October 2017 - Cheese life

This month I produced 29 grams, or 0.06 lbs of trash.

This is a 0.02 lbs improvement from September, which I am pretty pleased about. 

I feel like I've definitely reached a pretty sustainably minimal level of trash production. By changing a lot of my consumption patterns, habits, and methods, I've eliminated a lot from my day to day life. 

In my trash jar this month was mostly tea bag packages, wrapping from a prescription of mine, fruit stickers, and the wrappings around some cheese. I think there were some other random pieces of plastic from price stickers, and the tops of bottles. 

I've become a bit complacent recently. I've been able to produce very little trash the past few months, an amount that seemed incredibly difficult to achieve earlier this year!  But now that I've attained this level of trash production, I think it's time for me to reevaluate and set new goals. Probably before the new year, but definitely by then!

March 2017 Weigh-in: Pack it in, pack it out

This is the first time I attempted to go a whole month with only my mason jar. Up until now I've filled it in about a week, or would have had it overflowing in a month. But this March, I succeeded!  I produced 91 g of trash this month, which is just 0.2 lbs! That's just 0.05 lbs per week, which would be pretty good for me anyway. 

My jar this month was full of trash from my backpacking trip, fruit stickers, a powdered sugar bag, tea wrappers, and several other non-descript pieces of plastic.

My biggest pieces of plastic were a plate and fork. Why did I end up with these, you ask? Well, someone from one of my jobs hosted a dinner party.  She prepared a BEAUTIFUL meal. I brought my own cup, but wasn't prepared for plastic plates and utensils.  I didn't want to ask for one of her plates and forks, since she had gone to so much trouble to prepare a wonderful meal and host us all.  So, I simply washed this plate and fork between dinner and dessert, and kept it.

I chose to take the plastic over being perhaps mildly rude, but why? When I talk to people about what I'm doing and why I have a few codes that I like to follow:

1. Do not be rude
2. Do not be condescending
3. Generate excitement, not guilt

These are guidelines I came up with when I became a vegetarian in order to avoid being considered a stereotypical "pretentious vegan/vegetarian."

If I had asked my coworker to use one of her plates and forks because of this project that I was doing to reduce plastic waste, it may have made her second guess using plastic ware, but it also probably would have made her feel bad, perhaps embarrassed or ashamed.  That is not how I want people to feel when we discuss zero waste lifestyles. I don't want to shame people into going zero waste or lowering their plastic footprint, I want them to feel empowered, educated, and excited about it! 

So, long story short, I now have a plastic fork and plate added to my trash bag. However, one of my co-workers who does know what I'm doing asked me about it and started a whole conversation with a large group of people about it, I'll count it as a win! 

Weekly Weigh-in 6: Flowers and Thin Mints

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WEIGH-IN

So this week, I bought flowers wrapped in plastic, you can check out the journal below for the reason why, and these were my biggest item. I also finished a tube of lip balm that I had from before, two straws that I forgot to ask the bartender to leave out, the usually fruit stickers, and the wrapping of some girl scout cookies.

My total trash weighed in at 41 grams, or 0.09 lbs

This was up from last week, but not by too much, so I'm still feeling ok!

JOURNAL

So, about the flowers... this past weekend a neighbor of mine passed away. I didn't know her or her spouse very well at all, but I did feel that a show of kindness was needed.  Unfortunately, with my work and school schedule, I didn't have the time to bake cookies that evening. Also, fun fact, there are no flowers growing in Colorado in February.  So, in my haste to bring what I could as soon as possible, I bought some very pretty flowers wrapped in plastic.  I know I probably could have waited a few days and baked something (or gone to a bakery as a different neighbor did) but I didn't. My desire to get something immediate overwhelmed my need to be zero waste. For now, I'm ok with that. But I do feel I should maybe have some go-tos for situations like this. 

On a happier note, this week my boyfriend and I celebrated our 3-year anniversary.  He knew how torn I was about buying the flowers in plastic, so he bought me a beautiful bamboo plant, already potted, with zero plastic in sight!

Also, my roommate informed me that as a household of four we only went through 1 bag of trash! We think the combination of me not adding anything to it, and composting is the reason. I don't know what the average trash-bag production per household is but I'd guess that's on the low end!

And finally, girl scout cookies. I'm so torn on this one. Thin Mints are one of my favorite things of all times, and I really do like supporting the GS. I know I could make some on my own, but I just can't decide which cause to stick to, supporting young women or zero waste. For now, I'm caving on zero waste, but I think I'll need to come up with something better in the future. Maybe learn to make my own and then just donate to the girl scouts w/o buying cookies? That seems like the most logical choice. We'll have to see how my homemade ones turn out!

Weekly Weigh-in 5: Normalization

WEIGH-IN

So this week, nothing at all that miraculous happened.  It was utterly and undeniably normal.  I had some tea that came in wrapping, ate one bar that came wrapped (at a volunteer event), used one cauliflower packaged in plastic, and had the normal accumulation of fruit stickers.

My total trash weighed in at 17 grams, or 0.04 lbs!

That's my lowest weight so far, which I'm stoked about. 

JOURNAL

As I said above, this week felt really normal. I didn't have anything that seemed to outrageously affect my trash.  This gives me hope that reducing my trash to nearly zero really is possible, since several things in my trash were really avoidable (like the bar and cauliflower wrappings).  Maybe soon I can start switching to a monthly weigh-in instead of weekly!

However, starting today, I am working two full weekends at ski school.  For the environment, it's pretty eco-friendly, but it's definitely possible to produce more waste in that environment and I'll need to prep to avoid it! Update on how it all went down next week.

Weekly Weigh In 3: Mermaid Hair

Weigh in:

So this week I did okay.  Ordering things for the school year has been killing me! If I couldn't find a book used (most of them I did) the new ones were all wrapped in plastic. I cut my hand and needed a band-aid, forgot to ask for no straw at a restaurant, finished my birth control packet, and got my hair dyed.

So my normal trash weighed in at 29 grams

My hair dye waste was less than I expected it to be, but still substantial:

1. Lightener: 4.4 oz = 125 g
2. Foil Sheets: 204 g
   • about 90 sheets weighing .005 lbs each = .45 lbs = 204 g
3. Colored Dye: 113 g
   • Approx. 2 oz of teal, 1 oz of purple, 1 oz of blue

So the total weight of my hair dying visit was: 442 g 

This means that my grand total trash this week was 471 grams, or about 1 lbs. This is the most I've had so far, but it was essentially because of dying my hair. 

Journal

This week went relatively smoothly. Getting my hair dyed produced the most trash that I've made in a while.  Most of it was aluminum, which isn't as bad as plastic, but because of the colorant that was on it the sheets couldn't be recycled.  I thought about taking them home, washing them, and then recycling them.  But I also didn't know if it was worse to rinse the colorant down the drain, or to send it to the landfill.  I went with landfill, but I would like to do some more research on hair products in general to see if my concerns were well founded. 

Weekly Weigh-in 2: There's No Use Crying Over Spilled Milk

So starting now, my weekly weigh-in posts will have two sections: the weigh-in and a journal entry. Several people have said that they are interested in the "journey" aspect of this blog.  So the journal entries will feature my success and failures in going zero waste each week to give a less filtered view of what this whole process can be like.  Luckily for you, this week I managed to create a massive scene at a grocery store.

Weigh-in

My trash total this week was: 27 g

This was way less than last week by quite a bit! But the amount of plastic also went up. This was in part due to buying electronics for school, buying electronics to replace the laptop charger the puppy chewed, and the plastic that some of the hardware associated with the compost bin came wrapped in.

Now all that looks pretty darn good. But if you read my journal below, you will discover that quite a bit of waste was generated at my expense at the grocery store.  So I will count those in as well.

• 1 glass milk bottle: 780 grams
• 1/2 roll paper towels: 142 grams
• 1 plastic grocery bag: 5.5 grams

So, given this, my new grand trash total would be: 927.5 g  ...ugh...

However as many people in the zero waste community will say, in one form or another: this isn't about being perfect, it's about giving it your best shot.

Journal

This week, as you may have guessed, I had an small dairy-related incident.  I have switched to buying a local, glass-bottled milk.  We go through about 1/2 gallon a week.  As I walked up to the cash register, I was feeling pretty good about the grocery store trip we had just made.  

We were grabbing what I had forgotten earlier in the week: milk and coffee. Of course, as with almost any grocery trip with my significant other,  we ended up buying more stuff than planned. But we were able to keep it all zero waste, even his candy request!

But then things went terribly, terribly wrong...

I set down my basket on the ground so I could grab the empty milk bottles out of the bag I was carrying.  But when I set the basket down I must have done so at just the right angle/force/pressure/other science things to break the bottle!

A whole half gallon of milk went spilling all over the checkout aisle, glass and all.  I quickly tried to grab the remaining items out of the the basket, but some milk did make it onto my cotton bulk bags, and therefore on the items in them (nothing was ruined though!).

The checkout girl was incredibly nice and understanding.  My boyfriend went to grab another bottle, while I attempted to help. Although, honestly, I was probably making matters worse at this point given the onlookers that were gathering around to watch us struggle.  On top of it all, the checkout girl thew a ton of paper towels down to halt the movement of the milk before a mop was brought to the scene. 

So, in my attempts to reduce my plastic use, I managed to waste a half gallon of milk, a glass bottle, and about half a roll of paper towels, and a plastic bag that aided in the cleanup process.  It felt like I had taken 1 step forward only to take 3 steps backward. 

The reason I am rambling on about this is that I want anyone who is thinking about going zero waste or reducing their impact to realize: this is not a picture perfect process.  As I mentioned earlier, the overwhelming sentiment in the zero waste community is: it's not about being perfect.  Well I definitely wasn't perfect this week, but onto the next!

Weekly Weigh-in 1

So part of this journey for me, and most in the zero waste movement, is tracking the waste I do produce in an effort to identify the things I am throwing away, and eventually eliminate them from my lifestyle!

To clarify: this is my non-food, and non-recyclable trash. I did recycle, and I did produce food waste. I haven't built my compost bin yet so food waste is still going in the regular trash as of now.

So my mason jar and its lid weigh a total of 258g

My trash with my mason jar weighed a total of 361g

Which means that my grand total this week was 103 grams

• Just for reference, 103g is about the weight of a deck of cards (just a smidge more)

My full mason jar of trash for this week

My full mason jar of trash weighing 361g

My trash all spread out

Empty mason jar weighing 257g

I feel pretty good about that, seeing as this is my first time actually tracking my trash. I did need to move to a larger mason jar, but only once!  

I found that most of my trash was tea and coffee related. Other than that I had one wrapper from an egg sandwich, one dixie cup, some medical supplies from cleaning and bandaging a friend's cut, one plastic lid that came with a USB drive, and some miscellaneous candy and food wrappings. 

Many of these things were purchased before going zero waste, and I just happened to use them up (like the coffee bag). Some things I purchased in a hurry (still working on habit), and some were the result of nannying.  I nannied for five kids this past weekend and was totally unprepared to keep my zero waste habits around them. Now I'll be better prepared for next time!