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 June!

Overall, I’m happy with the size of the pile. You can definitely see the results of the Wally Shop closing down, since I now have to get rice in a bag instead in my zero waste bulk shipments. I also had a bunch of large bags of loose-leaf tea that I finally finished. It could easily take me a year to finish one of these bags, so I’m not too worried about those at the moment.

Also, contact lens solution is one of the things I know many zero-wasters struggle with. There’s so far, no reusable or non-plastic packaged option for getting sterile contact lens solution. Maybe a business opportunity for someone? 😉 So, until I get Lasik, this will motivate me to wear my glasses more often instead my contacts.

I also bought a new can opener for my kitchen and a small wine opener to put in our emergency bag. Instead of tossing the old can opener, I put that into our emergency bag as well. I talk more about what I put in my emergency bag in this post:

Now that we’ve gone over some of the new things from this month, let’s compare this year’s trash to June 2020:

Since last year, I’ve stopped buying:

• milk
• frozen vegetables
• boxed mac and cheese

And I found solutions for:

• liquid soap
• vegetable tags
• deli bags

For liquid soap, I’ve gotten refills from a few online refill stores and from the Wally Shop, before they closed down. These online refill stores send you liquids in a reusable plastic pouch with a return envelope. When you get your liquids, dump them in your own container and put the pouch in the return envelope and drop it in the mail.

When the company gets the reusable pouch back, they clean, sanitize and reuse it! I talk more about these refill options in this post:

For vegetable tags, I committed to buying those produce items at the farmer’s market, where they don’t need the tags.

And for deli bags, my local grocery store where I get meats and cheese started using regular paper instead of butcher paper, which is oftentimes lined with plastic. So, now I get most of my cheeses and all of my deli meat wrapped in paper. I say most of my cheese because I still can’t find a place where I can buy a block of Parmesan cheese.

For Plastic-Free July, you know I’m going to make an extra effort to ensure my trash pile is tiny. So, that means giving up gummy bears for a while and sticking to my chocolates that come wrapped in paper and foil. Not that bad of a concession with all things considered. 😛 I also got my chip fix in this month, so it should hold me over for a month or two.

What do you think? Are you interested in doing a plastic audit? If not for a month, how about just a week? Let me know if you do!

For related and random posts, check out:

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