Reuse, reduce, recycle

I heard those words a lot growing up. My family volunteered at the recycling center, we composted and gardened, we rarely wasted food and we tried to avoid buying unnecessary things.

This month I've been following Chris Jeavans of BBC News as she tries to live for a month without buying or accepting anything containing plastic. She's allowed to keep and use plastic items she already had. It's pretty interesting seeing what kinds of things give her the most trouble. Recent topics have included nappies* (she's using cloth), milk (they're having glass bottles delivered), beer (bottles even have plastic inside the lids), cheese (how to buy it without it being wrapped) and trash (keeping the bin* from smelling without a plastic bag inside).

There are tons of comments, some helpful and some critical. A lot of people talk about the carbon footprint issue, but seem to forget that Chris's main point is to see if it's possible to avoid most plastic, particularly nonreusable plastic. Many people also mention composting to avoid the smelly bin issue. Apparently there's something called bokashi, which in Japanese means "fermented organic matter." It's a way of pickling food waste before putting it into a composter or directly into the soil.

Sadly, this past year I haven't felt guilty about throwing out food waste. Living at home, it was practically a sin not to put banana peels, carrot tops and eggshells into the kitchen bucket, which we emptied every day or two into large composting heaps outside. In Santa Fe, I was able to put my food waste into a composting bin that was maintained by a landscaper on the condominium grounds (as I so gleefully described two years ago). But now, with nowhere to compost the scraps and nowhere to use the compost, I've been throwing out food waste (and sometimes food—that's the worst thing about living alone: not always being able to finish things before they spoil; a freezer helps to some extent, but not everything can be frozen).

Anyway, maybe there's something to the bokashi method. Or if there was someone nearby with a garden and an active composting system, I could deliver my scraps once a week or something. Maybe I'll have to turn to Craigslist for this one. I've also thought of calling the local master gardeners association for advice. I think there's a community garden near the fairgrounds, but that would involve a longer commute for delivery. Or perhaps I need a portable composter for my bike—I could have a little trailer and throw stuff in whenever I need to, then deliver it all over town. I could be the Compost Fairy. With singing worms as sidekicks.

I do think it's worth it to try salvaging what we can instead of dumping it all in the trash. Maybe it's my moderately hippie upbringing that makes it seem like common sense, but the funny thing is, a lot of un-hippie people are starting to catch on. There are still those who drive Hummers and throw out anything they no longer like, but we'll have to contend with them later.

Any thoughts on these matters?

*She's British, so I'm using her words. Plus they're fun.

Comments

[rachel]

hey april - I've been following the no plastic blog too! kind of depressing but necessarily so. Can't give you any tips about composting where you are. But I can tell you about when in my first week of living in the states a few years back, I was trying to get my fellow students to show me where the 'rubbish bin' was. 5 minutes of confusion. 'Oh, she means the trash can!' Happy days.

[Matt]

I've also been following the article, it's very interesting. Additionally, if I remember correctly the phrase is, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" - the first two were backwards. :-)

I've never heard of bokashi. Now I have some reading ahead of me.

For my part, I try to use tupperware as often as possible instead of plastic baggies. I've even (gasp) started washing some of my baggies and reusing them. I feel like mom.