A couple in Toronto (Sarah McGaughey and Kyle Glover) have decided to go an entire month without generating garbage. They’ve posted Trashless Toronto to provide additional resources.
It’s a pretty drastic change from the way most people live, given that the majority of people don’t really stop to consider the issue of regular packaging, let alone excessive packaging. If you take a stroll around your own grocery store with an eye specifically open to how many items are double-wrapped, triple-wrapped, wrapped-for-no-reason and otherwise sealed up ‘for your protection’, you might be surprised.
For a while, Coffee and I have been happily decreasing our garbage output through a combination of increased recycling and increased awareness to what we’re buying. Moving put a crimp in that, sadly, as Kitchener doesn’t have green-bin recycling for compostables (yet?) – but we’ll have our worm bin up and running again soon enough. (We’ve been missing it as we toss handfulls of vegetable peels into the garbage..)
In Stoney Creek, we were usually down to 1/4 of a garbage bag each week – plus recyclables in bins. I’d love to get back down to that, here, too.
I’m totally impressed with Sarah and Kyle for giving this a shot, blogging it for the rest of us to learn from, and for being honest about the challenges thus far. It’ll be cool to swipe some tips – already, I’m itching to try making my own crackers…
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Oooh, you totally have to show me how you integrate a vermicomposter into your house. I think my household could reduce our “garbage” output by HALF, just by composting. Sadly, with postage stamp-sized yards with little sun, and two curious kids roaming about, a regular composter isn’t a good fit. I would think, however, that we should be able to figure out a place to put a box of hungry worms.
I want to get Waterloo Region started on the Green Bin program too. Shall we start raising a ruckus at our respective City Halls?
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Adding a vermicomposter into your home is super-duper easy. The only requirement is room for a recycling bin-sized box that won’t be majorly impacted by heat or cold. (i.e., the garage is not a good option, but anywhere inside your home will be fine..) We kept ours in the kitchen and unless we pointed it out, people thought it was just a ‘bin’ for storage.
Come to think of it, it may be time for a new blog post on VERMS! :)
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Yes, please! More verms, less cooties and frog spawn.
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Done and done! (Though the, um, cooties are still hanging around..)
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