"Cinnamonhuskies:

I am posting just to bump this one up. It's worth contemplating. I hope someone has ideas.

 

We have a hard time with this.  We recycle tin cans, compost all veggie scraps,, papers and magazines go the recycle site in town, batteries, used oil, paint goes to the once a year recyclers.  DH gathers and sells some metals....lead, copper etc.  We STILL have sometimes one, sometimes two, large cans of garbage every two weeks.  I cook from scratch, we have a large seasonal garden.  We burn paper garbage....milk cartons etc.  I just don't know where it is all coming from!!
Patrink

Patrink, could you look at what you're actually throwing away? "Oh yes, that came from X . . ." Then you would know the sources of your different garbages and could brainstorm on ways to cut it down. Although I have to say - - - only 1-2 cans every 2 weeks is doing pretty good in our culture!

I have a fantasy of only throwing away only 1 bag of trash a month, and have been taking small steps towards that goal. Cooking from scratch has been a MAJOR part of this, because there's so much less packaging! Take-out is the worst at giving you all that unnecessary trash to deal with.

Their are neighbors that burn and bury their garbage. Actually we dare not dig very deep out back...when dh was driving posts for the garden fence, he struck and pulled up some garbage!

I hate the smell of burning garbage, it's just putrid esp. on a warm humid evening.

When I saw the price of trash bags go up a few months back, I saw it as a challenge to see how long I could make a box of garbage bags last. Like you, it resulted in creative thinking about how much garbage we produce. Before this challenge it was nothing for me to use (NO JOKE) 10 to 12 bags a week. I'm talking those 33gal size bags. I cringe now to think how wasteful I was. At the time we had 3 cat litter boxes going and I would double line them with garbage bags and I was using 1 20 pound bag of litter per week to fill all three boxes. On top of that, I never really bothered to look at the bottom of plastic items to see just how much could be recycled. I went to our county website and looked at the waste management section and saw the complete list, and made a concerted effort to recycle everything. The one thing we had a lot of in our recycle bin was those plastic bottles (gatorade or water) so we started buying gatorade powder and reusing the same bottles. Then next big offender in our garbage challenge was paper. We are allowed to burn so I started filling plastic shopping bags with paper trash. We burn several bags once a month. Thanks to this forum, I learned how to make stock from usable food scraps. The rest of the scraps were thrown into plastic shopping bags (triple layered) and frozen until trash day. Freezing food scrapes keeps flies and creatures from digging in. I'm proud to report that I have gone from using 10-12 bags a week down to 4 and that includes what's used to line the cat litter pans. I tracked how long a box of 100 bags lasted. I opened the box May 15th and it lasted until mid October. What sounds like hard work is really just making an effort to change old habits.

Toni B.:

When I saw the price of trash bags go up a few months back, I saw it as a challenge to see how long I could make a box of garbage bags last.

 

I know the main idea is to cut back on the amount of trash, but to save on trash bags (if your service allows it) I use empty bird seed bags. I buy bird seed in 10 or 25 pound bags and just set the empty bags in a trash container in the garage. If you buy kitty litter or cat food in large bags, maybe you could use them to hold trash. I don't have animals now, but I have used chicken feed bags, dog food bags, etc. I save larger plastic shopping bags to hold trash for pickup, too, besides using smaller sizes to line trash cans in the kitchen and bathroom.

I just use the grocery bags from the store for trash- I take it out every night, and we use about a bag of food a day, it balances out very well!  

Here it is the law that you have to have a trash service.  We have the smallest bin for trash, 32 gallons, and two giant ones for recycling, which goes every other week.  I think it makes sense to have a trash service for us.   

rolo:

"Cinnamonhuskies:

...Meat scraps, gristle, fats, etc, bits of egg, cheese, can all go into a "doggie treat" container in the freezer. 

I usually keep our leftovers for the dogs (small amounts that's can't be worked into a leftover) in the fridge, and sometimes they'll expire before I use them to top dress the dog's kibble.  This is a great tip, I'll freeze them from now on.  

Dot 

 

Pat:

but to save on trash bags (if your service allows it) I use empty bird seed bags. I buy bird seed in 10 or 25 pound bags and just set the empty bags in a trash container in the garage. If you buy kitty litter or cat food in large bags, maybe you could use them to hold trash.

I have used these bags for trash as well but not as often as I should.

Pat:

I save larger plastic shopping bags to hold trash for pickup, too, besides using smaller sizes to line trash cans in the kitchen and bathroom.

Yes, we definitely do this too.