Annie over at Sensible Living did a nice post posing the question what's in your garbage and how you keep it to a minimum.

With six of us in the house I think we do pretty well as far as it comes to garbage, especially considering that two of the people in the house aren't super conscious as to what they are buying. We make two medium garbage bags of trash a week, and recycle a heck of a lot of other stuff, and compost food (although I still have to retrieve the compost bucket after chucking it behind the bin in disgust - maybe the rain has cleansed it).

I think in our own house (which it will be in a few months) we'd make about one medium bag of trash a week. I would also have less recycling because I like to save glass jars and I would have more room to put them somewhere. We also don't use plastic bags or plastic wrap. Instead I wrap up freezer items in wax paper or aluminum foil. Because I'll be getting our veggies delivered in a box in February or so, I also won't have as much packaging either.

The plastic packaging dilemma is one I've been puzzling with for a while. There are certain organic products that are packaged in corn plastic that is biodegradable, but it's still bad to me since a food product was used to produce packaging. If I can I get stuff in a glass jar I will because I simply reuse for herbal things and storing tiny items like buttons, or as food storage for leftovers in the fridge. One thing that really peeves me is that natural beauty or cleaning products often still come in plastic packaging - you'd think natural would mean the packaging too. I think the only solution to that at this point is to make your own. I think my next experiment will be soapnuts, a nut grown in India that you can use for laundry and shampoo (Google it and see). It comes in a cloth bag - no plastic! :)

I wish I could comment on Annie's blog but for some reason lately I can't post on any Wordpress blogs. Hmmm...