The one where I own my trash

Part of my zero waste journey is cleaning out my house, downsizing, decluttering whatever you want to call it. And, yes, sometimes in the process that means I'm making more trash, but really I made that trash 20 years ago, or whenever I bought or created that item. I'm just finally admitting it is trash, and it is mine. 

Today I cleaned out teaching materials I haven't used in over 17 years. In 2006 I switched from teaching middle school to high school and I carefully stored all of my carefully curated middle school materials. Seventeen years later they were still in the same spot and I figured it was time to admit I probably won't be teaching middle school again, and if I did I wouldn't be using those materials anyway. 

So here is the part where I get proactive and take ownership of my trash. First of all it's not all trash, but if someone else were clearing out my house it probably would be. To keep most of it out of the landfill eventually, it makes sense to deal with it myself now.

Mixed in with the paper folders are books about each subject. Those are now listed on our local gifting group. The cardboard magazine files that held the folders for each unit are on the gifting group too. Then there are the three prong folders, one for each lesson. They include the teacher directions, originals to copy for students, overhead transparencies, and sometimes laminated materials too. I can't just chuck these in the recycling because there are too many mixed materials in there. 

See, you might think that everything you put in a blue bin gets recycled, but most of it goes through a sorting center and anything that has "mixed materials" is automatically trash, even if 95% of it is paper. So, to own my trash, I need to open every one of those three prong folders and separate the plastic things like transparencies from the paper things. Then I cut off the spine of the folder, the part with the metal prongs. Those go in the trash and now the paper covers can be recycled. 

My husband suggested someone might want the empty folders, but they were pretty messed up, written on, and many had places where bugs had nibbled on them. The last time I needed a folder like that was approximately 17 years ago, so I wasn't going to save them for reuse.

In about an hour I separated materials in over 60 folders and made sure 90% of those materials can get recycled instead of just becoming trash. 

Did I want to spend an hour doing that, not really. But I did want to take responsibility for trash I had created and do what I could to make it more recyclable and less trash? Yes.  

The one about grocery shopping

I am still really new to this make-less-trash idea. I've been moving in that direction for awhile, and I've already posted about some things I've been doing for a long time, getting a CSA box of produce, using shampoo bars etc. But I thought, when I decided to actually make a lot less trash, that grocery shopping would be the toughest part. It turns out there were some easy changes I could make there too. 

Food is what we buy the most and consume the most. It creates the most single use plastic, the most recycling containers, and the most trash in our household. The fact that I live with other people who want to eat specific things is what will keep our household from ever being entirely free of single use plastics. 

But, I've made some major progress and convinced them to make several important changes in our habits. I've gone back to doing most of my weekly grocery shopping at the local store that sells items in bulk. And they sell candy. 

Our previous chocolate consumption meant buying a large plastic bag filled with individually wrapped smaller items. It was trash inside trash, just to get to that small bit of sugar. 

My son's sweet tooth, and mine too, are now very happy with gummy bears and chocolate items from the bulk bins. Scooped and bagged in canvas for transport, these are an easy way to reduce our wrapper waste. And, it turns out that the 12oz jars our favorite jam comes in, make great re-use containers to store snacks and candy. (Removing the labels was easier than I thought it would be.)

The list of things I can now buy in *package free* canvas re-usable bags includes: 

-candy and chocolate

-dates, dried fruits, nuts

-rice, flour, salt, sugar

-oats, quinoa, popcorn

A small investment up front in canvas bags was all I needed to get started. I currently own four. They were all .99 cents. So, for about $4 I was able to get started bulk buying. As I use up my existing stock of bulk goods, and need to buy more bulk items in some shopping trips, I may need to buy a few more canvas bags, but I consider the minor investment worth it. The bags have their own weight printed on them, so the cashier deducts that from the weight of the bulk items I'm buying. 

I've also removed most plastic from my produce purchasing by using cloth net bags. The few produce items that don't come in my CSA box, now go into cloth mesh bags. I am still buying berries in plastic clamshells because I love berries in my lunches and that's the only way the grocery store sells them. Sigh. 

Above, is what my latest Sunday shopping trip looked like. A bunch of bulk items, produce in mesh bags, a loose bell pepper, some salmon wrapped in paper, and the boxes of berries. Yes, there is still some plastic, but way less packaging trash than I used to create while shopping. 

And if you think that's not a lot of food for a week, you're right. Remember we also get the box of produce from the CSA, and frequently we get a weekly box from a meal plan service. I'll need a separate post to cover my meal prep and planning strategies. My weekly grocery trip is typically one dinner protein, usually fish. Snacks and candy, some produce, and any bulk items we are running low on. 

A monthly Costco run keeps us stocked for canned goods, a 25 Lb. paper bag of bread flour, milk, butter, and most recently a delicious watermelon, when I realized it was one of the few produce items I could buy there that wasn't wrapped in plastic. 

My grocery bills are going down. Yeah, we are seeing crazy food inflation and I'm saving money buying in bulk because I'm able to buy smaller quantities at the bulk price. When I scoop from the bulk bin, I'm only getting what I need for the week. Learning that I do not need to buy and store large packages of sugar, flour, oats etc. has been a nice side effect of this less trash plan. 

Note: This post and others includes one or more affiliate links. I only link to products I actually bought, use, like, and recommend. I'm a teacher. If you use one of my affiliate links, you are contributing toward books for my classroom while buying something you want anyway.  

The one with the local gifting economy

In July of 2022 I joined the local buy nothing group on Facebook and began gifting items that were no longer serving a purpose in my home. Since then I have gifted nearly two hundred things out of my house. That sounds like a lot right? It's not. I bet many of you likely have just as many things to gift. Of course the trick to this is giving far more than I receive from the group.

Here are some gift examples: 

I cleaned out my closet and gifted 19 tops. 

Supplies from a pet we no longer have, plus several fish tanks. 

A small appliance I was gifted, but never used. 

Kids DVDs my children had outgrown

Clothes my children had outgrown

Photo paper we were never going to print on

A large shelf we replaced with a smaller one

An alarm clock, a lamp, a muffin pan I never used. 

Some vegan food items a guest left behind at my mother in law's house.

Somewhere in the gifting group rules I read the phrase "gift from your own abundance" and I realized that I had an abundance to give. Spares, extras, sets that came with more than I needed, gifts that we weren't using, items from other phases of our lives. All around there was abundance, and I could let it go. 

I know what you're thinking, "Jen, this blog is about making less trash. How is that related to giving stuff away?"

Well, I see these things as connected in a few ways. 

1. Packaging: When I give someone something they need or were about to buy, I spare them the acquisition of the packing materials a new item would have used. If I give away curtains I'm not using, then someone else gets curtains without having to buy them in a plastic bag. The same is true when I need something. I can often receive it free of packaging. 

2. The item itself stays out of the landfill: I found an unopened package of outlet covers in a drawer. My children have long passed the age at which they might stick things in electrical outlets, so this was an instantly gift-able item. I posted them to the group and the response was tremendous. So many young families wanted these. I found myself digging through drawers looking for loose used outlet covers to give more of them away. The thing is, these are tiny pieces of plastic that feel entirely disposable. I'm sure many people throw them away. But why? They are still perfectly useful to a person who needs them.  

This is also true for food items. I see a lot of perfectly good food items posted in our local group, and I've even posted some food items myself. You can't donate an open bottle of fancy ketchup that you just don't like the taste of, but a neighbor is perfectly happy to come get it and it stays out of the landfill. 

3. Trash: My stuff has to go somewhere eventually. Everything I own will go somewhere. Either I can gift it now or someone else will clean out my house later. In the latter scenario there is a much greater chance that things will get trashed, even if they could still be useful to someone. If I can find that person who can use it now, then eventually less ends up in the trash. 

4. Try before I buy: Through the group I'm finding many neighbors are willing to lend tools, and other items on a short term basis. I don't need to buy a circular cutter for that fabric project, a neighbor will lend it to me first to see if it really works the way I hope it will. Many things can be borrowed instead of bought. 

5. I buy less: The process of clearing my house of things we no longer need is a really good reminder to buy less stuff to begin with. Also, I am more aware of what I have, so I am less likely to go out and buy duplicates of things I already own enough of. 

My local gifting group has another name now. Something about copyright issues. So you may need to do some searching to find your local gifting group, probably on Facebook, but there are other apps where you can give away free items to people nearby. 

Safety: Of course consider your personal safety. Never post your address publicly. Our gifting group requires us to post an item, see who is interested, and then privately message the chosen recipient with pick up information. I typically look at what other things the person has posted in the group to make sure I am dealing with a legit group member, who is also gifting their abundance into the neighborhood. Someone who has never gifted any items of their own is unlikely to be my choice to receive an item. 

Other options: 

Sell it: I've done that. It's challenging to make sure the items are really nice enough to sell, photographed well, stored until they actually sell etc. Then packaged, mailed, etc. I still have a box of items that are listed on Poshmark. I lowered the prices a lot and those items are still sitting in that box. Letting go of that hope is the project of another day for now. 

Donate it: I still use this option when an item does not attract attention in our gifting group within 48 hours, I add it to the donate bag. 

The one with the laundry swaps: soap sheets and dryer balls

The first, really easy, change I made when I decided I wanted to make less trash and reduce plastic in my consumption, was to swap my dryer sheets for dryer balls,  and my laundry soap jug, for laundry soap sheets. 

The messaging about laundry soap sold in large heavy plastic jugs being a total waste of resources is really true. It is ridiculous that we have let the soap industry convince us that we need to buy huge ugly plastic jugs of mostly water to wash our clothes. Besides the plastic, also consider the cost to transport all that extra weight. Plus, deceptive cap sizes have convinced most of us to use more soap than we need to. So, while the bottle may claim to have 150 loads, most consumers use too much soap and end up getting only 100 washes from the bottle. And, I'm learning, too much soap is bad for my machine and my clothes, when they don't rinse clean. Don't get me started on the plastic waste of pods either.

    Note: This post contains affiliate links. But I only link to things that I personally chose, like, and continue to use. Please consider a link to be my personal recommendation for that item.

Laundry Sheets

I switched to laundry sheets. They come in a pack of 50. And because I have a front loading HE washer that uses less water, I cut the sheets in half. So I get 100 washes from a box that weighs about 1 pound, is packaged in paper, and is smaller than the box of dryer sheets I used to buy. I throw the half-sheets in with the clothes and they work great. Currently, I'm buying these with my Amazon subscribe and save box. 

I also started adding 1/2 cup of distilled white vinegar to the fabric softener dispenser. My clothes do not smell like vinegar, but my washer has lost that funky smell front loaders sometimes get. I think it's because A. I'm now using the appropriate amount of soap via the laundry sheets, and B. The vinegar in the rinse cuts any leftover soap. 

Dryer Balls

My favorite laundry swap is the dryer balls. I read some tips about adding essential oils to them, but I decided to store them in a glass jar with some rocks with oil underneath. (I found this jar at Target for $5) I put lots of lavender and peppermint oil at the bottom of the jar before I added the rocks. The dryer balls smell great and the whole thing is cute too. 

I use all six laundry balls in every load. They are reusable.  I've heard I may need to replace them in 6-12 months. I'll keep you posted. They don't reduce static as much as dryer sheets do, so I added a safety pin to one of them. It seems to be helping. I also bought these through my Amazon subscribe and save box. And I think I'll get more that way to give as gifts to friends and family. 

No one in my house has complained about any of these changes. The clothes are clean. The dryer balls are fun to hunt for when taking laundry out of the dryer, and they are pretty decorative in their jar. Also, we can always tell when there is a load of laundry in the dryer, because the jar is empty. 

You can do this

If you want an easy first step to reducing your plastic consumption and your trash creation, I highly recommend starting with your laundry routine. These changes were mostly cost neutral, and easy. If you use a laundromat then the laundry sheets are a no brainer. They are much lighter than liquid soap. You can even throw them in with your clothes before you leave home and not have to take the whole box. 

I do have to figure out what to do with the liquid soap I have left and the box of unopened dryer sheets. I've been waiting a few weeks to make sure my family would embrace the new laundry routines, but now I think it's time to gift them in our local reuse economy. But that's another post. 

Trash?

The laundry sheets come in a light weight paper box. Eventually it will get recycled. No trash. 

The dryer balls came in a light weight canvas bag. I'm adding it to the bags I use for buying from bulk bins at the grocery store. No trash. 

The vinegar comes in a gallon size plastic jug, but when it is empty I'll take it to a refill store I've been wanting to check out. Reuse=no trash. 

Drying Racks

A post about my laundry routine would not be complete without an honorable mention for my wall mounted drying racks. My family had been air drying jeans and a lot of our other clothes for years on foldable racks that we never actually folded. They took up a lot of floor space and they were flimsy.  I started looking for wall mounted solutions and found these. Love them. They have just as much space as our old racks and they easily collapse against the wall when we aren't using them.  I can reopen them in two seconds. And we can get to the cabinets in the garage again. 

Pictured are the 30" rack above, and the 22" rack below. We have both sizes because that's what fit best in the space. (The prices on these fluctuate wildly from $45-70. It might be worth waiting if the price is high when you look at it.)

The one with the shampoo bars

 In 2021 I did a favor for a friend. It involved getting up early, waiting around, and then managing a tricky delivery. I also watered some plants in the process. But none of that is the important part. 

The important part is that my friend thanked me for this favor by sending me a great starter set from The Earthling Company. This is definitely up there in list of great gifts I was not expecting. The set included, a body bar, a face bar, a shampoo bar, a conditioner bar, a cute little wooden soap dish and a sisal soap saver bag. 

Note: That link above will get you $10 off your first order over $30. 

Conditioner, shampoo, body bar on 8" soap dish. 

Thus was my introduction to the concept that shampoo could come in a solid form. Okay, I already knew that, but I certainly had never seriously considered trying it. I loved it. That shampoo bar lasted months, and then I ordered four more. Those carried me through the rest of 2021, all of 2022, and I just started using the last one here in the beginning of 2023. So five bars have been all the shampoo I needed for the last 21 months. When the Earthling Co. says their bars last 3-4 months, they are't lying. 

And the conditioner bars last even longer. I bought equal numbers of shampoo and conditioner bars, but now I am on my last shampoo bar, and I still have two extra un-opened conditioner bars ready to use next. (One will be on the soap dish next week. The current bar is almost done.)

I am exclusively using and specifically recommending the bars from The Earthling Company. I was gifted a shampoo bar in a store from a brand whose other products I really enjoy. That shampoo bar was not a good fit for me. I did try it for a few weeks thinking any high quality shampoo bar should be the same as another. It was not  and I went right back to my Earthling shampoo bar. My hair was so much happier when I did. 

Tips: 

-I keep my bars on a long soap dish just outside my shower. See picture in this post. This keeps them drier and I think that helps them last longer. 

-I've heard people say to lather your hands and not apply the bar directly to your head. I rub the bar all over my head. It's fine. It rinses clean. 

-I don't have to wash my hair as often when I'm using this shampoo bar. I went from almost daily washing, to going at least three days and sometimes four between washes. My scalp just produces less oil. (There are actual chemical reasons for this based on the ingredients in the bar.)

-Eventually my shampoo bar always breaks in half. I keep using one half and the other half becomes my "travel size" bar. I wrap it in a scrap of fabric and throw it in my toiletry bag. It dries quickly after a use. 

-The shampoo bars travel well. I tend to not travel with the conditioner bars. They are softer and can melt in a warm car. I have a spray on, leave in conditioner that I use when I travel. 

Trash: 

-None really. The bars come in small cardboard boxes. I store them in those until I'm ready to use the bar and then I recycle the little box. I love that I can store a year's supply of shampoo and conditioner bars in less space than one shampoo bottle used to take up. 

-I am usually able to use up a bar completely. Eventually it does break into small pieces. But I just keep rubbing those around on my head until I loose them. 

A post like this should probably include a hair picture, so here is mine. I washed my hair last night and went to bed with it slightly damp. The only products I've used on it for the last two weeks have been Earthling Co. shampoo and conditioner bars.