January 1, 2021

All My Trash for December

I’ve been saving my trash in a “plastic audit” since October of last year. 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 take a look to see where I could 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 an occasional tuna can, glass jars with metal lids, and junk mail. But even so, I try to reduce the amount of cans, glass, and paper I recycle.

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

Overall, it’s not terrible considering it’s the holidays. It’s not my best month so far but also not my worst. Let’s take a look to see what I learned each week.

Week 1

Week 1 was a little longer than most since the month starts on a Tuesday. The biggest lesson I learned this week was a 2-pack on Amazon will most likely be bundle together.

Let me explain. I purchased some powdered laundry detergent on Amazon. Since it’s powdered and comes in a cardboard box, I figured it’d be safe to order (i.e. plastic-free). And when I saw that a 2-pack was cheaper than a single box, of course I ordered two. But when I got it, the two boxes were wrapped together with plastic. Having sold through Amazon before, I should have known better. If things are sold in packs of 2, they’re required to be packaged together in some way.

The other anomaly was that I usually order custom Christmas cards to send to family and friends. For some reason instead of being packaged in a cardboard envelope, it was packaged in a cardboard box and had plastic “air bubbles”.

And it took six months, but I finally used all the coffee from my last 5lb bag, so it was time to order another one. I love the coffee from Cafe Moto in San Diego. I drink the decaf bravura which is an organic, water-processed decaf coffee and I take my coffee black. No sugar, no milk, no cream, just pure coffee goodness.

Week 2

Week 2 shows that old habits die hard. I love chips but I gave them up when going plastic-free. But every once and a while, I just want some chips with my sandwich. This is definitely one of the items I wish they could make plastic-free.

Week 3

Week 3 was Christmas! I received a metal camping spork in my stocking which was packaged in mostly cardstock but had a tiny plastic covering. I also ended up recycling a glass bottle leftover from salad dressing. I reused the bottle for a while to store my homemade salad dressing but it ended up being too difficult to clean.

Week 4

During Week 4, we have some remnants of Christmas. I got a pair of gloves from my husband which came with a tag. Normally, I fill the stockings with treats from the bulk bins, but since those weren’t available, I went with two different kinds of Hershey’s kisses (they were delicious).

Also, I finally replaced nearly all the polyester, nylon, and acrylic in my closet with cotton or silk! I was looking for some sweaters and sweater dresses and finally found a few that worked!

Lastly, the most obvious thing is the stand to the daily calendar. You’ve probably seen these at the mall. They’re a type of calendar that you peel off one page at a time. Last year, I thought this would be great for my desk at work. And while I did find inspiration from it, and reused the pages as note paper, I totally didn’t think of the plastic stand it would sit on.

Overall, for this month reminded me that: