We try not to be trashy...

for the love of beaches

Yes, I said it...we TRY not to be trashy...and by that I mean, we try really hard not to put more than one bag of trash in our can per week.  I know the whole "green" movement is trendy right now and everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon but with all of the dire predictions about global warming my hubby and I felt like we needed to jump on too!  Now...I'm a firm believer in "doing what you can, when you can" - meaning I'm not here to judge what anyone else does or doesn't do.  But, I thought I'd share how we make that happen in our house.  So, here goes it:

1.  We recycle and reuse - We are fortunate to live in a city that provides us with a recycling bin the same size as our large trash can that we can simply push to the street every other week for pick-up and let me tell you - that sucker is always full!  Our recycling can in our house where we dispose of everything that can be recycled is actually twice as big as our regular trash can.  Everything from junk mail, empty plastic bottles, cans, newspaper, and cardboard boxes goes in and it really saves space in the regular trash can.  We are also big fans of the reusable totes and baskets that can be used to bring groceries home and produce from the farmers' market.  We also like to donate old clothing thats still in good shape to Goodwill and save worn out t-shirts for wiping the cars down after a good wash or cleaning my hub's golf clubs.

2.  We compost - Two years ago we purchased a compost bin from Lowes and we have been composting everything we can since then.  I plan to blog about all of the nitty gritty details at a later date but by doing this we really reduce our household waste, not to mention this keeps alot of the smelly rotting veggies from stinking up the trash.

3.  We cloth diaper and make our own baby food - Before having Addie when people would ask about whether or not we had started stockpiling diapers, I would sheepishly reply that we were going to be trying out cloth diapering - too which I would generally hear something like "Are you crazy - yeah, that will last a week."  However, I really have fallen in love with it and its much easier than I could have ever imagined.  This too is something else I really want to blog more in-depth about as I hope to share how we make it work in this house.  And, we also make our own baby food - this too reduces the amount of waste we are throwing away as I use the reusable containers and trays to make and store Addie's food.

4.  We use Craigslist and E-bay - Yes, we try to sell or give away anything we no longer need and I've found E-bay to be an excellent source for specialty clothing for Addie at great prices in excellent condition (I mean seriously, I don't think some of this stuff has even been worn).

So there you have it, that's how we manage to keep as much out of the landfills as we can.  We've made it a little contest in our house and love nothing more than wheeling our almost empty trash can to the street each week.  It also makes us think twice about buying things that we probably don't need or won't use - which helps in the impulse department.

J