Talking Trash, 2020

So, the bad news for the 2020 Trash Tally in Maison du Miser is that we forked over $80 per trash can this year.  Our next door neighbors, in contrast, paid a much more reasonable $2-$3 per can.  

Which leads to the braggy part of the post: the reason we paid so much per can is because we pay a flat rate ($240/year) and because we put out exactly three trash cans at the curb this year.  That's "three" like magic wishes or Goldilocks's bears or like Dale Earnhadrt Sr.'s car number.   Or like our trashcan count this year!  This is our lowest volume of landfill-bound garbage ever, and I am happy to sit and bask in the accomplishment for a few moments.   Indeed, I'll offer up a graph just to show how far we've come, or just how low we'll go, as you will.

{here's me basking . . .  contented sighs of accomplishment . . . okay, I'm done.}

Most of my trash avoidance is passive: I just don't buy a lot of stuff that comes wrapped in garbage.  It gets easier and easier to figure out how to do this the more I do it, and I honestly don't spend a bunch of time or effort in this passive avoidance; nowadays it just happens.

But trash still does come into the house, and so every once in a while I have to get off my duff and do stuff to avoid stuffing the garbage can.   This past weekend, for example, I snapped photos and dusted off my Freecycle password, and posted the offer of about 6 months or so of padded mailing bags.  (And they were snapped up within 24 hours.  yay!)  A couple of other things went out via Freecycle this weekend, while I was on a roll.

In order to be able to do this Freecycle offer, we'd done the work when we moved into the house of setting up a sorting station for outbound materials.   The "Packing Materials" box is one bin.   We also have bins for things that are headed for so-called Thrift shops, construction stuff that will go to Habitat Restore, a HazMat box, several boxes for stuff that's recyclable at a nearby drop-off center but not accepted in our curbside bins, a bag of rags for a nearby thrift shop that recycles fabric scraps, a scrap-metal bin, etc.  So, that was a once-and-done chunk of time, and also a permanent chunk of sizable floor/shelf space in our basement  (our basement has an external door; it's kind of like other people's garages). 

I scored another win through sheer persistence.   First at my old house, and then at my new house, I made a point of asking our newspaper carriers to deliver the paper naked, with no plastic bag, and every Christmas I make a point of giving them a big tip and a thank you note for the naked delivery.  Today my carrier (and the carrier's dog) stopped by while walking past my house so that our dogs could say hello.  And my carrier told me that he's planning to write notes to his other customers asking if they, too would like a plastic-free delivery.  He says he's had a couple more already start returning their plastic bags to him, and he'd love to just reduce the number of bags he delivers.  So maybe I'm part of a small neighborhood movement heading in the less-waste direction.  That'd be really nice.