Any Ideas

[cubcadet]

Hey all,
I am brainstorming on what to do with the un-burnables we generate. I save any glass or plastic container that can possibly be used for anything. The Prego- type glass jars can be re-used for canning, Most plastic bags that don`t have holes can be used to hold freezable food, especially those zip lock- type ones, cardboard boxes, and foam peanuts saved for shipping items sold on ebay, all kitchen scraps except for meat and bones, are composted, the bones I accumulate from chicken and beef are reduced to bone stock, and that is frozen for cooking projects, all cooked out chicken bones are roasted and ground up into meal for the gardens, the other meat trimmings not otherwise useable is accumulated and frozen so it will not go bad, and when enough is collected, trash that can be burned like junk mail, boxes, etc., is burned along with the always present apple tree branches, and the meat scraps is burned along with this. All egg shells are ground up for gardens too, coffee grounds and filter paper is composted. Any glass containers that can`t be turned in for deposit are smashed in a steel barrel and will eventually be used for something cool like mixing in mortar for a walkway or something decorative. And about all I`m left with is plastic that can`t be burned or returned for deposit. That goes to the trash hauler. He takes real big trash bags off your hands for $3 each. In our township in Pennsylvania, there is no curbside service (our dirt road doesn`t have curbs), and if you get caught dumping, even in someone`s dumpster, without permission, you can go to jail. It turns out, that most plastic, except food containers, even round hay bale wrap, cannot be recycled. What are some things you all do to reduce your need to throw stuff out

[Shamrock1121]

It sounds like you've got this down to a fine art. :D We're fortunate enough to have curb-side recycling and a place in town to take an awful lot of things for recycling. But I also notice were the only people on our block that recycle. What a shame.... :( We also do a composter for food and yard/garden waste.

We had a wierd old lady down the street who was supposed to have buried all her trash in her back yard.... :o The whole time she lived there she never had trash service. I actually think she took her trash in the dead of night and stuffed it into the trash dumpster at the church across the street. ;) I like frugal people... :D

I start by avoiding as much packaging as possible to begin with, and try to use whole foods and make things normally purchased in boxes/cans/bags/jars from scratch when possible.

Get the least amount of packaging possible when I do purchase something. I purchased a 5-gallon plastic bucket of Charlie's Laundry Soap, rather than small containers. The bucket is reusable for something when it's empty, and it saves me 3.5-years of small containers (which is how long that amount should last us - 1280-loads).

A small plastic container of frozen orange juice concentrate (add 3 cans of water type) is a lot less plastic than a 1/2-gallon ready-to-use container. Whole fresh oranges - even less.

I wash out and dry the plastic produce bags (from those tear-off rolls in the produce department) and take them back to the store with me, along with cloth bags to tote the stuff home. I've reused the same ones for years before tossing them in the recycling.

Single-use glass jars (those commercially processed jars you bring home from the store with food in them), aren't made for home canning and aren't suggested for use in home canning, but often make great storage jars or used for craft projects. Single-use jars are made from thinner glass and often will break during heat processing. Avoid using single-use jars in a pressure canner. Canning jars are made of tempered glass which is MUCH thicker and stronger than single-use jars and can be heat processed and used in the freezer. Occasionally, single-use jars aren't exactly the same size as a canning jar and the seal on the lid can fail if you do use them for canning.

Take care reusing plastic bags - not all plastic bags are food grade. Those that ARE food grade, be careful of the ink used on the printed side of bags. It is not safe ON food. If you use that bag hot dog buns came in, make sure the print is to the outside if you store another kind of food in it. I make all our hot dog/hamburger buns, so I don't have the bags to contend with. I package homemade buns individually in foil and freeze them. The foil is washed and reused many times before it goes into the recycling.

I make homemade kefir in washable/reusable canning jars, instead of purchasing plastic tubs of yogurt and plastic tubs of sour cream - kefir substitutes very well for those products. Kefir also substitutes for buttermilk, so there's three plastic containers I don't use or have to add to the recycling from one easy-to-make-at-home food.

Try a permanent filter for your coffee maker rather than using paper ones at all. I use a stainless steel tea ball or reusable cloth tea bag for making hot tea with loose tea, rather than more packaging associated with tea bags.

If you are crafty, you can use all kinds of paper from junk mail to MAKE paper. Form it into decorative (not for food use) paper bowls and other useful objects, make your own paper planters for your garden, make your own envelopes, book covers, etc. -

http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf71713276.tip.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_2223561_herbed-homemade-paper.html

-Karen

[leera]

Most all plastics can be recycled in one form or another.......plastic shopping bags can be crocheted into a cheap rug to wipe your feet on,when it wears out,then toss.....

A lot of schools also collect shopping bags and milk jugs,they get paid by weight,and the plastic is recycled into benches for the schools.......

If it's plastic and it's got that little recycle symbol on it,it can be recycled.......the pharmacist I work with recycles ALL the empty medication bottles.........they are made of just about every type of plastic out there......

I no longer bring home plastic shopping bags.....since stores started selling reusable ones,I bought as many as I would need for shopping,and just keep them in the car......most of them are actually made of recycled plastic.

Is there a recycling center near you or one you could get to once or twice a year? That's an idea too.Or check to see if there is a local scout troop that has any type of recycling project going on.

[cubcadet]

Hey there Shamrock1121,
You are right about the plastic on food- thing. Yeah that`s important. I read that even the bottles that water is sold in is toxic.
leera, there is a recycle center near here. They`re the ones who told me that not all plastic is recycleable. Even if it has the 3 arrows, sometimes they won`t take it. PA may be different than other states. They`re starting to take the broken plastic like the spackle buckets, and pvc pipes, though.
We use the plastic sacks from the grocery store for the trash bins in the kitchen and bath. Not too trendy but maybe we`ll start our own trend. Long as they don`t have holes in em they work pretty good.

[anna]

Goodwill, the Library Bookstore, Library and other organizations that give/sell stuff appreciate receiving plastic bags from stores so they don't need to buy any.

We have recycling bins uptown that we can put glass, plastic, news print, cardboard, tin cans into. We have large waste baskets in the garage for glass, tin cans and glass and a board across the top for news print. When they're full we take them uptown.

We try to not have more than one small kitchen bag of garbage per week. However, in our community we pay for pickup whether we use it or not and there is no limit to the number of bags you can put out. We sometimes bring bags of trash from the church since they have to pay by the bag for pickup.

[Shamrock1121]

cubcadet -

Although I use cloth bags for purchases as much as possible, I still get plastic bags here and there and take them from friends/family to use as trash liners, since it's beneath them to use them.... We keep packing tape handy and we'll cover a small hole in a bag destined for kitchen use with a tiny piece of tape.

We dump the trash from the other rooms into the kitchen trash and only take out one bag when it's full. I can't tell you how long we've had the same bag line the trash in the bathrooms. I spritz the bag with a solution of alcohol/water to kill germs and set it out in the sun for an hour a couple times a week after we dump it. I also use the 50/50 alcohol-water solution to clean the bathroom sinks/vanity/faucets every day as well.

I have a complaint to make about my silly SIL - the one who wastefully and unnecessarily runs 2-3 puny loads of laundry each day (for 2 adults) and runs the dishwasher 2-3 times a day.... She doesn't have a trash container in her bathrooms. She says they are "ICKY". She FLUSHES everything instead. ::) I don't even want to know what their water bill looks like!

-Karen

[Florida_boy]

Could you give directions as to how you process the chicken bones into ground material to use in the garden?

[walls0stone]

vinager will make them soft, but anything can be disposed of with lime. Famers get rid of dead hogs by bury'n them in turkey or hog manure piles...could be used to get rid of a human to I would guess ::)

[cubcadet]

Yeah Florida_boy,
Personally, we get our poultry at a local grower who raises his birds free range. We broil 2 birds at a time. When their cooled down, I pull the legs, breast meat, wings, backs, etc., off the carcass, and freeze most of it, and refrigerate the rest. We put the ribcage and any trimmings in the freezer. As we use the meat, we save the leg, thigh, larger wing bones and breastbone and other cartilage, some of which goes in the grinder for the dog, raw. The rest gets frozen untill we accumulate enough to fill our big stock pot. It gets simmered all day for chicken stock. The bones are then strained out, and the stock is frozen. All bones, basically, that don`t have any meat scraps and knuckles are picked out of the mess, and are basically dried on the fridge on a baking sheet until dry, then roasted at high heat until dry enough to break. Then they`re ground in the Corona Grain mill, which everyone ought to have. It grinds all kinds of *stuff. Anyhow, the ground meal can be fed to the dog, or put in the garden. I also save eggshells for the same purpose.