7, week 5

waste.

something we a do a lot of, and i have always wondered how much more responsible for the earth i could be as a good steward of what we've been given... we've always recycled bottles & cans, but that's about the extent of cutting down on the waste our home contributes to the earth and its landfills... 

ok, i also repurpose and "upcycle" a lot of castoffs (trash turned treasure) in my art and jewelry and decor... but, let's be honest - that was just cause i LIKE rusty stuff, not out of any kind of intentional awareness of being less wasteful. i'm sure i have been one of those people who (at least inwardly) mocked those who made actual effort at "being green". but it has been more on my radar the last couple of years, and this chapter of the 7 book just really brought it to my attention. 

so week 5 was a "fast from waste". we chose as our actions this week to:

*build and begin to maintain a compost bin

*build garden boxes, and start our long-awaited vegetable garden

*recycle everything possible

*no paper towels or ziploc bags, and try to avoid any type of non-recyclable packaging as much as possible

*try to buy fresh local organic produce in season (farmer's market) 

i LOVE our compost bin! just aesthetically, it is lovely with its weathered old pallet-wood. and we (meaning Jason - i stapled window screen to the inside of the slats... and then quickly retreated to the air-conditioning) made it entirely out of stuff we already had around the yard and garage! and i am so amazed at how much i used to toss in the trash can actually be composted. this was one contributing factor to our significantly smaller trash load this week.

our first offering:

as you can see, we are (so far) fairly casual composters... not grinding everything to a pulp so it breaks down faster - just tossing it in there (we did chop stuff like corn cobs & whole rotting apples). we cleaned out our fridge this day, and i felt much less guilty about throwing aging produce into the compost bin than the trash... at least it will eventually fertilize our garden...

for which we built three garden boxes (we were warned against using pallets for growing food itself, not knowing if there were any chemicals in these old guys' past), and planted them with (mostly) stuff that can be planted late summer for a fall crop (did you know home depot has a year warranty on their plants?! so my poor sweet basil that has already wilted in this august heat will either resurrect or get composted and another in its place! win-win ;) - tomato, bell pepper, basil, and cilantro plants; and carrot, spinach, and broccoli seeds... i chose things we eat often and i always feel like we throw some away because it goes bad before we can eat a whole costco quantity of it... this will be even BETTER than shopping at the farmer's market!

we researched what our trash company will accept to recycle in our blue bin, and i was pleasantly surprised to discover it was a LOT more than i thought! i guess my only category for recycling involved what can be taken in and exchanged for money (bottles & cans, basically) - not that we have really done much of that. but i always warned jason against throwing random papers and plastics in there - but you totally CAN! as long as it's "numbered plastic", and nothing is all food-stained...! yay! our recycle bin had to get taken out MUCH more frequently than our trash this week - hooray! and as we have been continuing to sort through our "possessions" to rid the excess left still from week 3, we came up with lots of alternate uses for junk we would have put in the trash before!

and i couldn't believe how easy it was not to use paper towels or ziploc bags! not a one, and we totally survived! even with the "great kitchen caramelization of 2012"! yes, i was trying to make dulce de leche by boiling a can of sweetened condensed milk for 3 hours. but we left and went to dinner halfway through, completely forgetting it, and came home to this:

the stove fire was still on. i am so thankful that a) our house didn't catch on fire, and b) no one was standing there when the lid blew on this can, spewing its boiling contents across our entire kitchen. we spent at least 6-8 hours in the ensuing days trying to decaramelize and unstickify the ceiling, cabinets, counters, appliances, and floor. what a mess. 

and what a WASTE of time. 

coming home from dinner that evening, our plan was to clean out the rest of the kitchen cabinets, not deep clean it from top to bottom! but now i have a deep-cleaned kitchen! something else i'm thankful for :) now, onto that pesky cabinet-cleanout, weeks in the waiting...