Replace your large garbage bin with a smaller one. Generate less trash by recycling paper, glass, cans and some plastics and by composting all organic kitchen scraps, including tea bags and coffee grounds.

What’s In It For the Planet?

  • Explore your city’s waste collection policy. Many cities and towns charge less if you use a smaller bin.
  • Between 1960 and 2007 the amount of waste each person created almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.6 pounds
    per day. (EPA)
  • Reducing and reusing are the most beneficial forms of waste prevention. These habits protect natural resources, reduce waste toxicity, and save you money in many “pay-as-you-throw” communities.
  • Recycling reduces the need for landfills and incineration; prevents pollution caused by the manufacturing of products from virgin materials; saves energy; decreases greenhouse gas emissions; and conserves natural resources
  • Composting enriches soil; cleans remediated soil; and reduces the need for water, fertilizers, and pesticides.
  • Composting also prevents pollutants in stormwater runoff from reaching surface water by acting as a filter to keep fertilizers, pesticides, and other contaminants from leaching into the groundwater supply.

What’s In It For Me?

Challenge your family to create less waste and you’ll likely see a difference in your monthly expenses. In many towns and cities, the smaller the bin the smaller the fee. And if you’re lucky enough to live in a municipality that collects both compost and recycling, producing less trash won’t be such a big challenge.

You can also save your precious compost for your backyard vegetable garden. Many garden enthusiasts prize their organic compost for its nutrient-dense, miraculous – not to be confused with Miracle-Gro – nature. Your leafy greens will thank you. If your town doesn’t pick up compost or you’re an urbanite without a backyard, find out if your local community garden will accept your scraps.

Learned in the ways of waste reduction? Share your story with others who are also taking steps to live greener today.

Finding the Sacred In…Switching Out Your Garbage Bin

We’ve been recycling everything Berkeley allows since we’ve lived here. We also used to compost our veggie and fruit scraps in our yard, even though it took up space, attracted some pests, and required a bit of maintenance. My husband takes credit for putting up with that. When Berkeley started the green bin curbside composting we were able to compost a lot more: milk cartons, food packaging, meat scraps, etc. I buy milk only in the half-gallon waxed paper cartons now because I can compost them. We found that our trash bin was usually only half full. Reducing to the smallest bin was an easy choice at that point.
- Dan & Laura, Berkeley

Wanna Learn More?

Learn how recycling makes a difference with the
Recycling Calculator

Join the National Recycling Coalition

Learn more about California’s sustainability efforts at
Green California

Check out environmental art collective Free Soil

Want to make art with found objects? Become an artist-in-residence at the San Francisco dump! See some
art here and here.

Where does all that stuff go? Learn more in the film The Story of Stuff

Ari Derfel Saves His Trash for a Year

 

Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She’d scour the pots and scrape the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
And though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
And so it piled up to the ceilings:
Coffee grounds, potato peelings,
Brown bananas, rotten peas,
Chunks of sour cottage cheese.
It filled the can, it covered the floor,
It cracked the window and blocked the door
With bacon rinds and chicken bones,
Drippy ends of ice cream cones,
Prune pits, peach pits, orange peel,
Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,
Pizza crusts and withered greens,
Soggy beans and tangerines,
Crusts of black burned buttered toast,
Gristly bits of beefy roasts. . .
The garbage rolled on down the hall,
It raised the roof, it broke the wall. . .
Greasy napkins, cookie crumbs,
Globs of gooey bubble gum,
Cellophane from green baloney,
Rubbery blubbery macaroni,
Peanut butter, caked and dry,
Curdled milk and crusts of pie,
Moldy melons, dried-up mustard,
Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,
Cold french fried and rancid meat,
Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.
At last the garbage reached so high
That it finally touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course, it was too late. . .
The garbage reached across the state,
From New York to the Golden Gate.
And there, in the garbage she did hate,
Poor Sarah met an awful fate,
That I cannot now relate
Because the hour is much too late.
But children, remember Sarah Stout
And always take the garbage out!

- Shel Silverstein

 

Wanna Do More?

  • Recycle your electronic waste.
  • “Greenscape” your yard: build and maintain healthy soil; plant right for your sight; practice smart watering; use holistic pest management; practice natural lawn care.
  • Establish a recycling/compost program in your
    child’s school.

Have some suggestions of your own? Share them on HabitChat.