Monthly Archives: January 2011

Get Obsessive About Garbage

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Spy Hill Landfill in Calgary, Canada. Photo by D'Arcy Norman (1).

Spy Hill Landfill in Calgary, Canada. Photo by D'Arcy Norman.

Obsess over your garbage. Minimize the trash that leaves your house, because if you don’t, one day we’ll live in a world filled with post-consumer trash.

Anything you throw away as garbage will eventually end up in a landfill. If that trash is made of plastic or metal, it won’t ever biodegrade. It will just sit there.

Good land is scarce; it shouldn’t be used to store garbage. We’re starting to grasp this in America. But instead of reducing the amount of waste we produce, we’re exporting it overseas to countries like Ghana. This means that people from poorer nations are suffering from illnesses caused by the toxic chemicals in our garbage. We can’t keep pushing our waste problems onto someone else forever.

Recycling is gaining popularity, but it’s still not a permanent solution. While recycling is better than garbage, it’s truly only the lesser of two evils. Recycling is an energy-intense process, and materials can’t be recycled indefinitely, either.

The only true, sustainable way to handle your waste is to avoid producing it in the first place. So I hope you’ll make an effort to cut your waste as close to zero as possible.

Here are 5 tactics for cutting down on garbage:

  1. Shop less. Now you’ll have less things to throw away. Consumer items are often wrapped in cardboard or plastic, and the product itself often can’t be recycled once it becomes obsolete. By not shopping, you’ll reduce waste immediately, while also saving money and time.

  2. Reuse as much as possible. Don’t throw away something you can reuse for another purpose. For example, you can keep old jars to reuse for home-canning, or you can bring old grocery bags when you go shopping. Try to learn the art of makeshift and create your own solutions.

  3. Shop second-hand. When you need to shop for non-perishable goods, buy second-hand online, in-person, or through a thrift store (2). You can get laptops, cameras, clothing, and furniture used instead of new. It avoids packaging while encouraging reuse.

  4. Buy from local farmers markets. They use far less packaging. Vendors will generally let you bring your own reusable bags, and some vendors even let you reuse egg cartons and milk bottles. You can even buy straight from the farm.

  5. Compost your food scraps. You can reduce the amount of food that goes to landfills while producing rich soil amendment. Composting helps recycle nutrients back into soil.

When you minimize your garbage, you will actually save money. By shopping at a farmers market, you’ll save money compared to eating out. When you buy second-hand, it’s cheaper than buying new. Finally, by not shopping altogether, you’ll save 100% of your money. Instead of using extra money for shopping, you can take time off work, or quit your day job altogether!

Financial benefits aside, I think minimizing our own garbage is a matter of personal responsibility. If we don’t take care of our own garbage, who will?

Do you think it’s possible to live a garbage-free life?

1 Photo released under Creative Commons CC-BY 2.0 by D’Arcy Norman.

2 Use eBay, craigslist, and the Salvation Army to buy second-hand.

The Art of Makeshift

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If you look carefully, you'll notice that my box is tied down with an inner tube.

Living without shopping requires you to make do with what you have. Instead of purchasing a shrink-wrapped gadget from a store, you’re forced to improvise your own solution. But by using some ingenuity, you can take old items and reuse them to solve another task. In the process, you’ll save money, conserve natural resources, reduce pollution, and learn the art of makeshift.

Four months ago, I practiced the art of makeshift to solve my bicycle commuting. When I lived in Irvine, I relied entirely on my bicycle for grocery shopping. I converted my bicycle into a workhorse by installing a heavy-duty rack, which enabled me to carry loads as heavy as 50lbs. To secure the groceries, I used a bungee cord, which is an accessory that helps tie boxes onto my rack. problems.

One day, as I was cleaning out my apartment, I lost my bungee cord. It was terrible timing; the local bike shop had sold out of bungee cords, and I was too busy to make a trip to the local hardware store. The manager of the bike shop, Kurt, suggested I try improvising a makeshift solution by using a spare inner bicycle tube. Grab an old tube, he said, and tie some knots.

An inner tube is the piece of rubber that is replaced whenever a bicycle tire gets punctured and has a flat. Ideally, a punctured tube could be patched and re-used, but because repairing tubes can be a hassle, many end up thrown in landfill. The bike shop had accumulated many old inner tubes, so Kurt had been experimenting with different ways to reuse the elastic rubber, including using them as guy-wires.

Because I was in such a rush, I gave Kurt’s idea a try. I grabbed an old inner tube and used it to strap my box onto the rack. At first, I feared the inner tube might snap, or that the box might slide off. But after pedaling for a mile, I was surprised at how well it worked, considering that it was free and made from common household junk.

The art of makeshift is a key tactic for reducing our environmental impact. By reusing instead of discarding, we can salvage items that would have otherwise ended up in the trash. It’s one way to fight back against the planned obsolescence of the products we buy.

You can apply the art of makeshift to anything. Instead of buying a new computer this year, you can rehabilitate an old clunker with free/open-source software and turn it into an internet kiosk or server (1). If you’re a gardener, you can re-use old plastic milk containers and discarded auto tires as potted plant containers. If you have old clothes, you can cut them up and reuse them as kitchen rags. I frequently improvise my own solutions to avoid shopping, like when I converted an unused trash can into a washing basin for doing laundry.

It’s aesthetically pleasing to find a cheap, homegrown solution for a difficult problem. Technology isn’t always about what you can produce in a laboratory or factory. Sometimes, the best technology is what you can create yourself with whatever happens to be lying around.

What makeshift projects could you do today to avoid shopping?

1 I recommend Ubuntu for novice computer users. It will work for comfortably on computers about 5 years old. But if you’re feeling daring, check out the minimalist distro Puppy Linux. It should work on computers 10+ years old.

4 Tasty Veggie-Organic Recipes

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Preparing local, organic food is a rewarding experience. Our taste buds are designed to enjoy fresh, nutritious foods, so eating local and organic will be naturally tastier. Aaron and I have been cooking all our food from scratch for the last 3 months (1). In the process, we’ve learned traditional skills like baking and culturing yogurt. It’s helped us save money and reduce our environmental impact; it’s also been a lot of fun.

Here are some recipes that have become family staples.

Stir-Fried Vegetables and Brown Rice [Serves 2 to 4]

This is a versatile stir-fried rice. You can make it with almost any vegetables laying around in your kitchen. Peas, corn, carrots, bell peppers, zucchini, and mushrooms are my favorites.

If you want to add meat or eggs, just stir fry them on a separate pan and add them to the vegetables along with the rice.

  • 2 cups brown rice, soaked in water for 30 minutes to 1 hour before cooking in a rice pot. This will give the rice a softer texture.
  • Vegetables of your choice, for example:
  • 1 cup of chopped onions
  • 1 cup of chopped carrots
  • 1 cup of green beans
  • 1 cup of broccoli
  • 1/2 tbsp oil or butter, for greasing the pan
  • 1/3 tbsp of soy sauce, adjusted to your taste
  1. Grease a pan with oil, then cook onions on high heat until they start to brown.
  2. Add the chopped vegetables to the pot. Stir fry on medium heat until the vegetables are cooked. Keep stirring so the veggies don’t burn.
  3. Add the cooked brown rice to the veggies.
  4. Season with soy sauce and mix well.

Rice and Lentils [Serves 4 to 6]

This simple dish has a savory flavor. I’ve only used green lentils, but you could try other varieties.

  • 3 cups brown rice, soaked in water for 30 minutes to 1 hour before cooking in a rice pot. This will give the rice a softer texture.
  • 6 cups green lentils, rinsed and cleaned of pebbles
  • 3 cups chopped onions
  • oil for greasing the pan
  • salt and pepper
  • (optional: chopped scallions)
  1. Saute chopped onions until they turn brown and caramelize.
  2. Add lentils and water to cover over lentils. Cook on high heat until they boil, then simmer until the lentils become slightly tender (about 30 minutes).
  3. Season with salt and pepper. (Season before adding brown rice, so that it’s easier to mix.)
  4. Add cooked brown rice and mix well. You can also add some chopped scallions.

Maple Roasted Carrots

This simple, tasty dish is great for kids who doesn’t like veggies.

The recipe calls for real maple syrup, but you can substitute it with local honey.

  • About 2~3 lbs carrots, (7 cups chopped)
  • 2 tbsp oil or butter
  • 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup real maple syrup
  1. Wash and chop carrots into bite size pieces.
  2. Grease a baking pan lightly. Toss carrots in olive oil, maple syrup, and cinnamon on the baking pan.
  3. Bake at 425F (220C) until carrots are tender, slightly brown, and caramelized.

Kale with Bacon

Chop bacon and pan fry until crispy. Set the bacon aside while you use the bacon grease to stir fry kale. Now, season and add the bacon back in. I use two rashers of bacon for a big bunch of kale, but you can use far more if you love bacon.

Tell us if you liked the recipes and if you made any modifications.

1 If you’d like to learn some old-fashioned cooking skills, The Backyard Homestead is a great source of inspiration. It teaches you how to make cheese, culture your own yogurt, bake your own bread, and even smoke your own sausage.