great. Not that I am dumpster diving, but I have noticed that we are throwing aways lots of paper towels in the garbage bags. I seriously doubt I could get Dear Wife to give up paper towels, but I was thinking that I might be able to set up a bin or bucket for the waste paper towels and throw them into the pallet compost bin.

The other bulk item in our garbage is the meat packaging trays, which we cannot send to the recycle bin - as far as I know. So, they end up in the garbage. I have not been able to think of a second life for those meat trays, so they just get tossed.

But, yea, those 2 items alone take up a lot of the bulk in our garbage bags.

You could get a butcher. They use butcher paper no trays.
I recycle all paper even mail.... cutting my postal code and address off.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

Because I live in the city and in an apartment, I can't have a lot of stuff I want, such as a compost. However I recycle most everything, and try to get cans from the store more often as they can be recycled. Sadly my home city doesn't recycle plastic bags anymore so I use them as poop bags for the dog. Leftover tea bags get potted and paper from my art gets turned into note paper. (Lord knows I take a lot of notes, LOL! ). It's not perfect, but I try

 

[Chookchicken]

Because I live in the city and in an apartment, I can't have a lot of stuff I want, such as a compost. However I recycle most everything, and try to get cans from the store more often as they can be recycled. Sadly my home city doesn't recycle plastic bags anymore so I use them as poop bags for the dog. Leftover tea bags get potted and paper from my art gets turned into note paper. (Lord knows I take a lot of notes, LOL! ). It's not perfect, but I try

I must say for living in a city with an apartment those are some very smart ways to use things that would otherwise go to waste.

 

[Vampiric_Conure]

I must say for living in a city with an apartment those are some very smart ways to use things that would otherwise go to waste.

Thanks It irks me when I have to throw out electronics because we DO have an electronics recycling depot, but it's at the dump and no-one I know drives. If they do drive, they can't take me. **pouts** So in the garbage it goes.

I rely on the local bus services to get anywhere and get paper bus tickets because they are recycled by the transit company. There's so much I try to do