Tuesday's green living tips

I'm back! It was tough not to turn the computer on this past week and without the computer, I wanted the t.v...argh! But Hubs and I decided we would 'court' each other this past week to make it go faster and it did...actually it went so fast that here it is Tuesday and I'm just now getting around to posting...grin...It was a nice vacation, but I'm glad to be back...and I will be catching up as soon as I can on everyone's blogs...I've missed you guys!

Now for Tuesday's Green Living Tip:

Do you know how much garbage your and your family have each day? Week? Month? Year?

Here’s a little ‘garbage’ experiment for you and your family to try for a week. Hopefully, by doing this you will be able to see where you can reduce your garbage so that it doesn’t end up in a landfill.

What you need:

Large plastic garbage bags
Permanent marker
Gallon-sized Ziploc plastic bags
Latex gloves
Scale

• To be able to have success with this experiment you will have to get your entire family involved. Let them know it is only for one week. If you have two large trash cans, you can put a large plastic garbage bag inside each one. Make sure your family knows that one trash can/bag is for “food items” (banana peels, orange rinds, meat bones, scraps from your plates that weren’t eaten, etc.) and the other trash can/bag is for “dry garbage” (such as empty food boxes, cans, shampoo bottles, toothpaste tubes, etc.)

• You and your family will be dividing your trash up for one week into these two trash bags/cans.

• Hand out two Ziploc plastic gallon-sized bags to each member of your family (and don’t forget to take one for yourself).
• This is where they are going to put any and all trash that they have during each day. Any left over lunch, etc. goes into one bag and any non-food trash goes into the other bag.
• Have them bring home these bags each day so that you can make sure everything is in the correct bags.
  

• Open the Ziploc bags and pour the contents into the correct trash can/bag. Rinse out the Ziploc bags and let them dry so that you and your family can use them again tomorrow.

• When your week is up, you will want to weigh yourself. Then take the trash bag with the food items in it and weigh yourself again while holding this bag. Subtract your weight from this total and write that amount down on paper. Now weigh yourself while holding the non-food trash bag, subtract your weight again and write that amount down.

• Now add those two amounts together and this is the amount of trash you and your family use in a weeks time. Now multiply that amount by 52 (the number of weeks in a year) and that is the amount of trash you and your family are contributing to the landfills.

• Put the latex gloves on and go through the trash (I know this isn’t pleasant, but it is necessary). See if there is anything in the trash bag that you could have used again. Wash out canned food cans and with the help an adult you can poke holes around the can and put a candle inside. Now you have a luminary. Or they can be cleaned, painted and decoupage them to make pencil holders or a flower.
• As for the food items, do you or a family member like to garden, if you answered yes, then why not try to compost those food scraps to help your garden grow.
  

• Also, by going through your trash and really get up close and personal with it, you might see ways that you can cut back on some of the non-food items. Do you buy your meats in the cute little plastic containers? That plastic has to come from somewhere…Why not get your meat cut at the deli in the grocery store. Take along a container from home for them to put the meat in after weighing it. This way, you don’t have anything to throw away. No plastic container and no meat wrapping. (Check with your grocery store to see if they will allow this, some bigger chains might not).

• And what about that ‘food items’ trash bag…how much food did you and your family waste during the course of a week? Did you throw out bananas because they got too ripe? Did you only eat half a sandwich? This might just help you figure out that you need to not buy so much at one time. Or if you notice that bananas are being thrown away because they keep getting too ripe before anyone will eat them, then why not find a recipe to put the very ripe bananas in. This way, you will still be able to eat them and they won’t go to waste.

Tips:

Maybe you can have a contest of sorts within your family. If a shampoo container has been thrown away, see who can find another use for it…the one with the best answer could win choice of dessert for dinner the next night or something simple like that.

If no one can think of an idea for reusing the container, etc. then make sure you recycle it. Sort through the items and divide them up so that you can take them to the recycling bin.

Happy Green Living!!