we have 5 varieties of disposal in our house that i think helps to manage our amount of waste pretty well.

1. composting. we compost as much as possible (see saywards awesome list on this i learned tons!) my husband built a compost in our back yard out of pallets & we keep a little stainless steel bucket in the house. when the bucket gets filled we just take it out & dump it. we also put grass clippings etc. in there too. you just have to stir it often to promote heat & keep critters from taking residence in it. if you dont have a yard i know they have other compositing options such as barrels etc. i am sure you could fine something that fits your needs!

2. recycling (of course!)

3. trash. so we have 2 trashes. one is in a small bin & we use a brown paper grocery bag to line it (boo plastic! we just dont use our washable market bags every time we go shopping & ask for paper instead) any thing that can’t be recycled goes in there (ex. used tissues). The other trash we have is a little bag on the counter by the compost bin. it’s a recycled bag (usually from cereal that we finished) & we put anything moist in there that we don’t compost (ex. banana peels). that way, it keeps the moisture contained. if we combined the wet in our paper bag garbage it gets nasty and moldy.

4. give it away/sell it! anything like clothes, appliances, old baby stuff etc. that are in good shape we either bring to good will, give to someone we know or have a yard sale. it keeps it going & helps keep the carbon print down.

saving water.

one more little thing we do is use the water from our dehumidifier to help fill the washer. during the summer it gets hella humid here, so my husband built a stand for the dehumidifier next to the washer so it was up a little higher than the machine and attached a hose that we just let run right into the washing machine.

when we are low on rain (UNLIKE this spring!) i take the hose out & just let the humidifier container fill up with water, dump it in my watering can & give my plants a drink!

I’m glad you like the blog! And 100 sg ft of garden – that’s exciting!

I just found your blog and I’m really enjoying it. Vegan would be pretty out of the question for me (health restraints require more protein than I could get from veggies alone) but I have managed to get my family eating MORE veggies then they used to, and we’re all so much healthier and happier for it! I can’t wait until the summer growing season really kicks off and I can start buying local produce again… Not to mention the 100 square feet of garden space I have this year!

I try to surround myself with people who inspire me, and also remind myself that I’m only one person and doing my best. That’s all any of us can hope for. =)

Also, yes! Supporting local farmers is a great one!

@ Alex – can you believe I just got my first bike last spring? I live for that thing now, used it all last summer for errand running, etc. I’ll be writing about bikes soon – thanks for the reminder!

@ Lee – Thanks Lee! Ditto!

Number 10 – walk and ride the bus, when possible. I have a car and use it when I have to, and when I’m lazy, but more and more I’ve been taking the bus or walking to destinations. Being that one of my habitual destinations is downtown for school, and downtown P-town has parking meters, in my case I’ve actually saved myself a lot of money by getting a bus pass.