Day 69 of our Green Year: One Garbage Bag Challenge

Here we are in Day 69, and the decision has been made to completely limit our garbage. We got the idea from our friend Jennifer at Mother's Going Green, who has taken part in the one can a month challenge. This means they only have one garbage can full of garbage per month, which is about two to four bags a month depending on how large the can is.

Layla and I thought this was such a good idea, that we have decided to do the same, except we will be going for one garbage bag a month. That means we will be recycling and composting everything we can, keeping an eye on packaging and everything to ensure that we do not exceed one garbage bag per month. This is actually a really tough challenge because our society has evolved to be very wasteful. Everything we buy, even the stuff that is limited package and organic, can still have a lot of packaging to it.

Our society generates so much garbage, it is truly astonishing. In Canada, which is one of the worst per capita offenders, it has become an epidemic. Here are just some alarming statistics.

• 40 percent of all solid waste generated in Canada is from household garbage.
• Each person in Canada generates 383 kilograms of waste. In other words, that is 30 garbage bags per person in Canada.
  
• 12 million tonnes of waste is generated by residential homes each year.
• Only 2.5 million tonnes is recycled.

Ultimately, our goal is to be zero impact. Selectively buying what we can to keep garbage out of our home and ensuring that we recycle and reuse everything that comes into the house. It will be a happy day here when the garbage truck has nothing to pick up, ever. Until then, we will only be using one garbage bag a month starting this week.

Also, Layla and I bought a solar powered light for our garden. No need for batteries or household electricity here!
Do you have any suggestions for limiting garbage? Do you want to join our One Bag A Month Challenge? Got pictures of you going green? Email us at crwbaird@gmail.com!

Day 61 of our Green Year: The Ultimate Recycling

Well we are going headlong into our third month of going green and things are starting to really take off for us.
For today, we have decided to go green by joining Freecycle.org. Freecycle is a website that has actually been around for a few years, which allows people to essentially join the world's largest free garage sale.

Freecycle works through Yahoo Groups, and it gives the ability for people to put things that they want to get rid of up on the group for their area (our area is Trail, B.C.). Whether it is plant pots, a dresser, clothes or more, you can find it here and all you have to do is contact the person giving it away and pick it up.
As well, you can put up your things as well to prevent the things you own from ending up in the landfill. Remember, one man's trash is another man's treasure, and you don't want to contribute to our growing landfills by throwing things away, which someone else may want.

Think of how much waste goes to landfills that does not need to? How many times have you seen things like couches, pots, books and more at a landfill? There are about 10,000 landfills across Canada right now. That is about one landfill for every 3,500 people. As well, landfills account for 38 percent of all our methane emissions in Canada, which is 20 times stronger than greenhouse gases. While the items you get on Freecycle are not going to be producing methane, beginning by giving away what you would throw away, is a good start to preventing you from simply throwing everything away because it is easier. That way, landfills get smaller and more gets recycled.

Currently, Layla and I are looking for some things on the site to help us go green. We will see what we find!

As well, be sure to check out www.greenmagazines.com, where Layla and I will have ten tips on how to go green in each issue of Organic Lifestyles. They were nice enough to speak to us and we are looking forward to sending our message of how to go green to a wide audience!

Here is a photo of Layla doing the right thing by drying our clothes outside on the deck. Do you have any photos of you doing green things? Send them to us at crwbaird@gmail.com

Day 59 of our Green Year: Green Shopping

Welcome to Day 59 of Our Green Year, only one day away from two months!! So, for this day, we are going to be going green with our shopping. Already we have gone green by only buying local food and making sure it is organic, but there are other ways that we can go green with our shopping.

I would like to thank Mother's Going Green (http://www.mothersgoinggreen.blogspot.com/), who offered several awesome tips on how to go green with your shopping. So, Layla and I are taking the steps ensure our shopping is green, and that goes well beyond bringing cloth bags to the store.

First, we are going to shop less like our friend at Mother's Going Green. We will only be shopping for things when we need to, and when we do it will only be a local store. This means that unless we can't avoid it, no more Wal-Mart for us.

The other way we are going green with our shopping, and this is the most important one, is we will only buy items with minimal packaging. This goes from the food we buy, all the way to anything else.
Excess packaging is everywhere in our lives. When we buy food like Pizza Pops, they are put in a box, and then in individual plastic wrap. Is this necessary? What about Swiffer Sweeper? This product is built on not having a reusable mop that you can use for five years. Instead, you have to keep buying packages of individually-wrapped sweeper pads.
According to some estimates, while we are urged to increase how much we recycle, the amount companies waste in excess packaging has increased by 12 percent since 1999! We are talking about items like plastic that can take 1,000 years to break down, and once we rip the packaging to get our product we forget about it in the garbage.
Think about this. A total of 35 percent of all the waste in landfills is from packaging! That is a lot of waste that does not need to be there.

Therefore, from now on Layla and I will only buy products that are in cardboard boxes that we can reuse. We will only buy other products in jars that we can also reuse. If we have to buy something that uses plastic, we will either recycle it or turn it into something we can use. If you wonder what you can use the CD plastic wrap for, well if you take it off carefully, attach it to the to of a bucket and poke a hole in the middle (make sure it slopes down to the hole), then you can collect dew in the morning to use on your plants.

Thank you to Mountain FM who did an interview with us today about Our Green Year, as well as Shaw TV, who are planning on speaking with us next month!

The message of Our Green Year is spreading. Thank you to everyone who comes to our site each day and I hope we are helping to make a difference.

Day 53 of our Green Year: Picking Up Litter

This is a really easy one for all of us. No matter where you live, you will find litter. It is a horrible reality of our disposable society. Instead of choosing to carry our garbage an extra block, we dump it on the road. Instead of keeping the garbage in our car until we are at a place to dispose it, we toss it out the window.

More than anything, litter shows the mentality of many of our species, who see the world as one big dumping ground, and not the beautiful oasis suspended in a sunbeam that it is.
However, there are those out there that hold onto their garbage and throw it out or recycle it. Those who care that our roads are clean and that a hike in the woods does not show us garbage instead of nature.

In that vein of thought, Layla and I are committed to cleaning up trash when we are out. From the littlest wrapper we find on our walks, to cleaning up larger items when we are out and about. I encourage all of you do to the same. If we take the time to clean up after ourselves, the world can be a very nice place.

The Earth is not a dumping ground. It is a beautiful place that we should respect. If we don't, then one day all that will be left of our civilization will be the garbage we chose not to recycle or throw away.

Do you have your own tales of picking up litter? Do you have photos of you picking up litter? Or just photos of the litter in your area? Send it to us at crwbaird@gmail.com and we will put it up here to show what others are doing to keep the world clean.