The one where I make my own yogurt

I always knew reducing household trash would be a process. I knew it would take months, if not years, to finish using up plastic packaged products before buying plastic free alternatives. I'm looking at you, lip balms. 

Groceries are still one of the largest sources of single use plastics, and yeah, I've switched to bulk buying for many things, and I even found milk in glass bottles, when it's in stock. I've written before about making my own lemonade to keep plastic jugs out of the recycling bin. Now I have another DIY grocery staple to make myself, yogurt. No more quart size plastic tubs, or individual plastic cups.

Making my own yogurt is remarkably easy. It takes very little hands on time, maybe 5-10 minutes, and it is arguably healthier because I'm not using any added sugar. (This is good for you. You'll get used to it.)

*I would like to pause for a moment and acknowledge my lactose privilege. If digesting milk products is an issue for you, I apologize that I have no alternatives to offer here. 

I searched [make your own yogurt] on line and read several sets of recipes. You can search on your own too, but since you're already here, this is how I do it. 

You'll need: 

• 1-1.5 quart crock pot (I already had one. I'm giving you a link to Amazon, but you can probably find one at a thrift store too. It is best to get the kind where you can separate the ceramic part from the heating part. It just makes it easier to store your finished yogurt.)
• A digital thermometer (I already had one of those too. I linked you to a low cost one, but you might take this opportunity to invest in a better one.)
• 1 quart of milk (I usually use 2% and I can get these in glass deposit bottles from a local market. If you can't find milk in returnable glass, remember that throwing away a paper milk carton is better than throwing away a bunch of plastic yogurt containers.)
• 1 container of yogurt with live active cultures (I bought a Oui vanilla one because those come in cute glass jars and I already had lids for them. The simpler the flavor the better.)
• 1 large bath towel (No link because I really hope you already have a towel.)

Directions: 

1. Heat the milk in the crock pot to 180°. This takes 2-3 hours for me. If you have less time choose the high setting and it takes about 1 hour. If you really need to speed up this step, heat the milk slowly on the stove to 180° and then pour it into the crock pot. (I've accidentally heated the milk over 200° and it still turned out fine. It just took longer to cool.) Getting the milk to 180° changes something about the structure of the protein so it will be ready to become yogurt. (I'm an English teacher not a scientist.)
2. Take your starter yogurt out of the fridge when the milk gets to 180°. Don't do anything with it. Just let it come to room temperature while the milk cools off. 
3. Let the milk cool down to 120° in the crock pot. Unplug the crock pot and let it cool off. This usually takes about another 2 hours. Use your digital thermometer to monitor the temp as it cools. Cracking the lid a bit helps. Setting timers to remind yourself to check the temperature helps too. 
4. When the milk reaches 120° scoop about a cup of the warm milk into a small bowl and add the room temperature yogurt. Stir them together. (Measurement of how much you take out to mix with the starter yogurt isn't critical.)
5. Add the mixed milk and yogurt back to the crock pot, give it a stir, and put the lid on. 
6. Wrap the whole crock pot in a large towel. I use a large bath towel folded in half. I set the crock pot in the middle and fold up each corner so that they overlap. Then I turn a small bowl upside down on top of it all. This helps to hold the towel in place. Note that the crock pot is UNPLUGGED. (I am not responsible for electrical fires caused by any failure to follow these directions. Heck, I'm not responsible even if you follow the directions exactly either. Make yogurt at your own risk. It's not supposed to be dangerous.)
7. Walk away for 10-12 hours. (I usually go to bed.)
8. In the morning, lift the ceramic insert from your crock pot and move the insert to the fridge. Leave the cover on. (I told you you'd be happy if you had the kind of crock pot with a removable ceramic part.)

Tips: 

Often my yogurt has extra fluid. You can choose to spoon this out or mix it in. It's a matter of personal choice. I like my yogurt thicker, so I tend to spoon it out. Just depress a table spoon into the top of the chilled yogurt and it should fill with clear liquid. When you scoop yogurt out, more liquid will probably seep into the space. You can spoon that out as you go, or mix it in. 

This yogurt will taste very tart if you are not used to unsweetened yogurt. Until you adjust, I suggest adding a few teaspoons of honey to your serving. Adding berries and granola helps too. Slowly reduce the amount of honey you add and eventually you'll be eating sugar free yogurt. Well, except for the granola 😎

I have also found it is really easy to make my own granola, but I'll have to share that process in another post. 

Oh, very IMPORTANT, before you enjoy all of your fabulous yogurt, SAVE some to use as a starter for your next batch. If you used a Oui yogurt to start this batch, then just clean that container and fill it with some of your new yogurt. It will help if you have some of these lids handy. Keep your new starter yogurt in the fridge for up to two weeks and then use it to make more yogurt. 

Timing: I have found it is best to start this process at about 4:00 in the afternoon. This means the crock pot is wrapped and ready to rest between 9-10 and I can go to bed. I know we can't always start our yogurt at 4:00. That's why I offered the suggestion of warming the milk on the stove. You'll have a sauce pan to wash, but it will make the process faster. The milk will cool faster too because you are pouring it into a cold crock pot. 

Now you know that making your own yogurt is easy. I get to make less trash and enjoy my own sugar free yogurt for breakfast. I've been working this plan for several months now. It's a great way to reduce plastic waste, un-process my diet, and consume less sugar. 

And, if you are one of the people who has had to hear me say, "Did I mention I'm making my own yogurt now?" this post is dedicated to you. 

If you are the friend who told me 25 years ago that I could do this, you know who you are, thank you. 

The one with the zero waste grocery store

I am so lucky to live in a city that has a zero waste grocery store. The Mighty Bin is the amazing labor of love from, Isabelle DeMillan. This is a storefront grocery store in the North Park neighborhood of San Diego. 

The idea is that shoppers bring their own clean containers and refill from hundreds of items sold in bulk. When I arrive, they weigh my containers and either write the weight on the bottom, or use an elastic band to add a tag that electronically holds the information about the weight. As I fill each container they add the item to my tab until I am ready to check out. 

BYO Containers:

Unlike other grocery places, where bringing my own containers makes me an unusual customer, at the Mighty Bin it is totally normal, accepted, and encouraged to for me to walk in with a collection of bottles, canisters, and canvas bags to fill with my groceries. They even accept donations of bottles and jars to give to people who don't have containers, or need an extra one. These get cleaned and sterilized at the store before becoming available to customers. (I donate bottles to reduce our recycling, and so they get reused.)

The reason I love The Mighty Bin is because they have items I can not find in bulk anywhere else. Yes, I live within a mile of a Sprouts, and they have great bulk bins for many of my regular items, salt, sugar, flour, rice, oats etc. The Mighty Bin has all those things too, but there are specific things I can't find in the bulk section of other stores that are available there. Plus The Mighty Bin has liquid things that I can not buy in bulk anywhere else. 

Bulk items I can find there that I can't find elsewhere: 

Arborio rice, baking soda, roasted garbanzo beans, dried blueberries, pretzels, spaghetti and other pasta shapes. 

Liquid items that are hard to find in bulk elsewhere: 

Olive oil, vinegars, sesame oil, maple syrup, honey, dish soap. (I love being able to buy vinegar this way for cleaning, cooking, and laundry.)

They also have a rotating variety of frozen items, which I really appreciate. 

And there is a peanut butter machine we are eager to try once we use up our back stock of peanut butter in jars. 

Here is their full list of products they carry. 

The Best Grocery Store:

The Mighty Bin also partners with lots of local businesses organizations to recycle plastic, collect e-waste, offer classes, order flowers or subscribe to a community supported agriculture box. Check out their Instagram feed for the latest events and ongoing initiatives. 

If you live in the San Diego area a trip to the Mighty Bin is a fun adventure in shopping without packaging. It's a great way to reuse containers you already have. I encourage you to make it a regular part of your grocery rotation. 

Oh, and they were recently voted Best Grocery Store by San Diego Magazine's Reader's Picks. Yay!

The one with the green bin

This is not a drill. The city crew delivered a green bin to our house yesterday. I've looked forward to this for months now. So much of our trash was food waste. Yes, I am working on making less of that, but when I juice lemons for lemonade I still end up with lemon rinds to throw away. 

Now all food waste, rinds, leftovers goes in the green bin. We also get to include all yard trimmings, leaves, and untreated wood like that weird short log we've had in a corner for a long time. It also turns out we produce a lot of compostable materials in the bathroom: hair, q-tips, and biodegradable dental floss, so I'm going to need a compost container in there. 

But, as tempting as it is to buy some new compost bins, I'm going to take a deep breath and start with containers we already have. The city delivered a "small" food scraps bucket with the green bin, but it is ugly and flimsy. I don't want to see it on the counter and I think it may fall apart quickly with heavy use. 

Yesterday, I gave a good scrubbing to the OXO compost bin we used to use when I pretended I was composting in the back yard. It had some suspicious brown stains on the inside, but vinegar and baking soda were remarkably effective. It's cute and functional, but when it came time to make lemonade and dinner I remembered I had a white three gallon bucket in the garage. I called it the dinner bucket. It was easy to throw food scraps into, and scrape plates into, and after dinner it got dumped in the green bin without hassle. For ease of use, you just can't beat a short term compost bucket without a lid to get in the way.

The challenge now will be adapting my family and myself to these new habits. We have to find a way to store and move food scraps on a daily basis. We have to get used to making a trip to the green bin after dinner, and maybe more often than that. We have to re-evaluate how much non-organic trash we make and adjust the sizes of containers we need for food scraps, trash and recycling. 

You know you're a #zerowaste geek when the arrival of the green bin in the highlight of your week.

The one where I travel by car

Traveling via road trip is one of those times where I typically would use a lot of disposable items, mostly related to food, but also small toiletry items, paper hotel bills, bottled water, plastic bags, etc. 

Planning for traveling with less trash takes some thinking ahead, and some different choices, but it's really not that hard. Let's take a look at my thought process by category. 

Note: This post contains some affiliate links. Some are for items I bought, liked, and recommend. Other links go to items similar to things I got as gifts/swag from conferences. 

Food: 

This is the toughest. Fast food is so easily accessible and delicious, but it does generate a lot of trash. Choice is my tool here. I can choose food places that serve on reuse-able tableware. Panera is a favorite option for that reason, but there are also lots of local restaurants worth trying. Taking the time to get off the highway, and sit down at a restaurant is a good way to make less trash and enjoy the trip more. Google maps now makes it possible to find good food options that aren't within sight of the highway. And when friends tell me about good places to eat in their towns, I add those to my "want to go" saved section in Google Maps. 

Of course many places still want to hand me a plastic cup, so I plan ahead and keep a re-useable tumbler cup in my car. This comes in very handy. I can use it for a drink at a fast casual restaurant and also fill it with water in the hotel lobby. Plus, sometimes a restaurant won't even charge me for the drink if I brought my own cup. 

Snacks are readily available in bulk bins. I bring them along in canvas bags, or Stasher bags. This also helps me not spend money at convenience stores. 

Plastic utensils eventually show up in every road trip, so I bring a fork and spoon wrapped in a bandana. The silverware stays clean and the bandana is a re-useable napkin. I've never really needed a knife, but if I think I might need it I could add that to the kit. Some people like a bamboo utensil kit to save weight, but I tend to pack light enough that it's not an issue. Note: If you are getting take out food, you need to specify that you do not need utensils.

Hotels almost always have a coffeemaker and paper cups to go with it. My camping mug was an unexpected gift from an edtech vendor. I didn't think I would use it much, and then I thought about making tea in a hotel room. I would have to use a paper cup provided by the hotel to fit into the one cup machine. I remembered the camping mug and brought it along. It fit perfectly in the coffee maker, and I didn't have to trash a paper cup. One of the things I like about this mug is that it has no handle, making it easier to pack. The lid means I can use it to pack small items too. Apparently, it is hard to find one without a handle. This Yeti one is similar though. 

Water:

I mentioned filling my tumbler cup with water from the hotel lobby. On road trips I also usually bring 1-2 large water bottles that I filled at home. If needed I can refill these while traveling. Often I travel for conferences and there are usually water stations set up I can refill from. This way I never cave to the $7 bottle of water in a hotel room. (I'm not kidding. That was the actual price of the bottle in my hotel room a few weeks ago. And it was not a very fancy hotel.)

Toiletries:

Ahh, the travel sizes. They are so cute. I used to love going to the wall of bins at the drug store and paying a premium for little bottles of shampoo, sunscreen, and other assorted mini versions... of things I already owned in larger sizes. Of course I also owned cheap tiny refillable bottles that leaked sometimes. And I subscribed to one of those beauty samples boxes that sent me 5-6 small sizes of things every month, many of which became "save for travel" items. Then I would get out on the road and find out I didn't really like that product after all. 

It was in 2020 that I bought my set of Cadence capsules. Fair warning, these are pricy, but they are great for travel. I can easily fill them with the products I already use. (No more buying expensive travel sizes of items I'm not sure I'll like.) And, if I consider what I've saved by not buying travel sizes, these have paid for themselves. Plus, I always have exactly the same products I use at home. No surprises. These capsules never leak. Really, the caps fit tight and I've never had a leak issue through lots of flying and driving. They are adorable, and they magnetically stick to each other to keep them together. The lid labels are also magnetic and swap-able. 

The printing on the lids is often hard for me to read without my glasses, not ideal for the shower, so I swap the label tiles from different colored containers to create color combinations I can distinguish. Each original capsule is .56 oz, which is not large. Now, they make bigger versions too, but I have never felt the need for a larger size. 

Part of the reason some people say they want larger Cadence capsules is to carry shampoo. Since I cary a piece of a solid shampoo bar, I don't worry about that. I wrote about my favorite shampoo bars here. 

Grocery Bags: 

In any road trip there comes a time when I need to buy something, so I always cary an expandable bag. If I'm in my own car, there will also be standard sized re-useable grocery bags in the trunk, but the expandable bag is great to keep in my purse. I have a really compact one that was swag from a vendor a long time ago. I've tried to find similar versions of it to give as gifts. These were as close as I could get. I like that they come in a three pack. I put one in my daily backpack and gifted the others to family members. 

Paper: 

A lot of the paper is already out of our travel process these days anyway. Think boarding pass on your phone and hotels that email you the bill. (That sentence would make absolutely no sense to my grandmother, who was an amazing traveler in her day.) I still manage to cut a little more paper here and there, like refusing the map of the local area the hotel receptionist tried to hand me and choosing paperless receipts. 

With a little forethought, some planning, and by brining along just a few extra items, I was able to remove a lot of the trash from my road trips and make myself more comfortable in the process. 

The one with less recycling in the blue bin

Recycling is one of those things that makes me feel good. I've always considered myself very good at recycling. Our blue bin has never contained trash and always had clean, dry recyclables. I regularly checked the flyer from the city to make sure the things I put in there really were recyclable. I broke down boxes so I could fit more in. Our recycling cans, yes I have two, were often full on pick up day. 

Folks who know about zero waste, say you should do a trash audit, so you can see what you are throwing away and then take steps to reduce those things. I kind of skipped that step, but I know pretty well what we are throwing away. 

The things is, our trash production is actually quite small. At this point we are usually trashing one thirteen gallon white plastic trash bag a week. Sometimes two, but mostly just the one. 

But the recycling 🙄. In the days before I started trying to reduce waste, we regularly filled both blue trash cans on the weeks our recycling was picked up. At the time I actually thought this was a good thing. "Look how much of our waste we recycle!"

Now, I know better. I shop differently, and I have found some other ways to divert things from our recycling bins. Reuse for the win!

Cardboard

We are happy online shoppers. I don't see that changing. We like our weekly meal plan box. (I'll write more about meal planning at some point, but the meal plan box is less wasteful than it sounds.) We order pet food online. Buying just the one thing I need online is better than going to a store and talking myself into buying more things. So we have boxes. I used to break them down. I still do that for some small ones, but now I make sure to remove any plastic packing tape first, so they can actually be recycled. 

What I discovered, is that I can give away boxes in our local gifting group. (I wrote about the gifting group here.) There are always people getting ready to move, or moving things into storage, or in need of a shipping box. The trick I found, is to wait until I have 5-6 medium to large boxes. This typically takes about 3-4 weeks, and I'm lucky to have an out of the way place to stack them. No one wants to come pick up one box, but they do like a solid collection. Once I have a critical mass, I take a picture and post it on the gifting group. A grateful person, who doesn't have to buy as many brand new boxes, picks them up from my porch the next day. The boxes get reused and I don't have to break them down or fit them in my recycling can. 

Jam Jars

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are popular in our house. So is jam on toast. Therefore we have a favorite strawberry jam that I get at a local market, okay it's Trader Joes. Their reduced sugar strawberry jam comes in an adorable 12 oz glass jar with a nice gold lid. When I started shopping in bulk bins, I needed a way to store items like gummy bears, and other things that I didn't already have pantry storage for. I started taking the labels off these jam jars and they are so perfect for storing all kinds of things. The jars aren't going in our recycling bin anymore, and I keep finding new ways to use them. Peanut butter jars (we buy that in glass now) and wide mouthed salsa jars are also great reuse containers. And I have a pretty solid plan about how donate these when I have too many, but that's another post. 

Drink Bottles

In the past, my family consumed a lot of drinks that came in plastic jugs, usually the half gallon size. Lots of lemonade came into our house that way, but also iced tea, juices, etc. (See the plastic bottle in the image above? That's the last one I bought. We finally used them all up.) Then it occurred to me that it couldn't be that hard to make lemonade. I had lemons from our CSA box, and I've found that sometimes a neighbor picks their tree and leaves out a box of free lemons. I can turn four lemons into 64 oz of lemonade in under ten minutes. I'll put my recipe below. Boom, a major source of bulky plastic stopped showing up in our recycling bin. The version in the picture above is actually made with grapefruit juice because we got grapefruit in the CSA last week and I figured I'd try it. Works great with the same recipe. I got the glass jar on Amazon, so I wouldn't have to store lemonade in a plastic jug. It fits on the shelf in the fridge door just as well. 

Laundry Soap Jugs

I have written previously about my switch to laundry sheets. I've been using them for months now and I'm still really happy with that choice. I didn't have a jug of laundry soap to recycle very often, but those will no longer appear in our recycling can either.  I still want to be able to have bleach around for some uses, but I have learned I can buy it in tablets that come in a much smaller (though still plastic) bottle. So no more bleach jugs either. 

Cleaning Products

I'm not a big fan of cleaning. I'm learning now that part of my lack of enthusiasm came from really hating chemical cleaning agents. One day during the pandemic, it occurred to me to put on an N95 mask while spraying the shower tiles, it helped, but the product still made my eyes sting. No thank you. And of course those products came in plastic bottles. Even when I dutifully bought refill jugs instead of new spray bottles, I was still adding plastic to my recycling bin. 

Looking for ways to reduce plastic made me finally break down and try one of those brands where you buy the glass spray bottles and refill them with concentrates or dissolving tablets. I won't specify which one I'm trying, because I haven't tried the others and I don't feel excessively well informed about the variations. But I will say I love how well these products work, and how much they do not irritate my eyes, nose and throat. They smell good too. My cat, who used to run when I cleaned, actually comes to investigate when I start cleaning with these. I think he likes the smell of it too. My house is cleaner and there is less plastic waste in the blue bin. 

Full disclosure: I am still working through what's left in some of those plastic refill jugs. There are at least 4-5 of them still in my garage. The use-it-up part of switching to zero waste takes patience. I got serious about this in February of 2023. It's May now and we are just starting to be done using some of our plastic packaged items. Eventually, I may finally admit that I should gift things I don't want to use anymore, but in this case, that feels like passing the problem on to someone else. 

Paper

Oh, I'm going to need a whole separate post about reducing paper. It's a process I've been working on for years. 

What's still in the recycling bin? 

Well, paper, I'm still working on that. Some food packaging, mostly steel cans from pet food, and milk cartons. I tried to get my people to switch to milk that came in a glass jug that I could return for a deposit. The funny thing is the fancy glass jar milk came with a layer of cream on top of the milk. I think the dairy considered 'cream top' a feature. My younglings considered it a bug and would not drink lumpy milk. I thought it was delicious, but I couldn't drink all of a 1/2 gallon myself before it went bad. My husband has switched to getting his 1/2 and 1/2 in the pint size glass jars though, and we return it for the $3 deposit, so that's one less small carton in our waste stream every week. 

Making less recycling seems as much or more important than making less trash. The truth is we already made very little trash when I started to consciously try to make less, but we were proudly generating a lot of recycling. As I look for ways to cut single use plastics, and reuse items before recycling them, we are slowly bringing down the volume of recycling in the blue bin. We need to put it out for collection next week, but this time it will be just one can instead of two. Progress. 

The one with the dental floss

Yeah, it's a little thing, probably the smallest thing I throw away on a regular basis. And, to be perfectly honest, I probably have not contributed as much dental floss to landfills as my dentist would like me too. 

But, hey, every little bit counts, and it turns out there are some really easy ways to stop using plastic in my dental care routine. All of these things avoid plastic in their packaging too.

1. Bamboo toothbrushes: You probably already know about these. I've been using them for years, even before I decided to make a conscious effort to use less plastic. I haven't been entirely successful in getting the rest of my family to use them, but that may change eventually. It's been great being able to tell my dentist I don't need a new plastic toothbrush.

2. Bamboo electric toothbrush heads: These were new to me. My dental hygienist strongly encouraged me to get an electric toothbrush. I resisted because I love my bamboo toothbrushes. Then a family member bought an electric toothbrush at Costco and it came as a pack of two, because Costco. The extra one she didn't need became mine and I resigned myself to buying plastic brush heads for it. But, behold, there are bamboo replacement heads now. I've been using it for months and so far no issues. Some reviews say people don't like the feel of wood in their mouth, but I was used to using a bamboo toothbrush anyway. Eventually, I'll need some pliers to pull out the bristles and compost the brush head in our city collected organic waste bin, which I don't have yet because that program is still in it's roll out phase. 

3. Biodegradable Dental Floss: I LOVE this stuff. I even floss more regularly because I get to use this adorable little glass container with this floss that feels like it is really cleaning between my teeth. First you buy the starter kit with the tiny glass jar and three spools. Then you just need the refills after that. It took me about two months to use up my first spool, so I'd guess the starter kit is a six months supply. The refill pack has five spools. A few disclaimers, we previously bought a warehouse store pack of plastic floss, so we still have some of that to use up. Also, I have one place where my teeth are very tight. Sometimes, I can't get in there with the biodegradable floss and I have to revert to the thin plastic stuff for that corner of my mouth. The reviews that complain that the biodegradable floss is not as strong are correct. It does break sometimes in tight spaces. I can live with that. It's part of the adventure. This picture is from my first spool once it was almost used up. 

4. Dental floss picks: One member of my family prefers floss picks. He has a lot, but once he uses those up we will switch to a variety that are biodegradable. 

5. Toothpaste: I honestly use very little. I don't have a replacement to recommend here, because we haven't gotten through the supply of back stock of toothpaste we have. Seriously, we may need a year or more to go through all the toothpaste currently in our drawers. Once all of that is gone, I'll look at the options. I know there are a lot of choices. Toothpaste tablets, with and without fluoride, abound. Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions. 

I've linked to versions I bought or am considering buying next, but you may also be able to find these things near you at a local health food store or refill shop. Whenever possible I encourage you to shop locally for your #zerowaste items and support those small businesses. 

Note: This post and others includes one or more affiliate links. I usually only link to products I actually bought, use, like, and recommend. In this case, I did link to one item I plan to buy in the future. 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 where I bring my own leftovers box

We like to go out to eat, but I almost always end up with leftovers. Asking the server for a to-go box as they deliver my meal has become standards practice. So often we have struggled to flag down our busy server and get a to-go box at the end of a meal. 

But, with a zero waste lifestyle goal, I began just bringing my own container to stow my leftovers. I don't need to add another task for a busy server, and I can box up my food whenever I'm ready. 

It sometimes feels a little awkward to bring my own box. I admit I was a little nervous about it the first few times, but the reactions from servers has been really supportive. The first time I did this, the waiter saw me loading my extra raviolis into my own container and he said, "I love this!" then he repeated it several more times. 

The tight sealing lid has never leaked, unlike single use packaging. I can fit the box in my purse, both with and without food in it. (I would never have put a single use box in my purse, definite leak situation there.) I don't have to take home any extra packaging, paper or plastic, and my food stays fresher. 

When we are getting ready to go out to dinner I just grab a container from our stock and slip it in my purse. I am fortunate enough to have a nice bag that is big enough to do this. 

I found my glass food storage containers at a discount shop that sells overstock from other places, but they are basically these.  Any container you have that fits in your bag and is airtight will probably work for you. 

I'm going to keep bringing my own box whenever I think I may have leftovers. Maybe you'll do the same. 

Note: This post includes an affiliate link to a product I didn't actually buy. It is the closest thing I could find to one I did buy from a local store. I suggest you try to find something similar from a local overstock place near you. If you by something through the link I shared, I'll earn a small (very small) portion of your purchase and I'll use it to buy books for my classroom. 

This post also includes a link to the company I bought my purse from. I love the bag I bought from them. They also offer teachers a discount and I love a good teacher discount. 

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. 

The one with the cloth napkins

 One obvious, and relatively easy, trash reduction change my family could make was to stop using paper napkins and switch to cloth. I heard cloth napkins were easy to find at local thrift stores, so I intended to go do some shopping. I really did intend to do that. Like any day now. 

The napkins I already owned

I wanted to buy some cloth napkins that were not "special." Something my family could use every day. Something I wouldn't worry about getting stains on etc. 

I do own some cloth napkins. I bought them over ten years ago when I bought the table cloths I use most of the time. To be clear one of these table cloths has been on our table every day for years. They've been washed many times and had all kinds of things spilled on them. But somehow I thought the matching napkins would be more vulnerable to damage? And by matching, I mean they are made of the exact same fabric. 

Finally, I decided we should use some of the matching cloth napkins. I knew exactly where they were, in a cupboard close at hand. I could have easily reached for them anytime.  I took them out of the open box they were carefully arranged in on the shelf. I pulled out four to add to the table. This felt good. We were not going to be throwing away any paper napkins tonight!

And that's when I saw it, the little green label still stuck to the napkin I had bought more than ten years ago. Wow, I've really never used this napkin before?  Spoiler, it wasn't just that one. All of them still had their original stickers. They were so "special" I had never used them at all. Total #facepalm moment. 

Now, instead of a napkin holder full of paper napkins in the middle of the table, we have a stack of folded, clean, fabric napkins, that just happen to exactly match the table cloth. Full disclosure, often they are clean enough to use for multiple meals before getting tossed in the wash basket. 

I've removed the labels (and price tags) from all of the cloth napkins we own, and they are all in full use rotation on the dining table. Some day, I may find myself at a thrift store buying more,  but I have reason to believe these napkins should be good for at least a decade. 

The one with the Veggie Box: Getting Produce from my local CSA

In 2009 I started getting fruits and veggies from a CSA (community supported agriculture). This is a farm in my county that puts out a weekly or bi-weekly box of produce. I get one every other week. For about $30 I get a box with a dozen or so different kinds of items. I'm lucky enough to live in Southern California, so the variety and quality of this locally grown and organic produce is wonderful. 

My February 2023 CSA Box Contents

Before I got a box, I sometimes frequented farmers markets. I know many people enjoy that experience, but I didn't. I struggled to make on the spot decisions about which produce to buy, and I didn't like that I had to remember to go there weekly, within a pretty narrow time window. And it was a time consuming process. It din't fit in my life well when I had two small kids. So, I was thrilled when my friend told me we had a local CSA delivering to our neighborhood. 

I still need to remember to pick up my bi-weekly veggie box. (In all honesty, my husband is usually the one who picks it up from a neighbor's porch a few blocks away.) And I still spend time unpacking and processing the contents. But I like the serendipity of discovering that I like things I would never have chosen to buy. I like to consistency of knowing I will have produce. I like having a selection of seasonal items chosen for me. And when there is something in the box we don't like (looking at you fennel) we drop it in the swap box and another neighbor will pick it up. 

There are several advantages of having one local pick up spot for all the CSA customers in our neighborhood. One is the aforementioned swap box. People leave items they don't want and others take them. Another is the simplicity for the farm in having one drop off point. A third is that if someone doesn't pick up their box, it gets gifted by the drop off host to another friend. (Way better than leaving produce rotting on your porch because you forgot to cancel a delivery.) The food comes in large waxed boxes. We just open our box on the porch, transfer the produce to our own bags and then collapse the boxes for the farm to reuse.

It's prepaid, but I can skip a box if we will be traveling. The farm publishes a list weekly of what to expect to find in the next box. This helps me plan my weekend shopping trip. My son likes broccoli, but I won't buy it at the store if I'm expecting some in our CSA box. 

Every CSA is different, some include eggs, some drop off at your door. Some offer more variety, some less. The important thing is to find one that is local to you, fits your time constraints, budget etc. And when considering the budget part, remember that joining a CSA will reduce your grocery store bill, and maybe even make it possible for you to go shopping for food less often. With the perishables coming through the CSA, I make fewer trips to the store now. 

I want to make less trash

I don't think anyone really wants to make more trash, but I want to start making deliberate choices in my life style that will create less trash. This blog is my effort to document that process. I doubt I'll ever be one of those folks who gets all the way to zero waste. I'm realistic enough to admit that. 

Nothing on this blog will ever be Pinterest perfect or Instagram arranged. This is my real life. The real choices I make and any cool things I figure out, probably long after others figured them out first. 

My interest in creating less waste has been growing for a while. It crept in with a reusable water bottle, metal straws, and the shampoo bar a friend gave me. Then it was about having less single use plastic in my lunch box, and wondering about other places I could replace plastic and trash in my life. 

Even though I've been slowly moving toward less waste for a long time, I'm now realizing that I want to do more; examine each thing I buy in terms of it's sustainability, life span, and end of use plan. 

Stick with me. I'll write about some of the changes I've already made and bring you along as I tackle new ways to reduce my waste stream.