One Can a Month? I Think I Can

Well, can’t say I don’t love a challenge. But I hesitated on this one.

EnviroMom has issued the One Can a Month Challenge for the month of July.

Can we, a family of five, with one adult member not-fully-on-board-with-all-this-nonsense, whittle our trash output to one can a month?

I think I can, I think I can.

Frankly, I don’t even know how much trash we produce- my husband takes out the trash. I do know we don’t come anywhere near filling the can each week. In fact, I hardly ever have to buy trash bags at the store; I can’t even remember the last time I did.

I keep making an argument for switching our trash service to twice monthly, rather than weekly. I mean, we pay about $30 a month; so that breaks down to $7.50 a week for some guy to pick up two or three (guessing here) bags of trash? Ridiculous. And I feel pretty sure that with current gas rates, they’re going to raise the price soon (again).

Jeff’s counterargument is that that the meat scraps in the trash are going to reek and attract unwelcome houseguests. (My suggestion that he go vegetarian was not well received.) So the first step will be to find a viable solution to that problem.

We’ve been trimming our trash for a while now. We are vermicomposting the non-meat and dairy food scraps, and recycling anything that can be recycled. We switched to fabric napkins, use rags and dish towels instead of paper towels, sewed ourselves some handkerchiefs. I’m making all of my own yogurt to cut down on those non-recyclable containers. We buy most of our food from the farmer’s markets and the bulk bin at the co-op…

You know, what the heck are we even throwing out, anyway? This is one area where I haven’t been applying my “mindful moment by moment” mantra (love that alliteration).

Cat litter. Second step will be to find a way to deal with the cat litter.

Actually, now that I’ve stopped to think about it, I think maybe one can a month is doable. Jeff will never allow me to change the service until I can prove it, though, so I’ll have to mark off the 1/4 point on the can and photograph each week.

OK, let’s do it. I’m in for a quarter-can a week.

If I can pull it off, I’ll have a leg to stand on when I present my case. Thanks, EnviroMom!