I’ve been saving my trash in a “plastic audit” since October of 2019. I live a generally plastic-free lifestyle but I’m not 100% plastic-free…yet. So, to see where the last 1% of my trash was coming from, I started keeping track of all of it. At the end of each month, I look to see where I can improve.

A few reminders of the rules. This is just my trash not my whole family’s (although they don’t generate too much more than this). My husband is not as stringent on plastic as I am, so he buys a weekly tub of yogurt and occasionally some bacon. But again, my husband and kids don’t generate too much more trash than me.

Finally, the city I live in provides compost and recycling along with trash pick-up. Now, given the state of recycling, I only recycle metal, glass, and paper. This generally includes a few cans of tuna and clams a month, a few glass jars of olives or mustard with metal lids, and junk mail. But even so, I try to reduce the amount of metal, glass, and paper we use.

So, now that we’ve covered the ground rules, let’s dive in! Here’s all my trash for the month of April!

Overall, I’m happy with the my dwindling pile but those online orders are a killer. You just never know what you’re going to get! In comparison to last April, I’ve definitely shrunk my pile. Which goes to show, there’s always room to improve!

Since last April, I stopped buying:

• milk
• frozen vegetables
• boxed mac and cheese
• produce from the store that has vegetable tags
• most glass bottles with plastic lids

At the time, my youngest child was still drinking bottles of milk. After she was weened, we rarely have milk in the house. On occasion, my husband will buy a bottle when he makes mashed potatoes or French toast.

As for the produce, I started buying more at my local farmer’s market. It comes without the plastic tags and it helps support my local farmers. For the glass bottles, I had been getting most of my liquids in zero waste refillable containers from the Wally Shop but unfortunately, they closed this month. 🙁 I talk more about how the Wally Shop worked in this post.

Back to this month’s trash audit, the biggest update is that my deli started carrying actual paper instead of butcher paper which is oftentimes lined with plastic. So, now I can get blocks of cheese wrapped in paper! Being a cheese lover this makes me so happy! It really is the little things in life. 🙂

Also, as I’ve mentioned before, I LOVE CHIPS. And before COVID, my office used to cater all the time. The catering company we used made their own chips and they were delicious. So, it was enough to get my chip fix. During COVID when I was working from home, I’d cave once in a while and grab a small bag of chips with my sandwich order. This month, I followed my own advice for items that you can’t find plastic-free by buying a big bag of chips instead of individual-sized chip bags.

For next month, I’m going to look into alternatives to the Wally Shop and consider buying larger quantities of meat and freezing more of it, or cutting down the consumption all together. Also, now that I’m back in the office part time I’m wearing my contacts a lot more. This means my eyes are pretty irritated by the end of the day. So, I’ll probably keep wearing my glasses more often than pre-COVID times.

What do you think? Are you interested in doing a plastic audit? If not for a whole month, how about a week or even a day? You never know what you’ll learn!

For related and random posts, check out:

• All My Trash for 2020
• A Day in My Plastic-Free Life: Part 1