Finished..

I am now finished saving my garbage. Would I do it again? I guess so if I thought it was making a difference but at least it put things in perspective for me and hopefully my family. Our recycles boxes are pretty full after 2 weeks and we will be bring them in soon. My biggest eye opening experience would have to be all the food we waste and the amount of packaging that are on things.. It is amazing how much some companies use to package their items. Plastic wrap put over a card board box, then the twisty ties that hold something in, plastic overlays, etc.. Amazing, is all of that really needed?

The other thing is how many plastic bags I collected over 2 weeks. I ususally keep them and use over but how many do I really need?

So after all of this, I know that we will continue to recycle, maybe even more like more cardboard and newspapers and mailings. I am really going to try not to put so much on my kids plates so I am not throwing as much away. Also, maybe I will say I don't need a bag as much as I usually do.  Lots of things to think about..

Thanks for reading my journey!

Posted by: saveyourtrash on 6/29/2008 at 9:21 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink

Almost done...

First of all, I want to apoligize for anyone who was actually reading this everyday. I really wanted to blog everyday with my progress but I had a very stressful week at work not knowing if I was going to have a job or not. Garbage was the furthest from my mind.

This week has been tough to remember everything and to take everything home as other things were on my mind but at home I did fine.

We have filled our 2nd container full and I have been mushing it down to get more space. We have almost 3 ice cream containers full of scraps of food.. I have to say it looks gross.. Ugh.. AND the ONE trash bad that I have out in the garage from when we started this has started to stink.. I put it outside now double bagged..  I am glad that I am  almost done with this.

Some of the things that I have had a "light bulb" experience with is paper towels from all the public restrooms. NEVER even once thought about saving those. It just hit me the other day (At least I noticed it I guess). Remembering to take things home from resturants too is another task. I really have been trying to do that!

Until tomorrow!

Posted by: saveyourtrash on 6/27/2008 at 1:22 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Day 7 and 8

Well, one week down and one to go. Jeff is bringing home another big box for us as I have shoved all that I can into the other one. He also has been bringing his garbage home from work and even brought  his garbage that he made from helping his friend move this weekend. He is doing a great job and not complaining about it. I knew that he would come around.

Weekends are always my time to clean and we end up getting alot more garbage. It probably has something to do with me throwing things aways.. I cleaned out the kids' bedrooms and found scratch paper and some card board they were playing with. Then there is the laundry room which I have to remember to include with the garbage saving. I have a garbage down there that collects lint from the dryer, paper, cans from downstairs, toliet paper rolls etc.. Kinda forgot about that. We will just bring that bag out at the end of the two weeks..

I am still continuing to save our food scraps. My friend gave me 3 ice cream buckets to use which BETTER get me through this week.

Later..

Posted by: saveyourtrash on 6/23/2008 at 5:13 AM | Comments (3) | Permalink

Day 5 and 6

Our first box is officially full! I wonder how many bags this would have fit into? I am assuming 3 as we usually throw out 5-6 bags a week. We also have 1 bag that we started on Sunday.

Our first ice cream bucket of food is also full now. UGH,, my kids didn't even want to carry it out to the garage today because they said it was "gross". I was actually pretty heavy too. I pray that it doesn't come open or anything like that.. What a mess that would be! I am going to try to keep saving the food but I may have to get a bigger container to save it in. I will put my thinking cap on.

We are continuing to keep everything that we throw away. You really have to think about saving all your garbage too. It is just way to easy to throw stuff away!

Our diaper count is up to 8 for the past two days and wipes are at 25.

One other thing I didn't account for was the pets.. Changing the litter box, picking up poo from the backyard...Nobody wants to save that stuff.

Posted by: saveyourtrash on 6/21/2008 at 2:38 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Day 4

I SAVED OUR FOOD GARBAGE!  I decided that I was going to attempt to save our food scraps and see how it went. We had dinner last night and like always, food was left on my childrens plates. I have a plastic ice cream container that put all the food in. It is half full if you can believe that. We had corn on the cob last night and that filled it up alot but still, half full? I am sure that it will be full soon. It is kinda gross but I am really going to try to save everything for the 2 weeks. It will be interesting how much food is actually wasted!

Some people are asking if my garbage is stinking at all or saying "boy that is going to stink". They are kinda grossed out that I am saving my garbage. I really don't think that is going to be that bad as I am not putting any food in my garbage box and I am going to save the food in plastic containers that will be thrown away at the end of the two weeks. It is amazing that most of my garbage so far can be recycled or is plastic, cardboard, wrappers, and things like that. 

The best news that I got was that my husband started collecting his garbage from work! He has a bag in his car and he is putting all of his stuff in it. This is a big deal as he really didn't want to do this in the first place. He is also going to bring home some more big boxes so we can keep putting our garbage in them.

The diaper count is 2 diapers and 7 wet wipes. These are all being thrown away and not saved, along with a bag of poo from the dog that my husband picked up. Give me a baby's diaper anyday over picking up poo from the dog. Yuck!

Posted by: saveyourtrash on 6/19/2008 at 9:45 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink