Thoughts, Actions and Successes!

I have been so motivated by seeing how much I have reduced my garbage. I weigh all the garbage in my house: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and everything in between. The first week my garbage weight was 21lbs, averaging to 3lbs per day. This past week week it actually took 8 days to fill up a garbage bag (reused grocery bag) and the weight was 5lbs, meaning 0.62lbs of garbage per day. I THINK THAT IS FANTASTIC! I have definitely noticed my language changing as well; I use the word garbage more carefully. I used to use it as a general word for anything I was 'done with' and wanted to get rid of, and now I use it as a word that is at the bottom of a large filter:

Reduce ____ item ------->

If that fails then:

Reuse ____ item --------->

If that fails then:

Recycle ____ item ----------->

If this item has failed all three filters, only then does it go to the landfill and can be described as garbage (my own opinion).

On a different note, since we are 'The Food Group,' I wanted to mention some recent progress in planning meals with expiration dates in mind to avoid waste. To do this I thought I would let you know what supper was like at our house this evening (besides being delicious... haha). My idea was to make spaghetti and meat sauce. I had a few selections of different kinds of noodles which I threw in together. Then I cooked 1lb of ground beef, added in some onion, a sprouting section of garlic, and I grated a sorry looking carrot and put it in with the meat as well. Then I found some slivers of left over green, red, and yellow peppers and mushrooms and tossed them into a pan with some oil to saute them. I then cut a used hamburger bun in half, mixed together some butter and garlic powder and spread it over top, broiling it for 2 minutes.

When it was all ready I put out the mixed noodles, topped with ground beef, carrots, onions and garlic, then tomato sauce, and put the sauteed vegetables on top of that, added some parmesan cheese and the garlic bread! Sooo yummy! With the bonus of using up stuff in my fridge that expires!

Since I'm already writing you now, I'll let you know some neat things that my husband and I have done in the past few weeks. We decided that taking responsible actions concerning the environment is hard, and takes a lot of thought, and occasionally makes you pick through the garbage for something you forgot that was recyclable. However, there are many things that you just have to do once, and it makes a long lasting change. With this in mind, we changed all of our light bulbs over to the squiggly environmental ones, and we got a duel flush toilet!!!

I would love to hear from others about actions they have taken to reduce waste!

All for now,

-Cooking4two