So, the entire city of Portland is rethinking trash. Or at least, I am. For the past month, Portland residents have only had their trash picked up twice. We all have rather small trash containers that are now only picked up every other week, and in exchange, our yard and food scraps are picked up every week. So now, all food scraps, including meat, go into the yard debris bin and are taken to a facility and composted. Our recycling is still picked up weekly as well.
I didn't initially think this new program would be a challenge; but sometimes it's really difficult. Especially when you've just moved. Or when you're hosting a party of some sort. Or just when your trash is full three days after they've picked it up, and you realize you can pay money to leave it at the dump or cut down on what you throw away indefinitely.
Ideologically and financially, I prefer the latter. So I literally find myself looking around and thinking of ways to reduce my waste, to buy compostable items instead of disposable, and to attempt to recycle more. I already did all of those things before, so it's actually a bit of a stretch of the imagination. However, it's exciting to think that other households are facing the same challenges.
Here's what I find myself doing: intentionally buying compostable paper plates if I'm having a larger party over; intentionally putting all scraps of food into the compost, emptying my vacuum bag and dustpan into the compost, feeding vegetable scraps to my chickens, putting meat scraps in the fridge until they're ready for the compost. Anyone else have other tips?
I didn't initially think this new program would be a challenge; but sometimes it's really difficult. Especially when you've just moved. Or when you're hosting a party of some sort. Or just when your trash is full three days after they've picked it up, and you realize you can pay money to leave it at the dump or cut down on what you throw away indefinitely.
Ideologically and financially, I prefer the latter. So I literally find myself looking around and thinking of ways to reduce my waste, to buy compostable items instead of disposable, and to attempt to recycle more. I already did all of those things before, so it's actually a bit of a stretch of the imagination. However, it's exciting to think that other households are facing the same challenges.
Here's what I find myself doing: intentionally buying compostable paper plates if I'm having a larger party over; intentionally putting all scraps of food into the compost, emptying my vacuum bag and dustpan into the compost, feeding vegetable scraps to my chickens, putting meat scraps in the fridge until they're ready for the compost. Anyone else have other tips?
Our household has been struggling with this! As much as I support the initiative, I'm finding it really difficult to have a big smelly compost bin laying around. In the past I would empty my compost bin daily, but this was because I could bring it to my backyard compost. However, now with the meat and all the other scraps we are putting in the bucket, it seems it's gotten a little more complicated than before....not to mention our garage (garbage area) isn't convenient to our house. Emptying it has turned into about a 10 minute task vs the 3 min task that it use to be. But I agree with your thoughts of thinking of how to decrease the amount of trash we are using/buying. It's nice to think all of Portland is doing this!
ReplyDelete