"Use Less" Knowledge: Making Less Waste

"Use Less" Knowledge is not about using less of your knowledge. Silly. It is about the knowledge I have acquired regarding using less. Less what? Whatever. I try to use less water in my home. I try to use less money to get some of the things my family and I need.

I want to share some of this with you.

If you have the mind set, as I do, to think about reducing wasted time, money and effort then you are on the road. What's down the road for you? Lower electric bills, less money for gasoline, lower food costs and, importantly, no suffering.

Let's start by looking at our garbage. I know, just the kind of things you enjoy looking at: half eaten slices of pizza, old black bananas, crumpled up paper towels, empty tuna cans. Lots of paper and lots of food waste.

I was paying $30 a month here, in our suburban community, for some guys to come once a week and haul away all this stuff. Then, times got tough and money got tight. Next, the haulers added two bucks a month to cover their "increased fuel costs" and I decided to explore a new way. I did not want to spend nearly $400 a year on my garbage.

My town has what we call a 'transfer station'. It's what is colloquially call 'the dump'. Since we produce more trash around here than we can throw into a big hole or pile up into a big pile we simply 'transfer' it rather than dump it. There's a place in town where we bring our garbage and put it into a huge container that is hauled off at regular intervals.

We pay the facility by the pound for trash we dispose of this way. We're only a family of three so I thought I'd make out much better than $400 a year by just throwing out less than one ton of trash per year (5.5 pounds a day for the family). If they charge $32 a month for me and the same for a family of eight (they do) then I am probably getting overcharged.

Refuse that gets recycled is not included in the weight: cans, bottles, phone books, newspapers,.magazines, corrugated cardboard, scrap metal, etc. Yard waste that is composted can be left there without charge: leaves, grass clippings, etc.

I now spend about $10 a month on the actual trash and here's how I got from $400 a year to $120 a year.

First of all, when you actually schlep the stuff yourself, by hand into and out of your car, you start to become aware of how much trash you make and what it consists of. That makes you much more aware of the value of recycling since now, not only is trash an expense, it is heavy. "What's in these bags that I do not need to pay someone to dispose of for me?", I asked myself. The answer was "plenty".

We began by starting a compost bin in the most remote corner of our yard. I bought a commercially available bin (about $40 and it lasts forever) and started throwing stuff in it. The compost bin gets all of our vegetable waste: orange peels, watermelon rinds, left over rice, corn husks and cobs, spoiled tomatoes, coffee grounds, etc. It turns out this is a pretty big portion (by weight) of what we throw away every day.

We have a container that's about 1 gallon in size, with a tight fitting lid, that sits on the kitchen counter. In goes all this stuff and off to the bin it goes about three or four times a week. Easy. Simple. The bin needs very little attention or maintenance and I'll leave that advice to those more expert than myself.

A recycling container next to the trash can on the floor in the kitchen gets the cans, bottles, plastic, metal and glass. Not only do we keep this stuff out of our pay-to-discard trash and save money, we also keep them out of a landfill where they would live unto eternity. Much of this stuff is recycled into new cans and bottles and such and this reduces the demand for new resources which are in short (and finite) supply. We save money and we feel good about it.

The recycling goes to the dump in a separate bag and we also have a box where we collect magazines, newspapers, cardboard, etc. That only needs to go about once a month. Presumably, it is turned into new newspapers and magazines and cardboard boxes. Fewer new trees need to be cut down. Excellent!

Finally, after composting and recycling, the third portion of this triad is the garbage disposal we installed in the kitchen sink. We toss food scraps into this thing and it grinds them up and puts them in the sewage water. If we were on a septic system this becomes problematic but we are fortunate enough to connect to a municipal sewer system.

The disposal takes the table scraps (non vegetable: meat, dairy) that wind up stinking really bad when you only go to the dump once or twice a month. It mostly gets just the table scraps and some cooking waste like chicken bones, fish scales, scraps of fat and such. (Our little dog eats table scraps too. He turns them into fertilizer. Clever dog.)

My family saves money. Not a ton of money but money we can use for other purposes. Less oil has to be imported into the country. Less bauxite needs to be mined. Fewer trees need to be harvested. Plus, I get excellent fertilizer from the compost bin. This is a win-win-win that also gives me a nice, warm green glow when I think about it. Green like money and green like trees.

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY My Article about using Less Electricity by strategically (and painlessly) replacing your old tungsten light bulbs with Compact Fluorescent Bulbs!

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