I live with my fiance. It me, her and 4 cats. We live in a relatively small apartment, nothing fancy.
But dear lord how is it possible that two people have so many garbage bags to throw out? I could be exaggerating a bit as I’m a bit overworked so cleaning becomes more tiresome, but seriously - from an environmental to mental health to less chores perspective, help me: what are some tricks you use to reduce garbage?
Being mindful of how something is packaged.
Eat more fresh produce cause the packaging is limited or non existent.
Streamline your diet into only what you need, cut the snacks and stuff, just pick one thing per food run to snack
Start composting if able
I’ve got one trash bag a week. And a 5 gal bucket of recycling. I have 2 less cats than you but overall the same set up.
I’ve said before: “The best place to lose weight is not the gym, but at the grocery store”. By not buying snacks and high calorie foods it’s a lot easier to reduce your calorie intake.
On the exact same front, buy less things with packaging. Bulk items, reusable containers, simply buying less crap. These little things all add up. Generally living a more simple lifestyle.
What do you two seem to generate the most? Is it food related garbage or is it coming from other things?
Buy fruit and veggies that are not pre-packaged. Put them in reusable bags or bring old paper bags to the store. Also avoid thing in small packaging and buy larger quantities instead. For example buy a piece of parmesan of 200g instead of 4 bags of 50g grated.
Bigger items. Fewer items.
Consider buying a trash compactor. It’s on my list considering I have to drive my garbage to a transfer station 20 minutes away every week.
Get a reusable bag for the grocery store. Removing the plastic or paper bags is a huge space saver. We also reorganized our fridge to make our vegetable upfront so we have been using them more. This reduces food waste and now we use them in more of our cooking. Especially since we have been shopping less and getting only what’s needed for the next few days
Most of my household waste gets recycled. I have three bins in my kitchen. One for metal, plastic and glass. One for paper and cardboard. The last one is for garbage. 99% of my waste is recycled so there is no cost associated with that. Edit: I also have an organic waste container. We have green bins in my city.
Same. We have trash, recycling, and compost bins. Most of our stuff goes into compost or recycle.
We also have bottle deposits for drinks. I save the aluminum and plastic to return. I don’t like dealing with glass so we rarely buy them. I leave the occasional glass ones near a public trashcan and others take them.
Buy less useless shit. Less food deliveries, less “prepared” foods, less “made of the finest chinesium and thaitanium” products. Spend the extra buck for something that you’ll get more than one use out of. Adopt out the cats if you really want to reduce the amount of garbage. They’re a primary source of all that trash - food packaging, cleaning up their shit, all their fur…
Then of course there’s the obvious “sort your shit - recycle what you can, compost what you can”.
adopt out your cats
I’ll just politely say this isn’t the type of comment most people will take very well, pets are family members.
It’s a shame that he torpedo’d himself writing that, because at least the first three sentences of his comment were useful. Packaged prepared foods and cheap non-durable junk are probably the biggest categories of household waste other than uneaten food.
I get it, my cats are my biggest source of garbage/waste in my own household, and I wouldn’t give 'em up for anything. But when facing a problem, sometimes you have to weigh options you’d rather not consider.
Yeah. That’s a bold move, Cotton.
I’m sorry, someone asks for help generating less waste and part of your suggestion is to give away their pets…? Maybe they should stop eating too…
