Going Green and Saving Some: Trashbags

The last time I remember buying trash bags was in July 2012 when that was one of our assigned items for a lake trip with some friends. We went to target and picked up our stuff and I thought "Yikes, trash bags are expensive!". Their entire purpose is literally to be thrown away. Sounds like a good way to throw away money to me.

Matt's family has always kept a big garbage can in the garage and used grocery sacks inside or just made frequent trips to the garbage can. At first this was foreign to me. Where is your trash can??? They have a trash compactor but I have always been terrified to use it. What if I put the wrong thing in there? I feel like there's special rules to the trash compactor and if I was ever going to try to get them to love me despite being a registered Democrat, I wasn't about to break the trash compactor. So for years, when I visited I'd walk out the the garbage can in the garage when I was done with my zone bar wrapper. Zone bars are sort of like protein bars. Matt's family doesn't usually eat breakfast and so when no one was in the kitchen I would rummage around for pre-wrapped items and down it and destroy the evidence. Some things feel like a big deal when you're first dating a new guy and especially when you're staying with the family. Now, to Lisa's credit (Matt's mom) for the past several years she almost always has breakfast stuff available when I come over, or I make myself some eggs and she doesn't make me feel weird about it or anything. It's hard to be a breakfast eater in the non-breakfast eater world.

Anyway, back on track. After Matt and I got married we adopted the same system (rather, he forced it on me because he had already been living in our home for a year). Trashcan in the garage, small bags in the house. This took some getting used to. It's also a little hard to explain to guests. But seriously, it's now a much easier system. It also smells better. And we RARELY buy trash bags .

Although I am a dedicated reusable bag....user, some how you still end up with bags. Maybe you go in for just a couple of  items. Maybe you forget the bags. Maybe you accidentally left the bags in the garage before you left. Then there's the issue of shopping for clothes and such. I haven't started bringing in my own bags for that yet. I'm a little nervous they would think I was shop-lifting. Then I would have to give them a whole speech about saving the environment and how we all need to do our part. Then we both would be embarrassed. So this is our pantry and we just have one of those command strip hooks and we take it out the the garbage can as needed (typically once every day or other day).


Now remember, the order is reduce, reuse, recycle in terms of benefit to the environment. Through this system we are reducing the number of trash bags purchased, and reusing bags that we have some how accumulated (despite my best efforts). So we'll call this a win.

We do have a normal trash can, it's just in the garage. We put things in there that don't smell as well like left over food or things that might not fit in the little bag. It only gets emptied once a week or so (I honestly don't know, this is Matt's territory) so we need to purchase trash bags MUCH less often. Much.

We don't really produce much trash because we recycle so much. Starting this summer they brought us one of these big boys. And they increased the number of things on the recycling list. What a good day.

In further effort to reduce trash (and thus the number of trash bags we need) we compost all of our vegetable and fruit scraps. Along with dryer lint, egg shells, and just about anything that is living but rodents wont get into. Don't compost meat or you'll have a whole world of issues on your hands.

I have a cute little stainless steel can I keep under the sink. I line it with compostable bags. I got a box for free at a sustainability conference that have lasted me almost a year now. I am going to the conference again in October so maybe I'll get the hook up again.

This is the brand that I use. They're about $8 on Amazon and like I said, they last about a year for us, and we consume TONS of produce. They are 3 gallons. So 3 gallons x 25= 75 gallons of diverted waste from the landfill in one year. And we are talking minimal effort. 

So then I take it out to the composter out in the back yard. We have a door out the back of the garage so I probably have 15-20 steps involved. 

Nice non-invasive (as in the aesthetics aren't too bad) composter. Every now and then (like I dunno twice a season when it's warm) you turn it over to mix it up. 

And then you get dirt!

That right there is all of my old fruits and vegetables turned into nice nutrient rich dirt. And then I put it on my garden. So I save money on compost too. 

These aren't huge things, but they add up. And so does the impact on the environment. These aren't the sole solutions to the impacts of climate change, but if we all take on some project that meets our interests, we really can help things out. Furthermore, we could do things like pay attention to the things around us. Where do we recognize inefficiencies? I remember at OSU they were always watering the sidewalks instead of moving the sprinkler over a few feet so it would actually hit the grass. We should give people a polite call when we see stuff like that to reduce waste. It's better for the environment and it's better for budgets, which is better for tax payers. Don't mind me, I am just over here saving the world's problems....

Just kidding. I have a long way to go but I believe in fighting the good fight. And I think it's all terribly interesting and fun. 

Side note: While I walk looking up the link to the compost bags on Amazon, I noticed that the same brand for extremely affordable under the sink composters and you can find them here. There's a nice low-risk way to see if composting is for you! If you do go for it, let me know how it goes!

Posted in: