Last Trash.

Here we have it. Our last "on purpose" trash bag.

Still gonna have some trash in 2013, but hopefully not from anything bought in 2013.

Happy New Year, y'all!

Recycling and Poop

Today, Bret and I cleaned.  We both start new jobs in 2 weeks and we know that cleaning will be the first thing to go as we try to make time in our busy lives.  My job will be a part-time job in addition to my current full-time job.  Bret's will be a new position with a new county.  I hope we have not bitten off more than we can chew with this massive resolution on top of our new jobs.  

I told my sister today of our plan to be trash-free in 2013.  Her response was predictable--"that's impossible."  We _know_ it's impossible.  We are not planning on living a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering.  We still must function in American society.  We are just planning on being really weird--carrying our own "to go" containers, using handkerchiefs, carrying a bucket on dog walks instead of plastic bags (more on this in a minute) .  If we set our standard as "trash-free", then we will aim for that and fall a little short.  We will learn each day about ourselves as consumers and make better choices in the future. 

We have made a few more decisions about how we are going to go about doing this trash-free thingy.  As we cleaned today, we realized we have a lot of things that will eventually be trash.  The mac and cheese comes in a plastic bag, the scrubbing bubbles container is not recyclable, we have bottles of water and our curbside recycling will not take the little plastic lids.

We are not going to make this "trash passover" and rid our house of anything that is not trash-free kosher before we begin on this journey.  It just doesn't make sense.  This resolution isn't about being perfect from the get go.  It's about getting better over time; it's about learning alternative ways to live our daily lives to make less/no trash.  It is about proving you can be extremely environmental without being extremely crazy. Hopefully.

That being said, we are going to try to have different trash heaps.  One for trash purposely made through purchases and personal choices after Jan 1st  and one for trash created by items already in our possession. We also pick up trash around the neighborhood as we walk the dogs.  We don't want that to count against us.   

Now on to the poop.  We have 2 dogs.  They poop a lot.  Bret is in charge of researching how to best dispose of poop without sending it to the landfill.  Our MO right now is to pick it up in little plastic bags and put it in the trash can.  There must be a more environmental way.  But we live in the river city-- so we need to make sure we do not contaminate the James.  Whatever he finds out, we know we need to pick up poop and bring it back to our home base without the use of plastic bags.  Thus the aforementioned bucket.  ew.

I am in charge of researching where we can recycle various forms of plastic.  Our curbside only takes #1 and #2 plastic and only if they are narrow-neck bottles.  Bret was operating under the assumption that WMVA did not really care about the latter stipulation.   For the past 2 years, I have been picking his non-conformist plastic out of the bin before Blue Thursday (our recycling day) and putting it in the trash.  He has agreed to follow the curbside rules, but this narrow-neck business has him realizing this resolution will be very tricky. 

One day of trash left.  I am nervous. 

The Rules

Well, Bret and I have been discussing how we are going to create as little trash as possible all year and we have come to a few conclusions/rules.

1) What happens at work, stays at work.  Ok, not really.  But if it is work-related trash (packaging from shipments, etc.) we are not going to count it.  If it is personal (candy wrappers, used tissues), it comes home to be part of the trash heap, compost pile, or recycling--this will be true of any trash we make outside of the home.

2) The trash heap has spoken.  Nyah!  We will take weekly pictures of the trash we have accumulated.  We will keep all trash until December 31st 2013.  We are cancelling our trash service as soon as we figure out how and if RVA will even let us do this.

3) Female bathroom trash is going to fly under the radar for now.  There are some very good options to go trash-free in regards to female sanitary products---but until further research is done, I refuse to commit to anything.

This is all we have for now.  Our next steps: 1) figure out where to recycle all materials that can possibly be recycled 2) create a "travel bag" so we do not need to use take-out containers, bags, disposable utensils, etc. when we are out. 3) get rid of self-consciousness and fully commit to the cause.  #3 seems to be more of a challenge for me than for Bret.  But I think things through a little better.  

A New Beginning

It is December 27, 2012 and we are still here.  The world was supposed to end 6 days ago and we are still here.  But Bret and I have decided it was the end of the world as we know it.  (and we feel fine).

We were married a little over 5 months ago.  We are best friends and talk _all_ the time. But that is the problem...we are all talk.  Bret has these great ideas and he is awed by my compassion, but we have realized that we do not really act on our beliefs. Time to change that. 

So here we go.  We know who we are.  We know what we must do to better the world and ourselves.
We have set our lofty goals.  We have vague ideas for other ones.  But here is the BIG one:

Become Trash-free in 2013

We start January 1st.  Not really sure how to fully go about doing this, but now that it is out here on the internet, we gotta stick to it.

Wish us luck.  We will keep you posted.