WASTE

We haven't really measured our waste output over time, but we know it's decreased significantly. What we do know is that the 120 litre general waste (for landfill) used to get pretty full when we first moved in. That decreased until it was only around 50% full each week. Then we asked the council to remove our 120 litre general rubbish (destined for landfill) bin to an 80 litre version. They did so and discounted our rates bill. Now the 80 litre bin is barely 50-75% full these days. So we figure that's an overall decrease of around 60%.

We also noticed that our recycle bin is pretty much full every week - could be lots of newspapers and packing materials unfortunately. But even that is starting to reduce as I get better at composting (see below).

Our green (garden) waste bin is collected every two weeks. We only ever had it out for emptying once in a while and now we rarely do for the same reason as above.

How did we do it?

• Buy as little as possible that contained excess packaging. Not always possible to avoid, especially at Christmas and birthday times.
• Generally buy a little as possible anyway - just consume less stuff.
• We give away stuff we don't want to friends or through FreeCycle or sell it on eBay.
• Buy only as much food as we need and use it all. Reheat leftovers rather than throw them out. We throw almost zero raw or cooked food away.
• Natural waste from vege preparation, we throw into our compost heap. We filled the heap for 2 years (with garden clippings too) and evetually had a pile of great compost which we recently spread around the garden borders to improve the soil.
• We bought a worm farm (actually came free from RELN when we bought one of their rain water tanks). These things a GREAT! They take all of your vege scraps, eat it and turn them into liquid and solid natural fertilisers. It's good to balance scraps between worms and the compost heap, the output from the worms is better, just that they can't take large volumes of stuff at one time.
• We cut up all garden and grass clippings and sweepings (leaves etc.) into the compost heap. They quickly shrink to 1/4 of the original size (so you can keep filling and filling and it just disappears!) and then eventually break down into black garden gold. I attended a composting workshop and now know how to 'hot compost' to speed up the process and how to make it generally work better.
• Did you know you can compost old cotton clothing and the lint from your vacuum cleaner bag (if you have natural fibre carpets)?
• I made my first compost box from the wooden pallets which our garden pavers were delivered on (don't tell the merchants . . .). The second box came from the road side during a hard rubbish collection.
• Worms and compost heaps won't really take meat and dairy scraps, so we intend to get a Bokashi Bin to take them and then we'll have zero food related waste.
• After doing these simple things, you'll be amazed how much weight is removed from your trash cans. And the kids love playing with the worms. And you garden grows better. And it's all free!
• Also - I hardly throw away anything that could have another use. When our old kitchen was removed (by me), I almost sold the cabinets on eBay, but decided they were more valuable as cabinets and worktops in the garage and to store stuff in the crawl space under the house.

Compost boxes
Both free

 

Worm Farm (with worm wee)
Under the house in summer so they don't overheat!