Trash Talk

So let's talk trash. I recently had an eye opening experience regarding our families weekly trash. We cancelled our garbage pick up. Nick thought it would be a good idea to save the $30 dollars a month since the landfill is on his way to work. I was all for saving some change, but have you ever kept every piece of trash you generate for a week out where you can seen it? (For us it was in our garage.) Let alone trash for 5 people?
 I quickly realized we needed to do something about how many bags we were throwing away. The first week we had about 8 bags. By the second week we had 3. I started saving just about anything made of plastic and reusing them as grow pots for plants in our mini green house. (We do not have a recycling pick up, although I have been told we have a recycling program I have yet to see it in action.) And we also cloth diaper most of the time to cut down on our waste and save money.
What I am most flabbergasted about is what people consider trash! Driving our trash to the dump gives me perspective on what is really happening. At first the sight of "rolling hills" as you pull in can be lovely, until you realized those beautiful hill are peoples buried crap. Looking into the dump truck we fling our bags into is almost painful. A leather sofa, a couple of antique chairs, loads of lumber, and at least 15 lead glass windows. All things I would gladly have reused and re-purposed. Just sad. What more can I say? Please use Freecylce.org and Craigslist.com to re-purpose large "trash" items. Trash does not just disappear, it goes somewhere and stays there until only God knows when. Try keeping your trash for a week and see what you can reuse, you might be surprised.
Egg cartons for growing seedlings, or making caterpillars for kids crafts
plastic milk, juice or soda bottles can be bird feeders, planters and scoops for pet feed
used old shirts, towels for rags and don't use paper towels
and of course save the seeds from your fruits and veggies!