I love, love, love running into people here where I live that actually read my little blog! Such a compliment, especially since I am far from a writer. The first thing they always are curious about is how we create such a small amount of trash. So, here’s what we do here that seems completely normal to us!
*We don’t use paper products. (Well, we do use toilet paper) no paper towels, napkins, paper cups/plates. We have our unpaper towels for both our house and lunches
*Meal planning- I plan out the meals for the week so that I only buy what I need. I don’t throw out uneaten food here.
*Be a fixer/maker. We try our best at fixing anything that breaks. I can patch/sew/repair fabric things and the mister is an amazing trouble-shooter and fixer. We also make a ton of things that others buy, like soap, all purpose cleaner and even pretty much anything that the mister can create!
*No food in the garbage: the chickens and worms get anything that is leftover that we don’t want, or pieces of peelings.
*be a baker-yes, we make a lot of our own breads, cakes, muffins, cookies and anything else that normally comes in a wrapper. I enjoy it, and definitely need to work on this more. I tend to be better at this in the summer time!
*we are non-shoppers. Shopping isn’t a hobby or exciting event for us. If something is needed, we look for it second hand. Then, if we can’t find it we buy it new. We also always take a list and use our reusable bags.
*Say no to plastic wrap! I use the reusable beeswax wraps that I made to cover up bowls and plates. We also use containers and reusable sandwich bags, so no ziplock bags are used here!
*Grow what you eat! We grow a lot of the foods that our family really likes and love the fact that our dinner traveled a whole 10 feet from our yard to our table!
*we are preservers! We grow what we enjoy and then preserve whatever we can. We enjoy our own tomatoes sauces, jellies, green beans, onions, garlic and potatoes all throughout the winter.
*we are recyclers. Our small town does not recycle a lot. We recycle what we can here. I don’t believe that recycling is the great answer with plastics, but what we can’t refuse to use we do recycle.
* we compost!! Coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit peels, papers and cardboard get composted. The mister also burns some of the cardboard too.
* We are leftover eaters. I take leftovers in my lunch a lot, in reusable containers. That means not much eating out, so no straws (they’re terrible), styrofoam cups or even condiment packages.
*reusable everything! We refill our foam soap pumps, use and make our own cotton dishcloths (that can eventually be composted).
That’s more than a handful of what we do. We are far from perfect and we are going to continue working on leaving this planet a better place! If you can think of anything else to add, please leave a comment! And remember that I look at this as a way of life and not a competition. 💚🌎
