I have always prided myself on being a frugal and thoughtful consumer, concerned about the ecological and ethical impacts of the products I buy. I pay that extra $10 a month to support green energy, use CFLs where I can, have low flow shower heads, bricks in the toilet tanks, buy earth and animal friendly cleaning products or make my own, wear my clothes until they're dead, line dry most often, use my dish and pasta water to water landscaping, shower every other day, have no ac, rarely use my gas in wall heater, bike or take public transport almost all of the time, drink tap water, buy local and organic foods to supplement those I grow in my garden, have reusable shopping bags, a reusable coffee cup, a reusable water bottle, save lidded plastic food packaging to store left overs of future meals and compost 100% of my food scraps.

....so what's with all this waste?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Day 4: Waste Tally

Transportation:
  • walk to train to carpool with 2 others
  • carpool with 2 others to train to walk home

Solid Waste:

Reuse

  • 1 plastic 1/2 gallon milk jug
Check out my nifty little upcycle project! (right)

Recycle
  • a few scraps of plastic milk jug
  • 1 12oz glass bottle
  • 1 metal bottle cap

Compost

  • 2 teabags
  • 1 paper tea bag wrapper
  • 2 18" square pieces of deli paper?

Composting deli paper is an experiement. Not actually sure it will work. The deli paper I have is thin, has no obvious wax coating and easily takes on water, so I have high hopes. Stay tuned for test results!

Trash
  • 1 waxed tea bag wrapper
  • 2 paper towels (oops!)
Hmm? How to get rid of those? One solution I found today is the People Towel. Their slogan: CHANGE IS AT HAND says it all. Unfortunately, they don't list a shop that carries them locally, so I'll probably just grab a small towel from home and pack it around for now.
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2 comments:

  1. Fiona EllisMay 14, 2010 at 12:00 AM

    loving the upcycle container Kristy...does it fold and close?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kristy BMay 14, 2010 at 11:54 AM

    Yeah it has a little tuck-tab action thing to keep it all cozy.

    ReplyDelete

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