In June, I wrote about a challenge I was setting for myself to reduce waste. What started as some easy ways to reduce waste (or so I thought) turned into an examination of my household trash. I was surprised by household trash and how hard my seemingly easy challenge was. Check out my post about my challenge here and keep reading about my thoughts of reducing my household waste.
Reduce Waste at Home: My June Challenge
1. Use my reusable bags everywhere.
This was an easy one for me to succeed at. Here in NJ, there is a ban on plastic bags, so we have been using reusable bags for grocery shopping for a year already. In June, I want to bring bags everywhere to ensure that I do not take a bag from any store. I did just this, useable bags were all I used all month!
2. Shop local for fruit and vegetables.
I went to a farmers market and some local small businesses for produce. A lot of veggies I needed were not available yet due to the time of year. But I will continue to go to the farmers market as the weather gets warmed. This was not a huge success.
3. Reduce use of tin foil and plastic wrap.
This one is going to be hard to do for me- and a complete failure. I found out I used a TON of plastic wrap and tin foil every single day. My kids are notorious for eating a bite of food and then being “done” eating. I do not like to waste food, so I save everything and give it to them during the next meal. It is so easy for me to grab tin foil or plastic wrap to wrap up the kids food. I need to figure out alternatives that I will actually use. .
4. Compost every single day.
I stuck to this one- I went outside to the compost bin every day! I wrote an entire post about how I compost, which you can find here.
5. Clean my house.
I started to get serious about cleaning, decluttering and donating items. But, I have both kids at home right now, and it is so hard to deep dive into decluttering when you kids want every toy you want to get rid of. I have a lot to do, but I have started.
But did I make less waste?
So I did not do bad with my challenge. Overall, I think I did reduce our household waste. But, I think I got frustrated at all the other items that were complete waste coming into my house.
What am I talking about: junk mail and packaging. Each and every day I get 3-5 pieces of junk mail. It can be a single letter to a large coupon magazine. My youngest had her birthday this month, and along with birthday parties comes gifts. The gifts she got had more packaging pieces than you can imagine. The toys were in boxes, but also plastic tied to the boxes. A few toys results in an entire bag of boxes and plastic. She got one toy that came with 9 pieces (it was a doll and accessories)- each piece- yes, each of the 9 pieces- was individually wrapped in its own plastic bag.
And the tin foil and plastic wrap waste. I had no idea how much tin foil and plastic wrap I used. But I have to find a way to reduce this waste.
I have a lot of ideas how to continue to reduce waste in my house that I want to try to implement. Do you have any tips to share on how you reduce your household waste?
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