The Non-Consumer Advocate

Today is Day Four of Zero Waste Week, and I work again. The grumbling about the project is starting to starting up, although I nipped that in the bud with bribery of bulk purchase of yogurt covered pretzels and fruit gummies from New Seasons.

Yesterday was more about what I didn’t do, rather than what I did do.

• I didn’t eat individually packaged graham crackers at work.
• I declined individually packaged chocolates.

And on an entirely different subject, I met the woman whose You Tube marriage proposal went viral and has been viewed almost 20 million times!

And there was no packaging involved. 😉

Katy Wolk-Stanley

{ 12 comments }

It’s Day Two of Zero Waste Week, and so far my focus has been on food, food and . . . wait for it . . . food. Searching for businesses who sell without packaging, finding bulk sources and adjusting how my family cooks and eats.

So far, it’s been a delicious experiment.

However, a family’s household waste is not limited to the kitchen, so today I want to shine a spotlight on the rest of the house.

Here’s what my family already does to minimize waste outside of the kitchen:

• We refuse items on a regular basis. Promotional doodads, free whatzits and other people’s discards do not need to enter my house.
• I allow myself time to really think about having to buy stuff before I pull the trigger. I’m often able to come up with an alternate solution to my initial gotta buy it inclination.
• We changed our Oregonian newspaper delivery to just Tuesdays and Sundays. I had originally fully cancelled the paper, but there was a special 99¢/week deal that would include the Tuesday/Sundays coupons. And since there’s a monthly Tuesday $10-off $50 Safeway coupon, this seemed prudent. I don’t use a ton of coupons, but I definitely use some.
• We mend and repair before we replace. This includes backpacks, major appliances, decor, shoes, clothing, furniture and bedding.
• We have eliminated single use products such as paper towels, napkins, Kleenex and pop-up cleaning wipes. Instead we keep a stash of T-shirt rags, cloth napkins, handkerchiefs and bandanas. I clean using washable rags. (I clean the bathroom sink by wetting the hand towel and wiping everything down whenever I switch out to a fresh hand towel.)
• I use a menstrual cup instead of  tampons and pads. I switched over five years ago, and my only regret is that I didn’t know to buy one decades earlier. I love that I no longer have to worry about keeping supplies on hand and being discreet with the bathroom garbage can.
• Even though the initial cost is higher, we mostly use rechargeable batteries. (Yes for my husband’s bike light, no for our smoke detectors.)
• We take advantage of curbside composting, which accepts all garden products, food waste and food soiled paper.
• We rent and borrow instead of buy seldom used items. This can be everything from tools, DVD’s, books, trucks, furniture and gardening equipment. We also make sure to lend our stuff out such as our rug shampooer, tools, wheelbarrow, mini-van, books and games.
• I own less clothing, which means that I treat it better. When you only own two pair of jeans, you sure as heck change into your single pair of paint-splattered pants before working on a messy project.
• We share garbage service with our next door neighbors, which keeps us in check. I know we can’t put out a ton of garbage, which forces us to think outside the can when it comes to how to best get rid of our unwanted stuff.
• I rarely buy anything new. By choosing to forgo Target, there’s very little product packaging that enters our home.
• I make my own cleaning products. But mostly, I just just wipe stuff down with water. I’m not eating out of my toilet.
• I try to keep junk mail to a minimum. I call catalogs to get off their mailing lists, as well as individual businesses and charities.
• I bring my own bags for produce and general grocery shopping. I also know that not everything requires a bag in the first place. Buying five apples? Why even use a bag? To support this, I always keep a net bag in my purse, which takes up next to no space, yet stretches out for larger purchases.

I have also made myself an expert of where to recycle/rehome different things:

• CFL lightbulbs — Ikea
• Batteries — The Batteries Plus store will take spent batteries for recycling. It’s free with purchase, otherwise you pay a small amount.
• Styrofoam — Far West Fibers on S.E. 26th, although I see they have a Rosa Parks location as well.
• Plastics  — Also Far West Fibers, although I was just told that they no longer accept hard plastic, like clamshells, etc.
• Toxic Products — Metro services.
• Large Unwieldy Items — Curbside with a “Free” sign. It’s amazing what people will take with an eye for fixing up. Broken furniture, decrepit old barbecues, unbearably heavy shelving all find new homes here in Portland.
• Still Usable Items — Goodwill or Craiglist. I prefer Craigslist over Freecyle, as I can post a photo and not be limited by the finicky Freecycle rules. Goodwill accepts ripped up and stained clothing and blue jeans for use as rags and home insulation.
• Unwanted Gifts from Japanese Exchange Students — I donate some of these to the Japanese Immersion elementary school in my neighborhood. They’re always happy to take them, and I know they’ll be used and appreciated in that setting. (I don’t give everything away, but there’s a limit to how many decorative fans my family can accommodate.)
• Unwanted and Outgrown Clothing — Consignment shops for both clothing and household goods can give you a small amount of money or store credit for stuff you’d have donated to Goodwill in the first place.
• E-Waste — I first try to find someone who could use or repair our unwanted electronic devices, but after that I’ll give to an e-waste location. Free Geek takes “Used Technology,”  and will likely bring the donation back to life before shipping it overseas for supposed “recycling.”

Addendum:  I save spent gifts cards for my friend Lise. She teaches kids’ silkscreening classes, and they use the gift cards to spread the ink across the mesh.

How we are producing garbage:

• We buy too much packaged food. This means pasta, cereal, bread, liquid products, (olive oil, honey, milk, etc.) Trader Joe’s food and ice cream.
• The cats’ litter boxes. I tried a cedar shavings litter once, and my cats took it as an opportunity to pee in the coat closet. Never again. We buy the clumping litter from Costco.
• Constant decluttering of the house. As I delve into the never ending clutter, there’s always stuff that simply has to go into the garbage. This includes photos, laminated stuff and a myriad of other things.
• Lids. Whether it’s from shampoo, food or household products. The lids are never ending.

I know these lists are specific to Portland, Oregon, but I included it so you might investigate your own city for similar resources. And needless to say, I work the getting-rid-of-stuff into my regular routine, so I’m not constantly driving across town. I’m sure there are gaping holes, so please add your two cents in the comments section below.

For additional Zero Waste information and resource, click on over to Zero Waste Home for a wasteless-ly good time.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

{ 57 comments }

It’s Day One of Zero Waste Week, and I’ve already messed up. How? Well . . . I planned out the kids’ school lunches to be baguettes with bulk purchased gourmet cheese, (Maybe Brie?) homemade cookies and cut up oranges. My first thought was to buy the baguettes and cheese at Pastaworks, but then I decided to bake the baguettes myself in the name of savings. (Making French bread is insanely easy and cheap!) “No worries,” thought I, “I’ll just bring my own container to New Season’s, (closer to the house) and have them cut off some cheese for me!”

But reality is a hard hearted mistress, an overly packaged mistress.

Because my New Season’s may look like they have a cheese counter, where you can choose the amount you want, but it’s actually all pre-packaged! And by the time I realized this, it was already Sunday evening, and Pastaworks was closed, closed, closed.

Crap.

So the kids’ school lunches ended up containing deli meat from Costco, pre-sliced havarti cheese also from Costco, mustard and lettuce. Yes, the lettuce was Zero Waste with the exception of the twist tie thingy, and the mustard was in a reusable glass jar, (I want to explore making my own mustard) but there’s no escaping the plastic packaging from the meat and cheese.

Crap.

But that’s okay though, as the point of this Zero Waste Week is to challenge myself, and to explore solutions to everyday waste-ful practices. And no lessons can be learned without figuring out where the difficulties lie.

The kids lunches were packed in reusable soft side lunch boxes, (one of which I pulled from a garage sale free box at least ten years ago!) The homemade cookies were in fabric pouches, the oranges were in thick Ziploc bags, which I endlessly rewash, as were the sandwiches. Their napkins are always bandanas, which came to us by way of an unlabeled soccer bag from some long forgotten coach. (My husband was the equipment manager for a non-profit soccer league.)

On a positive note, I changed up the normal morning ritual of tea brewed from Red Rose tea bags and milk from a plastic jug. This morning instead featured loose leaf tea with milk from a returnable glass jug. And since I had received the loose tea as a gift awhile back, this Zero Waste change was a welcome respite from the everything-is-costing-more theme to the week. (Except the milk, which set me back almost $9 per gallon!)

I did have a epiphany last night, which is that this week should be renamed the Delicious Gourmet Challenge, as all the cooking from scratch and high end food purchases are far from any kind of sacrifice.

Dinner tonight will be burritos using bulk purchased pinto beans, as well as homemade tortillas. A salad will accompany the meal, and I’ll use up the last of some Trader Joe’s gorgonzola cheese. I’ll replace the cheese at Pastaworks, and I’ll pick up some damned brie while I’m at it! Needless to say, we’ll use our cloth napkins, real dishes and silver wear.

Tomorrow I’ll explore the non-food related waste in our home, most of which I’ve winnowed down through the years.

And because it keeps coming up in the comments, I’m going to address the toilet paper issue. My family has used, currently uses and will always use toilet paper. However, we do choose 100% recycled content toilet paper from Trader Joe’s, (because a commitment to recycling is to both send it out, and then later buy it back.) Sadly, it comes packed in plastic, so it’s not a perfect solution. I know that Bea Johnson of Zero Waste Home buys paper wrapped toilet paper for her family, so I’ll ask her if it’s recycled.

How are you doing? Did you take a critical eye to your Monday? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

{ 83 comments }

Tomorrow starts The Non-Consumer Advocate’s Zero Waste Week, but I wanted to switch my mind over a few days in advance. So I spent the last few days practicing Zero Waste and figuring how to get through the week without going insane and eating nothing but bulk purchased oatmeal and lettuce. I want to see how much of what my family normally buys can be switched over to their Zero Waste counterparts.

Keep in mind that Bea Johnson of Zero Waste Home  puts “refuse” before the normal three R’s of “reduce, reuse, recycle.” So even though a fair amount of the packaging we normally bring into our home is either recyclable or compostable, I will attempt to refuse waste of any kind for the week.

My family of four already produces less garbage than the average American, (29 pounds per week) and we’re able to get by with every other week pickup of our 32-gallon can which we share with the three-person family next door.

I spent the weekend sourcing Zero Waste options for a few of the things that my family buys on a regular basis, and here’s what I found. (I am lucky to live in a urban neighborhood that provides multiple shopping options, which I know is not the case for everyone.)

• Meat/Fish — It would easy to go vegetarian for the week, but that is simply not how my family eats. I have asked before about using my own containers at the New Season’s Market meat counter, but the answer is always that health regulations forbids it. And so I bring home my sausages in plastic-coated paper that immediately goes into my garbage. However, I spoke to a manager and came up with a acceptable alternative, which is to use their wheat-based compostable containers from the deli for my meat purchases. They are required to add a “how to safely prepare meat” sticker to every purchase, so I saved one and will see about reusing it. The manager did suggest that I could buy my meat from a smaller company, who might be less stringent about their rules, although I like that New Season’s is walking distance from my house, which greatly simplifies my life.
• Shaving soap — My husband and older son shave on a daily basis and use an old timey shaving soap and a bristle brush. However, the packaging for the soap we normally buy includes both a paper box and a hard plastic shell for the bar of soap. I’ve been meaning to find an alternate option for awhile, and was happy to find that we were almost out of soap at the beginning of this challenge. I walked down to Escential Lotions and Oils in my neighborhood and found a zero packaging option of Apiana Alpine Milk Soap. Priced at $5.50, I would never buy it to use as regular soap, (The paper wrapped Pure & Natural soap we normally buy is 3/$1) but for shaving soap, the quality and extra cost is easily rationalized. And the best part? The hexagonal soap fit perfectly into the Goodwill mug we use for shaving soap!
• Ice Cream — Ben and Jerry’s is just across the street from the soap shop, so I stopped in and asked two different employees if they would allow me to bring my own container in for a pint of ice cream. The answer was “Sure, I don’t see why not,” so I returned after dinner with my garbage picked glass container and a sweet tooth. Unfortunately, the employees I had spoken to earlier were off shift, and the current shift was wary about my request. Luckily, they came over to my side after I explained my request, (I was trying for Zero Waste, rather than to scam extra ice cream.) And for the $6 price normally charged for a “hand packed pint,” I was able to buy enough ice cream for dessert.
• Beer — Portland’s pubs all have the option to buy “Growlers” of beer, which are refillable glass jugs for beer. Unfortunately, they cost $8 apiece, but I put out a call on Facebook, and my friends Heather and Dave came through with some loaners for the project. (I rarely drink myself, but my husband enjoys a couple beers per week. And since I knew this Zero Waste Week was going to complicate his week, I thought it would be nice to reward him with a few Zero Waste treats!) My husband happily walked his growler to the pub and had it filled with 64 ounces of a something-or-other IPA ale for $15. (Mind you, it should last over the course of a few days.)
• Maple Syrup — In the same vein of bribe my family with treats, I filled my vintage syrup container with bulk maple syrup at New Season’s Market. (I will make waffles after today’s multiple soccer games.) The cost was $9.99 per pound, and I was able to buy exactly the amount I wanted. This is a nice benefit when buying bulk, whether buying a small amount of a seldomly used spice or ready to eat snacks from the bulk bins.
• Milk — I normally buy the humane/blah-blah-blah gallons of milk from New Season’s, but they come in a plastic jug. (Taken by curbside recycling.) I bit the bullet and paid the $1.50 deposit for glass-bottled milk. Priced at $4.50 for a half gallon, this was yet another example of how buying Zero Waste does cost more money. However, I’m hoping to include enough Zero Waste less-money options to balance it out. Unfortunately, we already practice most of the Zero-Waste-will-save-you-money options, so this may prove to be a pricey week.

There are many Zero Waste bulk-purchases that my family doesn’t choose, usually because it costs significantly more than buying from Costco, with coupons or on sale. (Olive oil, sugar, honey, flour and cereal come to mind.) I will continue to cook from our pantry for the week, but only if those items have a Zero Waste replacement. This may sound like a copout, but I just can’t get over the hypocrisy of buying something that we already own.

I may appear that I’m simply investigating food packaging, but I will also be exploring waste from non-food perspective as well. Whether it’s junk mail, paper products, individual use products or overly packaged household goods. I will also explore how having a less cluttered home contributes to less waste.

I am looking forward to the week, to learning a thing or two and learning how Zero Waste Week is going for you readers. And I imagine that many of this week’s Zero Waste experiments will work their way into our permanent routines.

Wastelessly yours,

Katy Wolk-Stanley

{ 26 comments }