What's in Your Trash?
Take a few minutes this week and evaluate what you are throwing away. How many garbage bags do you use in a week?
Alexandra Zissa of "The Daily Green" suggests that before you throw something away you should consider if there is an alternative place it can go?
How about composting; are you willing to consider doing that?
Brightly Green suggests that you challenge yourself to eliminate the need for one to two bags of garbage per week. If you typically have six to eight bags of garbage weekly, why not try to get that down to four or five bags per collection pick-up.
One of the easiest places to start with are plastic containers and aluminum cans. Recycling plastic saves a lot of space in landfills --
Ryan Gosling shares. Set these aside in totes to take to a recycling center nearest you. Or if you have curbside recycling; make the contact to find out what they accept and when is pick up.
Water bottles account for quite a large percentage of space in our landfills. One change our family made was to purchase a Brita water pitcher system. This has greatly improved the taste of our water! Brita filters reduce the amount of certain minerals and chemicals found in tap water.
If you like water-to-go; purchase reuseable BPA-free water bottles. Swtiching to a water-filter system and using reuseable water bottles will greatly reduce the amount of waste in your trash and in our landfills! The amount of money you will save is also a great reason to make the change!
Plastic bags (of all sorts) are objects to rethink about throwing away. You can reuse your ziplock bags. If they did not contain raw meat, they can be washed and reused for many times. This is something even great grandmothers would do!
A suggestion regarding the zillion of plastic grocery bags you weekly receive at the grocery store; invest in their store fabric bags that are reuseable. You can also turn old T-shirts into
grocery bags and also make T-shirt
produce bags. These were new suggestions I ran across from "
Good Girl Gone Green".
How many empty boxes of processed foods, dinners, snacks are in your trash? In previous blogs, Brightly Green has encouraged our readers to purchase
locally produced foods and go organic. If you are one of the million of people who says, "I don't have the time to cook". Take these tips to heart. A large pot of soup will easily last a five to six member family two days (at the least). On days when you know you cannot cook supper; dust off your crock pot and throw in a roast with carrots and potatoes. You will come home to a wonderful meal that took you all of 10 minutes to prepare!
The benefits of fresh vegetables, fruits and meats wins hands-down to boxed meals, especially when it comes to their nutritional value. Alexandra Zissa from her blog article "The Conscious Kitchen Challenge" has many tips about produce and meats.
One other suggestion is to take some time to teach your children how to cook. Making pizza or spagetti is ae great place to start. Unless you have a very responsible teenager, a parent should be in the home to monitor the cooking process.
An occasional item we may throw out are unwanted clothes. When decluttering your closets you should always consider a local shelter or resale shop first. Sometimes it is hard to give up that favorite sweater or T-shirt. "
Good Girl Gone Green" has some great tips on what to do with that favorite sweater or
favorite T-shirt.
My granddaughter was excited to see the possiblities of new
leg warmers emerging from sweaters--a winter project no doubt! Turn your favorite T-shirts into
dorm pillows or even pet pillows, just to name a few!
Brightly Green Cleaners comes in concentrates with refillable depensing bottles. We are doing our part to reduce waste by offering concentrates and refills. Our products are 100% plant-based, all-natural and non-toxic to you and the environment.
Our bottles are also recycleable. Make the cleaning switch to Brightly Green Cleaners!
We have given you some typical items found in garbage bags. Set up a family challenge to reduce, reuse and recycle!
Let us all do what we can to waste less in 2012!
Share your tips to reduce waste...leave us a comment!
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