"that which we call a rose..."
that which you call garbage...
I would say that I'm on the verge of obsessing over our family's garbage/waste/refuse, if I wasn't painfully aware of having gone overboard long ago on the subject of waste management.
Particularly when it comes to the matter of wasted food.
When I came across Jonathan Bloom's book, American Wasteland, and website, wastedfood.com, I became even more committed to my goals of less consumption and waste.
Particularly when it comes to the matter of wasted food.
When I came across Jonathan Bloom's book, American Wasteland, and website, wastedfood.com, I became even more committed to my goals of less consumption and waste.
When we were in Los Angeles, anything that was food, could have been food or was food related had a very specific place in our little "ecosystem".
The bulk of these items would go to the chickens, they became our garbage disposals.
However you wouldn't want to feed them things like onions or garlic because of how it would affect the taste of the eggs and the worms in the 5 yes 5 worm bins I had in the garage don't like spicy things like that, the same can be said of citrus. So that kind of stuff would go in our compost bin, which of course was no ordinary compost bin, but... I am dwelling in the past.
The bulk of these items would go to the chickens, they became our garbage disposals.
However you wouldn't want to feed them things like onions or garlic because of how it would affect the taste of the eggs and the worms in the 5 yes 5 worm bins I had in the garage don't like spicy things like that, the same can be said of citrus. So that kind of stuff would go in our compost bin, which of course was no ordinary compost bin, but... I am dwelling in the past.
Now, being in an apartment, where I could conceivably have a worm farm and would if we weren't subject to move every few months, and even then I have contemplated(very briefly) taking it on the road with us, now, I have been forced to be much more careful with my purchasing patterns, which has been a very good and eye-opening practice.
But as careful as you are, there will be food waste and by-product. The "pesto" I made from carrot greens while being again an "interesting" experiment was not a recipe I would pass on or use again, so once more the tops of carrots find there way towards a waste bin.
Notice how I don't say garbage.
What I do these days with the carrot greens, egg shells, moldy bread, apple cores, banana peels, etc. is throw them in a plastic bag in the freezer and when the bag or sometimes bags get filled up, I take them to whole foods and dump them in the bin of compostables, which always gets me an odd look or two.
It's just one of the many transitions and changes in our every day life, since becoming semi-nomadic.
Everything Else
Our house is cluttered, much to Cindy's dismay with "garbage" waiting to be re-used, re-purposed, or disposed of properly.
Egg cartons are lined up on the top of the kitchen cabinet waiting to be returned to our poultry people at the farmer's market.
A variety of jars and plastic containers get rinsed out and reused. We have empty boxes of all shapes and sizes.
We have way more stuff that goes out to recycle than "garbage"
I was inspired by Kamikatsu, a small community in the hills of eastern Japan, that aims for "Zero Waste". Residents there have to compost all their food waste and sort other rubbish into 34 different categories.
To us that might seem like a pain to them its become their normal.
Don't forget to click on the links if you come across something of interest.
I'm sure I'll do more trash-talking in the future, but I have to run, literally.
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