all squared up: No-Waste November? Let’s talk trash!

We may need a smaller can.

We've been eating a whole-food, plant-based, low-sodium, minimally-processed and no-oils diet for so long now, it's become second nature. Chop an onion and saute it in a bit of low-sodium vegetable broth, add some garlic...ya da ya da...and pretty soon we have dinner and leftovers that last at least through lunch tomorrow and possible dinner tomorrow night.

This way of cooking makes me feel good physically and deep down good inside too. In our quest to save money too, we buy lots of unprocessed fresh fruits and vegetables, along with a good amount of frozen foods, canned goods and depending on my schedule, pre-chopped vegetables from Trader Joe's. I limit myself on pre-processed fruit, because I'm just never that busy. But bags and bags of produce enter our house each week. And all those bags eventually make it into our trash.

Many times after a marathon cooking stint, I would be surprised how much trash I had just thrown into the kitchen trash. Of course the recyclables went where they belonged, the compostables went in the garden, and the better compostables like potato and carrot peels went into special batches of dog food for our Molly girl. But the one-time-use only bags and cartons were the ones that bothered me. The frozen corn bags, the clear plastic produce bags that I would never manage to save and either reuse or bring back to the bin at the store. Each week we filled up our trash can with lots of unrecyclable plastic that was going straight to the landfill. And I'm sure if you asked the land, if it could talk, it would ask that we stop trying to fill it. Ditto with the oceans.

So loving a good food challenge, we decided to use November 2018 as a test ground for a zero waste month. We dubbed the month No Waste November, knowing we were shooting for more of a Low Waste goal. If I have a catchy title, I can do just about anything in a month, so the end of October had me using up as much of the food we had in single-use containers. These items were mostly the frozen vegetables and fruits in the freezer, and bags of items such as nuts, flour and dried fruits. I invested in reusable mesh produce bags from the grocery store and started washing out and saving plastic produce bags from the store. I also got a few wax coated food covers from Trader Joe's. These would be in addition to the washable plastic covers I had from GladWare, the ones that look like something your grandmother wore at the beauty parlor. I've never been one to fight with plastic wrap, it always wins.

First shopping trip? Not Trader Joe's, where the one-use plastic bags are king. No, I headed straight to Sprouts Market with my reusable mesh bags. I marched into the produce department and started filling up mesh bags. And then quickly realized I was going to need more bags. I think I'm at nine now, we could probably use 12. I did start just throwing similar things in one bag, like herbs and smaller vegetable bunches such as radishes. I bet the cashiers mumble under their breath at shoppers who do this, but there is only so much mesh I want to mess with.

We had a great month of dried bean soups, vegetable soup, more dried bean soups, followed up with some more soup. Because the month of No Waste was also the month of No Oven, the off button on our oven decided to quit, so roasting, baking and casseroles were out of the question. Soup for days and days and days.

We are only two people, but we eat home-cooked meals probably 95% of the time. That makes one tall kitchen can of trash each week. With really watching the one-time use plastic, we reduced this to only one can for the whole month. It felt so odd to throw away that tall kitchen bag with so little trash in it, that I started to just up-end it into the outside bin and reuse the bag. There was no food trash in it to speak of, so it wasn't even smelly. Amazing results. This little experiment has made me think twice about the packaging of even the healthful foods we purchase, and whether there is an alternative means to buy that same product.

How were the cost-savings? Our shopping habits definitely changed, but we were not attempting to save money, just plastic. But nonetheless, money-wise we did pretty well. Minus the days we went to Southern California for a get-away, our average food costs were $9.88 per day. Not quite as good as the $6.66 all-time record from eating at the 99 Cent Store for one month, but not too shabby either.