my husband has been an true support in my (sometimes ocd) zero waste (zw) adventure. he pokes fun at me when i'm being neurotic and genuinely asks about what to do in a possible wasteful situations. obviously adopting a zw lifestyle can't be done alone in a household or everyone involved in said household would go crazy. but here are a few things we've been doing together:
- we live out "if it's yellow let it mellow. if it's brown, flush it down."
- we make whatever food we can, instead of buying it prepared/packaged. if it doesn't make sense for us to make it, we buy it in bulk.
- we started an indoor composting system!! we went with bokashi because it takes meat/fats. it's awesome, and the juice is fantastic for our septic tank. win-win!
- we make an effort to eat whatever we have at home before buying more of something we might already have. this isn't always easy because my cravings can be impulsive, and i'll put up a good fight. (poor samuel...)
- we are learning about (and trying to implement) vinegar as the solution to most questions. for example, you can use a 1/2 cup of vinegar in the rinse cycle instead of using dryer sheets. awesome.
- we've eliminated paper towels. we're a towel/linen household now.
- we purchased a few handkerchieves from the vintage store and use that in lieu of tissues.
- we reuse padded envelopes and boxes that have been sent to us (b/c we love receiving love mail from friends!).
- we tracked down someone who will sell us "pet food" (aka: raw cow milk!) in a jar. now i can make plenty of yogurt and have milk leftover for the baked goods samuel brings home on thursday nights without all the plastic containers! (note: selling privately sourced milk is apparently illegal here. hence the "pet food" label. shhh, don't tell.)
below is all of our non-recyclable trash for the past month, collected in an 8 gallon bag. we just dumped it at the disposal site. i hope our next bag lasts us at least two months!
small steps towards progress! onward!
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