Just wanted to share with you a fabulous little thing that we have in our house and love. It is just a trash can, but really, so much more. It's a Grocery Bag Trash Can! I picked this up a few years ago at the Container Store and I cannot stress enough how wonderful it has turned out to be for us. First of all, it fits under our kitchen sink which has child lock on it and so little hands as well as pesty, hungry dogs stay out of the trash. Our garage and recycle bins are just steps away from the kitchen so we have very little trash in our kitchen. This was a very hard transition for us in the beginning as we used to have a big old kitchen garbage in our kitchen. The problem with that: where do you put it? more trash in your kitchen means more odor, more to attract ants, etc., there is more room and so it gets emptied less and food waste is just sitting around, you have to buy garbage bags for a large can and that is more money.
With this small can we empty it more frequently. There is less room and it forces us to recycle more, and put more in garbage disposal and/or compost pile. Then too one may say, "We do not use plastic grocery bags because we use our cloth grocery bags." I say, "Kudos to you!" That is awesome. But then do you have to buy plastic trash bags for your kitchen garbage? Perhaps you are completely ahead of the game and spend the extra $$ and buy biodegradable trash bags. Even better! But for the rest of us, this makes some great sense. I DO use cloth grocery bags. I also am human and do forget from time to time. I also, intentionally leave them in the car from time to time so we get the plastic bags for dog poop and nasty diapers and the trash can too.
OK, so maybe you have a big old trash can and tons of garbage? Then perhaps it's time to reduce your disposables? Just a thought? We ARE leaving behind a trash legacy for our kids and their kids too, and so on. Please care. I no longer buy paper towels. I use rags. I do have one or two rolls of the janitor brown rough paper towels for dog puke, etc. I am religious about using rags but I do NOT want that in my washing machine! We never use paper plates unless it's for a party. I almost never buy individually wrapped foods. Many moms are big on that for kids. BUTTTTTTT, it costs more, and there is more paper and plastic waste to dispose of. Just a few ideas on reducing your trash AND recycling too.
Here is the link if you want to purchase one of these trash cans at Container Store (also the cheapest one I found @ only $5.99!!!. I also Googled: Grocery Bag Trash Can and if you hit images, then you can take your pick of them and then select the website you want to buy from. There are some fancy stainless steel kinds and also a few other plastic types too. This link is another nice white plastic model from Harriet Carter. Enjoy!
What Sensible Solution do you have in your home/life that you really just love and feel good about every time you use it?
2 comments:
Our kitchen trash can...years of battling with our animals, keeping them out of it...and the cat can open cabinets so under the kitchen sink never worked...we finally won: a large, domed top can, wedged under a tall open cabinet and ten pounds of dive weights in the bottom to stop them from knocking it over. 8 years...and we finally figured something out!
Hmmm...we never use the plastic grocery bags any more. I have reusable bags for shopping--that I've had forEVER...glad they're catching on here in the US, but store baggers still get confused by them at times. Ah, well...baby steps.
We run a load of rag towels a couple times a week...so cat puke rags go in along with towels used to clean the cat room, various other messes around the house. Can't remember the last time I purchased paper towels...
My son's lunches are always packed in containers he brings home--usually. We've lost one or two. I did break down and buy a package of paper napkins after the cloth napkin I sent failed to return.
Majority of what gets cooked in this house is from scratch. So much healthier. And really? Not a lot of extra work or time. Just like it wasn't anything extra on my part to make all of our own baby food. I love the fact that my 4-year-old talks about recycling and re-using. And making things for himself!
We do the same thing with our trash, but we're too small of a community to have a proper recycling area.
I reuse a lot of stop like extra paper napkins when we get fast food as well as ketchup, salsa, and fry sauce packs. I vaguely remember you mentioning something about how you do that too...
A lot of what Dori mentioned I do as well, though I usually forget to grab my cloth bags from the car when I go to the grocery store toting both kids (at least I don't forget them in the car, as tempting as it may be....) j/k
I also am taking advantage of my kids being small and usually jump in the tub with them to save on using too much water.
Sorry if that last one was a little TMI, but it's amazing how much cost that cuts!
Post a Comment