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Home » Home & Garden » Simple Ways To Go Green » Tips On Wasting Less From A Suburban Mom

Tips On Wasting Less From A Suburban Mom

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suburban-trash.jpeg

People, especially Americans, throw out a ton of garbage that isn’t… well… garbage.

The average American household actually produces approximately 18 pounds of garbage daily.

But how much of that could be disposed of in a more eco-friendly way, or not disposed of at all?

 

 

How To Waste Less

A mother of four living in a typical American suburb, Peg Rosen, recently made note of her and her family’s success in considerably cutting their waste and the lessons they learned from it in Ladies’ Home Journal.

No, I don’t read that website every day, but someone passed the article on to me and I thought some of the points in it were worth a share.

 

As I quickly mentioned above, Lesson #1 from Peg is “most of what’s in the garbage isn’t garbage.”

  • A lot of what people, such as Peg and her family, throw away is compostable, like pineapple tops, eggshells and coffee grounds.
  • And a lot is also just paper, which can be recycled.
  • Scrap metal (e.g. old keys or bed springs) and old — even stained — clothing are other common trashed items that can also be given to the appropriate bodies and reused.

 

Peg’s Lesson #2 is an important one, especially if you are feeling a little overwhelmed from the possibilities mentioned in the previous paragraph. The tip is “cutting down on garbage doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

The point of this one: do what you can, don’t give up on doing anything just because you can’t do everything.

This is an important point for all of us to remember, because who can really do everything?

 

While the idea of composting initially made Peg grimace, she decided eventually to try it out and found “it’s no big deal!” – Lesson #3.

Look into it if you don’t compost yet.

 

Lesson #4 is a common one – “convenience is everything” – but Peg had a good tip on using this point to improve paper recycling.

She put satellite recycling bins around the house and on recycling day her youngest son just goes around and collects the recycling from those. Sounds like a fun chore for a young one!

 

Four remaining lessons or tips from Peg include:

  • My town’s recycling rules ain’t your town’s recycling rules
  • Recycling is only one of the R’s
  • It gets easier
  • One change leads to another

 

It’s good, simple stuff. But cutting our waste could make a world of difference.

photo via kevindooley

 

Zachary

Recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert, I am the director and chief editor of Cleantechnica. I’m also the president of Important Media and the director & founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love.

cleantechnica.com/author/zshahan/

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Filed Under: Home & Garden, Simple Ways To Go Green Tagged With: coffee, compost, gardening, recycling, reduce, reusing / repurposing

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JeffreyI think every little step toward living green is an awesome one... but eco-snobbery sucks! My goal is to help newbies learn the most important steps toward living green -- individually and collectively. Personally, I strive to have as little impact as possible on Planet Earth while I'm here.

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JoshuaAs an advocate for good health, I usually try to choose the 'greener' option over other more dangerous and/or wasteful options. Generally, if it's bad for your health or the planet, I try to avoid it. In my effort to live green... on a budget, I like to find new (healthier) budget-friendly ways to do things -- from eating and cleaning to recycling and home decorating. My goal is to help you take the chore out of living green by sharing fun new ecofriendly ideas that you can try today... or any day! My all-time favorite way to live green is to repurpose items and give them a new use -- I've written a lot of useful DIY articles.

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LynnetteMy experience with living green consists of taking baby steps (like making one big change each year as my New Year's resolution) -- because I've seen too many people burn out on trying to 'Save the Planet'. I share a lot of Simple Ways To Go Green, as I find new and successful strategies that have worked for me. While I'm baby-stepping my ecofriendly habits in life, you will find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).

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