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 May!

Overall, I’m happy with the size of my trash pile. It’s definitely smaller than it was a year ago. Since last year, I’ve stopped buying milk and committed to buying most of my produce at the farmer’s market to avoid the veggie tags. I also stopped buying frozen vegetables and boxed mac and cheese, instead choosing fresh vegetables, and making mac and cheese from scratch. Finally, I cut my Amazon packages down and tried to group them into single shipments as best as I could.

This month, I tried following my own advice and looked for the largest package of an item that still comes in plastic. I love chips and I’ve been generally avoiding them since going plastic-free but this month I went all in and bought a HUGE bag of chips from Costco. And after eating all those chips, I can say, I’m pretty sick of chips! 😛

I also used to get organic fruit snacks from the bulk section of Whole Foods, but I haven’t been able to get those since the pandemic. I’ve been missing those gummy snacks, so I ended up grabbing a few bags of organic gummy bears.

As another consequence of the pandemic, LUSH has had a shortage of ingredients. I swung by my local LUSH this month to pick up some shampoo and conditioner bars and found they were nearly empty. So, I purchase a bunch online. Having done this before, I knew that they usually ship with no plastic. Unfortunately, this time each bar was wrapped in plastic. I’m assuming this was a new COVID-related protocol they implemented. Not terrible considering each bar replaces a shampoo or conditioner bottle, but still sort of a bummer. I talk more about shampoo bars in this post:

Finally, I found out last month, that the deli where I get my cheese switched from butcher paper, which is oftentimes lined with plastic, to actual paper! So, now I can get blocks or slices of cheese completely plastic-free! So, in May I finished my last block of cheese wrapped in plastic and look forward to plastic-free cheese!

Next month, I’m going to see if I can eliminate some of the items I buy in glass jars or find some refillable alternatives.

What do you think? Are you interested in trying a plastic audit? If not for a whole month, then how about for a week or even a day? If you do, let me know how it goes!

For related and random posts, check out:

• A Day in My Plastic-Free Life: Part 1
• Plastic-Free Meal Plan