February 1, 2022

All My Trash for January 2022

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 January!

This month, I started buying cereal again for my kids and thus milk more often. I used to be able to get cereal in the bulk section before COVID, but haven’t seen any cereal since then. I also ordered a few things online. I’ve been really trying to limit my online orders to avoid all the “air bubbles” but there’s always something I can’t find in stores. For example, I bought a new knife after using mine almost daily for 10 years. I found this beautiful all metal knife from Henckels, but they didn’t have this particular version at the store…so I had to buy it online. (There’s no commission, I just wanted to share something I love!)

I didn’t love the types with plastic or silicone handles because my old knife split at the handle and started getting moldy. I also bought an in-drawer knife storage block. Although I use my knives several times a day, I realized that I like my counter tops looking as empty as possible.

Also, I’ve mentioned in the past that I get most of our cheese from the deli. I bring my own silicone bag and after the clerk is finished weighing the cheese, I ask them to hand it to me so I can put it in my bag. Then I put the price tag on the silicone bag or just hand it directly to the cashier when I’m paying for my groceries.

The exceptions to this are Parmesan and cream cheese. I get Parmesan in huge plastic-wrapped blocks from Costco and I buy cream cheese in blocks. The blocks are wrapped in a plastic/foil and then packaged in a paper box. So, I recycle the paper box and add the plastic/foil to my trash pile. Even though I would prefer to buy garden vegetable cream cheese, I’d rather avoid the plastic tub that most cream cheese comes in.

Finally, over the holidays I bought a box of Almond Roca. I loved Almond Roca as a kid and I figured that the paper box would be plastic-free. I was so wrong as there was a plastic bag inside.

While it’s not a huge amount of waste, it was frustrating enough that I started making my own toffee! I started with just some toffee and chocolate and then progressed to a shortbread, toffee, chocolate goodness! I’ve made shortbread for years, so I had that recipe perfected. Now with the addition of toffee and chocolate, it’s the perfect dessert!

This is one of those unintended benefits of trying to get to 100% plastic-free. Under normal circumstances, I would have just kept buying the Almond Roca but since I’m trying to get to 0% plastic, it pushed me to figure out how to make my own toffee and I ended up creating something far superior (if I do say so myself). Also, since I’m making it, I control the ingredients. So, there’s no mystery ingredients or preservatives. Just whole ingredients and I can also can control how sweet it is. If you’re interested, here’s the recipe:

Shortbread

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix ingredient. Pressing into a parchment-lined 9 x 9 pan. Remove the parchment paper and shortbread and put it in the fridge to chill for 30 minutes. (You don’t want the pan to be cold when you bake it, so you can remove the parchment with shortbread or just use a second pan.)

Put the parchment and shortbread in a room temperature pan and bake at 350°F for 20 – 25 minutes on the middle rack or until edges start to brown. Let it cool for 20 minutes.

Toffee:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 bar of Tony’s milk chocolate

I like Tony’s chocolate because it’s plastic-free, their chocolate is delicious, and they make their chocolate without slave labor. Yes, a lot of chocolate is made with modern day slave labor. So, I mainly try to stick to slave-free chocolate.

Cook the first four ingredients on medium-low and stir constantly for 10 minutes after it starts to bubble. Separation is okay. For toffee you want to cook it so it gets to the brittle point, so it’s crunchy but you don’t want to burn it. If you undercook it, you just end up with buttery sugar. I don’t use a candy thermometer, but if you have one, it makes it easier to get it past the brittle point without burning it.

Pour onto the cooled shortbread and the put the chocolate bar on top. After the chocolate has melted, smooth it over the surface and sprinkle a little salt on top.

Let it cool in the fridge until the chocolate is hard and enjoy!

Overall, I’m stoked with how little trash I’m producing these days, but I would love to be able to find things in store instead of having to resort to buying them online. In the meantime, I’m going to continue trying to make things at home instead of buying the commercial products, like Almond Roca.

What do you think? Are you interested in a trash audit? If not for a whole month, how about a week or even a day?