Trash audit shows too much waste

Results of a waste audit show I need help
By Kris Scheuer
(Originally published Sept. 4 in Town Crier)
Column

I want to reduce my waste output.
It’s not currently realistic for me to produce zero garbage, but I wanted to examine what I’m throwing out to determine how I can lessen my contribution to landfill.
After the 39-day garbage strike, I promised to do my own waste audit and here’s what I found.
At home
I produced one-and-a-half grocery-size bags worth of trash between Aug. 3 to Sept. 3. This includes all trash in my bathroom, bedroom and kitchen garbage bins. But it doesn’t include anything tossed in the blue bin for recycling or organics placed in my green bin.
Bathroom waste
There was about a cantaloupe-sized amount of waste consisting of about 20 cotton swabs, dental floss, sanitary products and packaging, lots of tissues and a plastic foundation makeup tube.
How can I do better? If I had two garbage bins or a bin divided in two, I could use one side for non-organic waste like dental floss and the other for sanitary products (minus the packaging) and tissues that can go in the green bin.

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Couple aims for zero garbage

Sarah McGaughey in her home. Town Crier file photo.

By Kris Scheuer
(Originally published Mar/8/07 for Town Crier.)
Sarah McGaughey and Kyle Glover made a pledge when they returned from a teaching stint in Korea in 2004 to try and go a full month without producing any waste.
One month has turned into two years of diligent effort for the Ossington and St. Clair couple. McGaughey updates their progress on her blog.
Rather than throw out items such as a TTC Metropass, markers, light bulbs and beer caps, they made art collages and cards for their friends out of them. And in the two years they threw out just two garbage bags of trash.
Nonetheless, “I felt we had failed,” said McGaughey in a Feb. 1 interview beside her kitchen table.