By now you all know my family has moved. At the moment, we’re staying at my dad’s house, while the work on our house is being completed. My dad’s wife, Blanche, is very saavy in the subject of recycling. I’m good, but she’s excellent!
In our time staying at my dad’s house, I have learned a lot from Blanche on the subject, and I’d like to pass along some tips. And then I’ll let you know how this ties in to being frugal.
Blanche has a place right in the kitchen to collect her recycling. The kitchen is the hub of the house, and most things are thrown away in the kitchen. To make it easy to recycle, she has recycling bags readily available. When it’s just as convenient to throw something into the recycling bin as it is to throw things into the trash, more things get recycled!
Blanche also has a pot on the counter for compost. It’s tightly sealed, so it doesn’t smell. Any left over food scraps go straight into the compost pot. My dad happens to live right over the fence from a pasture, so every couple of days, the scraps go straight into the pasture to decompose (they have it worked out with their neighbor). However, it would be just as easy if you had a compost pile in your backyard. You could throw the scraps right into your pile!
One benefit of putting kitchen scraps into the compost pot is that the trash can stays pretty clean and odor-free. I don’t know about you, but when my kids throw leftover food away, they have a tendency to get the food all over the trash can. And cleaning the trash can is not one of my favorite tasks!
The second benefit, and here’s the frugal part, is that composting and recycling can save you money. Most trash services charge by the number of trash cans or size of the can. If you have less trash, you save money. We just set up our garbage service, and we saved $15 a month by choosing the smallest trash can.
Composting and recycling: better for the environment and better for my wallet!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 1 trackback }
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
VERY interesting…especially the compost pot, and it makes sense that it saves you money in the end! That $15 every month translates into $180 by the end of the year. What kind of pot is it exactly that the smell is unable to leak out? Thanks for sharing and I’m looking forward to trying this!
Aaron, it’s a metal cooking pot, but the lid just fits really tightly. I was surprised that it doesn’t smell at all, because it smells really bad when the lid comes off!
Another tip about garbage costs is that many garbage companies offer a twice-monthly pickup (1st and 3rd weeks rather than every week) for a reduced rate. This works great for my family because we are able to recycle and compost a great deal of our waste. Sometimes when we have a party, or a month has 5 weeks in it, it can get full and we might offload some into a neighbor’s can (with their permission), but 95% of the time it’s perfect.
PLEASE don’t forget: you can only compost vegetable matter: peelings, cores, leftover veggies, coffee grounds,tea bags (in the bag is ok) etc. DON’T COMPOST: meat, meat scraps, bones or skin. It doesn’t compost well and only attracts pests.
At my house, composting cuts our trash haul by 1/3 to 1/2 – and our garden benefits greatly!
PS: Any container w/ a tight fitting lid works great. My dad lines his w/ a plastic produce bag, which makes the trip to the compost bin clean and (almost!) odor free!
I so wished I lived in an area where we were able to make changes to our trash service. In my area your trash service rates and frequency are determined by the are your property is located in. In my area we have twice-a-week service (though we probably only have it picked up once every other week) and they pick up as much as we put out. We pay $13.44/month for trash whether we use it or not :(
I’m interested though. What do you all pay for trash service with your different options?
Another option for the compost container in the house is to keep it in the fridge. I have a medium sized tupperware container that I stick in the fridge, and then just empty every few days into the compost pile.
Bri,
I pay $9.25 per month for a 35-gallon can picked
up twice a month.
My compost container is a tin (tight lid) with bright cheery sunflowers on it that match my kitchen. It’s small enough to set behind the sink, but tall enough to hold a lot. You’d never know it had veggie scraps in it :)
Also remember no dairy/cheese in it either.
The top of my small upright freezer is my recycle center. Some colorfull milk crates are stacked. On it’s side, one holds newspapers, one egg cartons. magazines, and cardboard. (During non-woodstove season). A lined one collects cans. It was an area that tended to collect junk otherwise :)
I take what little garbage I have directly to the dump once every month or two. (2 miles away) Up to 300 #’s is $10. The cardboard, magazines, newspapers, cans, metal, plastics if any, are all recyclable and do not count for the weight limit.
Ok, so my family has found out the hard way. Living in the city they have composted for years in the garden. This year however, the dog has found several snakes in the compost. Mom has decided that it is time for the compost to go for a while. I guess one just has to be very carefull…
So not knowing where you live, were the snakes just garden snakes (good as they eat mice etc) or poisonous snakes (bad in my book). Out here we welcome snakes because they are preferred to the rodents that they eat. Of course, I can say that as there are NO poisonous snakes in our wet cool coastal area – unless they come over in hay bales from Eastern Oregon in the cow feed.
If you have a problem with pest in the compost, try using an old blender. I put my veg. scrapes, etc. in the blender and pour into a hole in the garden. No more pest problem.
I’m now trying to find a place to take all the styrofoam (not the peanut kind) I have. Any suggestions.
We’re in Las Vegas and they seem to recycle all but styrofoam
You also save on trash bags. It’s a smaller savings, but we definitely go through less chees in a week.
I do something similar. Our recycling can be mixed so I keep a smaller trash can in the kitchen beside the regular trash. This has made it much easier to get others to recycle.