Waste Less Trash: Top 7 Ways To Cut Down (PHOTOS)

From Terri Bennett, Founder of DoYourPart.com:

It’s February and all month long, Do Your Part is challenging you to reduce the amount of garbage you generate.

There are things we toss away everyday that make up the bulk of our trash and they don’t even belong in our garbage bins.

Here are Terri Bennett's Top 7 Ways to Be Less Trashy so you can get started today.

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Comments

[12SA]

08:34 AM on 09/01/2012

Dead Sea Products

[jpfmtka]

11:44 AM on 02/13/2012

My family and I would love to have markets start charging for bags and for every plastic bottle to require a hefty deposit.

[Cody Wandel]

11:04 AM on 02/13/2012

Sorting recycling is a job for someone, so, sometimes I do throw the pizza box in. I mean, I give for free all this material that they sell for money, and I pay for the service as well. So I'm not going to stress about putting in the occasional this or that. To reduce garbage I compost, which also keeps the garbage can from getting smelly. I also wash and reuse resealable bags.

[harleydavid105]

09:27 PM on 02/12/2012

I cut down on 'trash' by refusing to buy anything made in China, Korea, Japan, etc. Buy American-made quality and you won't be throwing it away anytime soon.

[dmoongo]

07:13 PM on 02/12/2012

My county will not accept paper-board that is waxed in their recycling program. Any product that is frozen (TV dinners, pizza, pot pies, shrip. fish sticks, etc.) comes in waxed paper board. Even cola cartons are waxed.

[victorzeller]

06:12 PM on 02/12/2012

What they need to do is bring back the incinerators and burn most of the trash. There are landfills next to rivers in this country and much of the trash goes into the river. How about that or pollution?

Don't recycle anything. I like my garbage men and they take it all. I throw everything away, even broken microwaves.

[harleydavid105]

09:32 PM on 02/12/2012

It's lazy, shortsighted people like you who are helping kill the planet.

[ProfessorTypeExPat]

10:59 AM on 02/13/2012

Do you have turrets syndrome where instead of swearing, you just say random stupid things to get a rise out of people?

[julianreischl]

04:53 PM on 02/12/2012

I decided to re-post my comment in a single sitting at Twitlonger:

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/fsjv8k

Also, I have a picture for you with all the different trash cans in my town in Bavaria:

http://twitpic.com/6gjs4r

[environmentalista]

06:54 PM on 02/12/2012

America has a lot to learn from other countries about being green. It seems like common sense but common sense is not always common. People are in denial as to their role and how serious things have become (see newsboytim's post). I have a lot of respect for Germany as a green country.

[julianreischl]

04:21 PM on 02/12/2012

Comment Part 4:

-There are regional recycling centers, usually one for every 20-30.000 people, where you can go and bring your stuff for free. If things are still okay, like an old couch, a crate of books or a TV set, you can give them to the staff, they'll put it into their own little second-hand-shopping mall, where you can buy this kind of stuff for very little money. This is good for those where money is tight, but also for students and so on. Everyone can go in and buy stuff, no "proof of poverty" necessary. Unfortunately, not every recycling center has one. In the center where I go sometimes, they even serve food and drink for low prices, very socially indeed.
-Plastic bads in Germany usually cost money, depending on size and quality. A small one will cost you 5 to 10 cents, a bigger one 20, recently I got one that cost 30 cents, but was made from sugarcane and compostable. In some shops, you can get very small bags for free with your purchase. These will hold about 2 bottles of shampoo or so. You can also buy sturdy shopping bags for 1 or 2 Euros.
-Not every service is available in every part of Germany, I'm told, but over here in Bavaria, it is.

[julianreischl]

04:20 PM on 02/12/2012

Comment Part 3:

In some towns (the richer ones), there's a free pickup service for bulk refuse, about 6 times a year. You can put everything out on the sidewalk the night before, old furniture and stuff, gardening leftovers, building material and so on, even the kind of stuff I described the different trashcans for (if you live in a single house, you usually only have the a) and e) trashcans, so that's where you can bring your empty bottles and so on out). All of this gets recycled or burnt up safely (lots of filters), there are no landfills in Germany, except for inert material like old building supplies.

-There are public collection points for glass, metals, paper, batteries, shoes and clothing (for reusing).
-You can leave the outer packaging of your purchases at the store, by law.
-There's a "toxic truck" which comes to your town once every 6 months or so, where you can bring all your toxic stuff, from old (mercury) thermometers to styrofoam to batteries to paint to every kind of leftover household chemical, even washing up-liquid or electronics. (tbc)

[julianreischl]

04:20 PM on 02/12/2012

Comment Part 2:

-Water from the tab is drinkable (and not chlorinated) in all of Germany, and I am pretty sure most of Europe, too.
-Each house, apartment complex and so on has several garbage cans out near the street, size and number depending on the number of people living there. There's a) leftover refuse, which gets incinerated at a plant for energy and heat (google "Burning the World's Waste" and see the spiegel.de article), b) biodegradables, which means all kind of foodstuff, which gets composted, the methane used for heat and energy, c) paper (that's all kind of paper like shiny printed magazines), d) cardboard (all kind of cardboard and newspaper material), e) "the yellow trashcan", in which every kind of packaging with a certain recycling logo goes. The so-called "green dot" is on every yoghurt cup, candy wrapper, can or tin, plastic bag and many more items. These get separated in a plant, mainly by machines. In bigger places, there's also f) metals (like tins, cans, bottlecaps and so on) and g) glass, divided up in clear, green and brown. All of these get collected individually every week or every two weeks. (tbc)

[WonderingNThinking]

02:47 AM on 02/13/2012

I love how Germany takes care of the water pipes instead of chlorinating.

[julianreischl]

04:18 PM on 02/12/2012

Comment Part 1:

I'm from Germany, and I'm wondering right now why this issue has been made into an article on HuffPost. I guess there must be a "market" for it, obviously the American readers seen not to be familiar with reducing, recycling and reusing. Let me tell you how things work over here, just to give a comparison:

-Drinks are usually bought in glass bottles (wine, beer, soft drinks, mineral water), these come in crates. Usually, there is a deposit on these. A crate of 20 beer bottles at half a litre will cost you about 14 Euros for the beer plus 3.30 Euros for the crate plus 8 cents for each bottle. (there are different types of bottles, and therefore different types of deposit. I think it's 8 cents, 15 cents and 25 cents, but I don't know exactly) Upon returning, these bottles are washed and reused, up to 100 times on average.
-You can buy drinks in plastic bottles and cans, but they will cost you 25 cents of deposit as well, to reduce trash. These are used only once, you return them into a machine, which will crush or shred the bottle or can right there and give you a slip of paper with the amount of deposit on it that you will redeem at the cash register. Only few kinds of drinks are in bottles free of deposit. Non-carbonated drinks are also to be found in tetra paks, which are recyclable. (tbc)

[newsboytim]

04:17 PM on 02/12/2012

Our family fills two 90 gallon carts per week, and we recycle nothing! We use paper plates and plastic cups for all meals but family dinner, and we even throw out old electronics. Too many stoner hippies buy into the BS that man is causing global warming, so we eat more red meat, leave lights on, and drive our gas hogs on plenty of extended drives on the weekends. Suck it hippies!

[environmentalista]

06:47 PM on 02/12/2012

Stupid people do stupid things. I'm sure your yard is full of trash and I'd use the term to define you as well.
It is not about global warming. Trash has long term implications for our planet. Get educated or smoke some pot so at least you will have an excuse for saying silly things.

[newsboytim]

07:53 AM on 02/13/2012

My lawn is immaculate (which our homeowners association demands), landfills occupy a minute portion of overall land, and we incinerate trash in our county. And Mother Nature is far more resilient than you give her credit for.

[environmentalista]

09:38 AM on 02/13/2012

First of all, when you post stating that environmentalists are "stoner hippies" and telling us to "suck it", it says more about you than us.
I understand that for most issues there are opposing sides. While I strongly believe in man's role in global warming, I have heard out intelligent people who do not and there is some merit to their stance (though I can not understand how they can discredit the views of a whole group of scientists whose findings are based on fact). I try to minimize my carbon footprint for the same reason I sign online petitions for political causes I believe in. My signature is meaningless on its own but signatures en masse it add up and can make a difference.
As for trash, you are correct in that landfills do not occupy much space but we are running out of places to put them. Many including the largest Fresh Kills in Staten Island, NY have closed and finding other locations, especially in densely populated areas, is near impossible (who wants to live near a dump?) Shipping it to other places like we do with our recycling costs money. Incinerating garbage puts it into the air we breath. Your county probably burns it somewhere in the vicinity of your home. In your first post you state you have a family. Do you really want them breathing byproducts of incinerated trash?

[IrieMoon]

10:33 AM on 02/14/2012

Well, the world needs idiots like you too.

[msblynne]

12:17 PM on 02/12/2012

How could you have omitted the biggest R: REDUCE

It is stunning to watch clueless people go into grocery stores and come out with a cart full of plastic bags, everything in plastic, some things double wrapped. How stupid is that?

Bring your own bags!!!

[environmentalista]

02:37 PM on 02/12/2012

Me again, sorry!
In other countries I lived in there is a charge for bags (X2 for double bagging).
It is only once we charge people for doing the wrong thing (in Sydney, it was .25 a bag) rather than rewarding people pennies (which many consider to have no value) that things will change.
In my opinion, anyone who cares is already bringing bags; the others just can't be bothered and no amount of reminding will change that. I find when I bring up bringing bags people shut down (heard it a million times, can't you guys move on to something else).
I think the answer lies in the distributer not the customer. A challenge should go out to supermarkets to be the first to charge. They may lose some customers at first but eventually other markets will follow suit. The first market can tout that they were the first to truly care. And of course the economics factor--they save money on bags!

[msblynne]

05:27 PM on 02/12/2012

You are after my heart, you are my hero, and my compatriot.

[westcoastsc]

11:26 AM on 02/12/2012

Recycling in America is backwards especially when it comes to glass. Glass containers should be standardized, made to last, and more money should be collected for redemption when the glass is turned in to ensure recycling. Melting down glass to make new products is very expensive and causes greenhouse gas to be released. In countries like Denmark, they wash their glass bottles and use them again. Smart.

[MsMoonpieJD]

09:22 AM on 02/12/2012

And HuffPo, be sure you review every comment made on getting rid of trash. How controversial! Likely to arouse tremendous angst! Puh-leese. Do you need a job that bad?

[environmentalista]

06:35 PM on 02/12/2012

People thinking about trash have dirty minds!