Rubbish Audit #1
Note: I am privileged with time, education and resources that allow me to make choices that are not available to everyone. Each of us has to make decisions based on our circumstances and values. You can read more of my thoughts on this topic here and a related quote. So, this post is me doing me; I encourage you to do you … always thoughtfully, of course!
As part of my sustainability goals, I have on my list to “do a rubbish audit and then reduce rubbish by 25%.” Last week, I did the first part, which was to audit our rubbish. The idea is to see how much rubbish we have and what types of things are going in there with the aim of reducing the total, especially the contents of the general rubbish bin and the plastics recycling. I haven’t included food waste in this apart from waste that goes in general rubbish.
- General Waste: 2.3 kg total. Including:
- oat milk container
- plastic off our new art piece
- two styrofoam ice cream containers (courtesy of our son)
- inside from a chocolate box which was our Easter gift from the girls
- mixed paper/plastic bag for beans
- lots of dog poo
- several soft plastics
- baking paper
- tray from fish
- nectarine pit
- avocado pit
- Paper Recycling: 1.02 kg
- Envelopes from mail
- Chocolate box
- Unsolicited mail … grrr
- pizza box
- outer cardboard from fish, pasta
- Glass and Metals: 0.62 kg
- Chickpea and peach cans
- coke and zero-beer cans
- kombucha bottle
- Plastic Recycling: 0.30 kg
- milk bottle
- four berry punnets
- baby spinach container
- two takeaway containers
- smoothie cup
- pasta container
So, looking at this list, there are a number of things that are due to other people in the house, and I am not going to hassle them about their rubbish output, within reason, that is. The dog poo is not going to change. We have tried an in-the-ground worm farm previously, and it was not a success.
For the rest, a little bit more forward planning and/or a tiny bit of extra work in the kitchen would cut down on a lot of it. For example, I bought the fish and pasta, the beans and the baby spinach from the shop around the corner. These accounted for three hard plastic trays, one softish plastic tray, four soft plastic wrappers, three cardboard covers and a mixed plastic/paper bag. I can get all of these without any packaging at all from places I bike to in our local area. So, with a bit more forethought and planning before I head out, I could easily avoid these and maybe save myself some time in the process. Although I don’t mind walking around the corner to the shop at all.
The next step up with a little bit of time sacrifice, I can make a batch of homemade cashew milk that would replace the oat milk that I only use for my porridge, and also avoid the waste of the oat milk because I don’t get through the whole carton. I can also buy dried beans or chickpeas from the bulk store and cook them myself, which will save those cans. I do often do this, but again, I was not organised last week.
Scorecard: Improvement possible with a bit more organisation.
Do you have decent recycling where you are? I think a lot of ours gets thrown away or stockpiled indefinitely after it is collected. Do you try to reduce your waste? What has been your most successful waste reduction strategy?
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10 Comments
Suzanne
This is SUCH a fascinating project! I am super interested to read about how it goes. Your strategies for cutting back on rubbish are so smart.
While I don’t think a full rubbish audit is in the cards for me at this stage of life, I would love to reduce some of my trash output. I have some ideas about how to do that, but haven’t implemented them yet. Why is it so darn hard to change habits, even when you know they could be better????
Melissa
I agree on how hard it is. Also our current systems don’t make it easy either. We really need system wide change.
NGS
We have a recycling bin that is the same size as our garbage bin and we regularly fill up the recycling bin, but not the garbage bin, which is full of cat litter and dog poop. I honestly don’t know what happens with our recycling once they pick it up. They use the exact same type of garbage trucks from the same company to pick it up. This is encouraging me to ask some questions about where it goes and if it’s actually recycled or just thrown away!
Melissa
IF there is too much contamination in the recycling bins the whole lot gets dumped. I’m wondering how and whether to broach the subject in our building of people putting their recyclables in plastic bags which is considered contamination. In Australia a lot of it used to get shipped off the China but they put a stop to that a few years ago and since then there has been a number of fires in warehouses filled with recyclables that has exposed the problem of a lack of actual recycling happening here.
Elisabeth
I’m not sure how well things are recycled, but we have a very robust program locally.
We have:
1) Paper recycling – blue bags
2) Cardboard recycling – separate from paper
3) Glass, metal, and plastic recycling
4) Plastics that are refundable – juice containers, pop bottles etc – can be returned for a portion of the bottle deposit fee, which we pay on all juice, pop, alcohol containers; if you don’t take these refundables back for money, they just go in #3
5) Compost – we have a giant green bin provided where all compostable materials go. This gets collected with everything else every 2 weeks.
6) Trash
Phew. It’s a lot of different things!
Melissa
Our council has compost (it’s called FOGO here) but we don’t have council rubbish collections now that we are in an apartment which is a bit annoying. My worm farm is helping that situation though and we do use our insinkerator. Our state has just bought in refundable bottles but we haven’t done that. We just use the comingled recycling pickup.
San
I love this, Melissa. The effort you put into this. If everyone could just try to do their part (although I wonder sometimes if things are really recycled or if this is a “feel good” exercise?!).
The recycling system where we live has gotten better over time but is not perfect by a long shot. There’s lots that could be improved.
My most successful waste reduction strategy is meal planning and not wasting food.
I wish there were more options to avoid excessive packaging and plastic.
Melissa
Meal planning is really important, I like to also have clean out the fridge meals to go to when needed.
Tobia | craftaliciousme
I love it. And I am so amazed with the effort and thought you put in. I set out to reduce our waste a few years back https://www.craftaliciousme.com/saving-the-planet-one-step-at-a-time-living-sustainable-without-effort/ But I should re-evaluate. I feel like we have been increasing the plastic trash and I do not like it. But it has a lot to do with the chopping options available around. I hate that everything comes in plastic trays. I could seperate organic waste as we have a bin that collects it but I don’t have any space in my kitchen and so I just dump it all in general.
The cans for chick pease and bean is something I could reduce by as you suggested buying dired ones. But it is very convinet if you quickly want to throw together dinner. I am nit sure I want to plan ahead this much.
Melissa
We certainly need systematic change so that it is easy to avoid all the excess packaging. Sometimes the packaging is ridiculous, we actually don’t need plastic around everything.