It's Waste Reduction Week in Canada!

When I set up this blog to follow our challenge, the plan was to post something once a week. As you can see, that goal has not been met, so hopefully I can claim quality over quantity? September saw me return to work as well as to school, so my time available to write and research non school related things has been less than in the summer. Add in children's homework and activities, baking waste-free alternative for lunches, and I'm going longer and longer between posts. I've got some more ideas I've been thinking about and doing some research here and there when a have bits of time, so hopefully after midterms are finished I'll have a few more posts.

One Third of Our Year Has Passed!

We began our challenge July 1, so on November 1 our year will be one third finished. We took a peek at the garbage bag today, and it appears to be about one third full. Hooray! We seem to still be on target!

In doing some research, I discovered that all waste audits are done by weight. A 2008 report from Stats Canada says that the average Canadian produces 256 Kg of residential waste per year, about half of which gets diverted from landfill. Now, our challenge is to fit all of the waste we are unable to divert into one 75 L garbage bag. However, to be able to compare to a waste audit we weighed our garbage bag. If I were an "average" Canadian, I would have approximately 42 Kg after four months, and since there are four people in my household, our waste would be 168 Kg. After four months our garbage bag weighs approximately 3 Kg.

Rethinking the Challenge

When we started the challenge back in July, we were still figuring out how everything would work. As I have stated in multiple posts, the most challenging part of it is the prevalence of soft plastic, and the lack of recycling initiatives for this material in Waterloo Region. When we began the challenge our plan was to take our soft plastic to another region where we have family, and have them recycle it for us. Since we don't make the trip down to see our family too often, we've been gathering and storing all our soft plastic. We've decided that rather than take it with us on our next trip, we will collect it for the year, just like our trash. We want to be able show how much more our household could have recycled if our municipality offered recycling services for more soft plastics than just retail shopping bags.

Success Stories

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - we don't pretend to have all the answers when it comes to waste management. We are learning things as we go along, and love to have discussions with people, and hear their waste reduction tips. Our journey is just that - a journey. It's a personal challenge to see what we can do as a family. But having said that, I rejoice each time someone tells me about their waste reduction success.

A few weeks ago I met a couple in a coffee shop, and they were talking with the manager about recycling coffee bags. I chatted with the couple, and found out that they have a child who participates in an activity that uses Terracycle as a fundraising program, and one of the things they collect is coffee bags. Brilliant! Using "garbage" as a fundraising program for a not-for-profit organization, and diverting the waste from the landfill. Thanks to this couple for sharing this success story with me.

My neighbour has said to me a few times "You have to help me learn how to use the green bin". I shared some of the things we do in our house, and talked about eliminating the "yuck factor" by using the compostable plastic liners. When I walked out of our house on a garbage day and saw their green bin by the curb, I couldn't help but smile. When I talked to her that afternoon she seemed so excited to tell me that they had used their green bin. It made me happy to hear that they found a way to make the green bin work for their family.

I believe I have written before that these success stories are what make this entire challenge a success for me. Our bag of garbage is about where we want it to be at this point in the year. But even if we go over our one bag challenge, if we have inspired people to reduce their waste that goes to landfill, we have been successful. At the end of the day, it's the little things that add up to create big change.