zero waste living

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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!

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Weekly Weigh-in 5: Normalization

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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

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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 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)

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!