So, for some goofy reason I really want to keep track of these numbers, so I'm just going to note for the record that my household put ten trash cans at the curb in 2017. I'm saying "ten" and "for the record" in the same sentence; but ten isn't a record low for us; the year before this most recent one, we put out only 9 trash cans. But in 2017, we had another person or two with us during the summer months, and I'm going to blame the trash on that.
Still, I'm happy that our general trend is still downward.
In fact, I just figured out how to make a graph in Google Drive and dump it into my blogger (ooh, not hard at all; that's good to know), so here's a visual on our family's trash-can output since 2012, the first year I started counting.
Still, I'm happy that our general trend is still downward.
In fact, I just figured out how to make a graph in Google Drive and dump it into my blogger (ooh, not hard at all; that's good to know), so here's a visual on our family's trash-can output since 2012, the first year I started counting.
- 2012: 23 cans
- 2013: 17 cans
- 2014: 19 cans
- 2015: 11 cans
- 2016: 9 cans
- 2017: 10 cans
Random facts:
- The trash can is a 32-gallon trash can.
- We don't keep track of the numbers of times we put out our recycling bins. We don't put a lot of recycling out, either, but I don't bother to count it.
- These are the dates we put the cans out: Jan 31, Mar 21, May 16, Jun 12, July 5 , July 25, Aug 14, Sep 5, Sep 26, Nov 28. K-daughter and A-child were with us from May through September, and you can see that the trash picked up (so to speak) then.
- From what I can see, the vast majority of our trash is "soft plastics": things like plastic wrap from food packaging. There's occasional other weird stuff like diapers from A-child's visits or the cardboard/foil circle that sealed a peanut butter jar. But mostly, soft plastic from food packages.
Since there are only going to be three of us (or maybe even fewer than that, once N-son heads out for his post-secondary education!), I'm expecting the number of trash cans to dip even lower for 2018. It'll be a false equivalency, because the people who leave the house will be putting out trash where I can't count it, but I'm still sort of morbidly obsessed by seeing how little trash I can send to the landfill from this house of mine.
. . . and . . . that's all. End of garbage geek.
I love this. One year I decided to see if I could go an entire year creating only one can's worth of garbage. I made it all the way to summer with the thing only about a third full - and then some yellowjackets took up residence inside. And... well... after I got stung a bunch of times, and swelled up like a sweet potato, and had to be put on steroids for a week, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and called an exterminator. That was the end of my garbage can challenges!
ReplyDeleteWow, now THAT is extra excitement! I will definitely have to keep an eye out for that problem. We keep our trash can in the garage, so that might make the infestation less likely. But I can see how yellow jackets would like a nice warm partly-filled trash can for taking up residence!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about how you get rid of scraps of food. The veggie ones go into the compost heap at our place, but I was wondering about non-compost ones. Like for example rinds of cheese or bones. What do you do with them?
ReplyDeleteThe dog helps with things like fat scraps. (We don't have cheese rinds). Our previous dog ate bones, too, with no trouble. But we haven't fed bones to the new dog because my vet would freak, and possibly because it would actually hurt the dog.
DeleteWe actually have another non-garden-worthy organic rotting pile (I'd say "compost pile", but it's not going to ever play with our plants). I bury bones and dog feces in there, in between leaves and a few other greens. I have friends who assure me that if the bones get buried under other stuff, they'll rot without attracting critters.
In a previous post I had about composting, someone told me that they grilled/charred their bones and then pulverized them. I suppose that'd work, too.
No rinds of cheese? :) That boggles the mind :)! Until I realized that cheese consumption is not the same all over the world :) and there are more types of cheese than the ones I eat.
DeleteWe also don't feed bones to the dogs, but we can't get away with burying them, because said dogs would dig them up and try to eat them anyway. Maybe pulverizing them would work better.