Who Needs A Garbage Man Anyway

 

 

It’s been 8 months, 17 days and 5 hours since we moved to the country. Yes, I’m still loving every fresh air, quiet evening, big sky morning moment of it. We’ve been preparing for our first winter away from the city. This is going to mean longer nights, darker days and more snow than my kids are used to, not to mention the fall clean up that’s been happening around the yard. We’re really trying to make an effort to reduce our waste since we no longer have the luxury of weekly visits from our friendly city garbage collection and recycling trucks. It’s been 30 days since we accepted the SC Johnson Zero Waste Challenge and I’m here to give you the update on how it all went down.

Best laid plans:

I like to have a list and a plan for almost everything from getting groceries to chores around the house but I have to admit that even my best laid plans don’t always work out the way I hope they will in the end.

The Plan was simple.

1. Where the heck is all this waste coming from anyway? Well, I’ll tell you where it’s coming from, 4 kids and the grocery store! I found that the bulk of our waste was from the kids arts and crafts projects with all the wasted paper and the plastic boxes of spinach and salad that are a staple item in our kitchen.
2. Make better choices at the store! YES! YES! YES! This is 75% of our waste overall! Boxes, plastics, bottles, jars! Realizing that there are alternatives at the grocery store was easy to find, I just had to look!
3. Repurpose and re-home! Luckily for my friends, I’m a giving person. We gave away what we couldn’t use but would be useful to other people and we had a talk with the kids about using the WHOLE sheet of paper to do a craft or draw instead of making one rainbow on a sheet and then throwing it away.

 

 

GOOOOOOOAAAAALLLLLL! I set out 3 easily attainable goals for us over 30 days and realistically we won’t see results for another few months but at least we’re on the right track.

1. Reduce our nasty kitchen garbage bags. This is still a work in progress but I’m happy to report that we’re on track to achieve this goal of throwing out 31 fewer bags over the course of a year. My biggest issue now is trying to convince my kids that I’m not a bad cook and my dinners are actually good for them so I don’t end up tossing them in the trash accounting for a huge pile of waste in the kitchen. UGH!
2. Zero bags of grass! Our goal of having zero yard waste was an easy mark to hit, however it is fall. Ask me again in June 🙂 We purchased a pre-owned mulching lawn mower from a fellow resident in the community which means that we no longer need any bags for grass cuttings. As for the tree cuttings and leaves? The dead wood trees that have fallen or had to be cut down are going to act as fuel for long winter nights in our fireplace and the leaves are being spread out on the forest floor as nature intended. Last time I checked, no one was bagging all the leaves in Banff National Park. Nature takes care of recycling the rest in the spring. Anything else that can be burned, will be burned in our massive fire pit in the back yard.
3. Cook more! I joke all the time about my kids not eating my cooking but the truth is, I need to give up on making them eat the things that I want to eat, only to have it end up in the trash over and over and over. After more than 12 years of meal making for 4 kids, it’s not worth the expense or the waste. I’m including more meals I know they’ll eat and less from the experimental cookbook. So far it’s going great, chicken fingers and veggies with dip it is! But only if the chicken fingers can be bought in a bag and not a box with a bag with plastic on the box.

This has been an eye opening month. I always thought of myself as a waste conscious person who wasn’t throwing away unnecessary garbage but apparently even I needed a re-boot.

Who needs a garbage man anyway!

SC Johnson Canada is committed to reducing waste and recycling and hasn’t sent any waste to landfills since January 2013. They plan on continuing this trend well into the future. In an effort to encourage all my readers to join the #SCJzerowastechallenge the folks at SC Johnson are doing this awesome give-away just for you. Enter here for your chance to win a SC Johnson gift pack valued at $350!

 

 

SC Johnson ‪#‎SCJZeroWaste‬ Giveaway

 

 

 

 

“Disclosure: I am part of the PTPA Brand Ambassador Program with SC Johnson and I received Compensation as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.”