Off to a Rocky Start - Day 1

After another fun trip around the world, the trash torch has returned to the frog austin studio - to me, Cheryl Sedota, a technical architect at frog. I am so excited to be a trash talker, mainly because i want to become more conscious of how much trash I generate and more knowledgeable about minimizing trash. In order to accomplish both of those goals, for the first week I will not modify my trash generation at all, and during the second week we'll see how much better I can do. So far, I am pacing myself, only reading a few other trash talk blog entries per day so that I can take it all in, so sorry if I repeat others' mistakes/stories :)

I was off to a rocky start IMMEDIATELY today - I thought that plastic wrap was recyclable, and quickly found out it is not. So I generated trash with my first meal of the day (awful!) - I also saved my banana peel and plan on composting it when I figure out how/where (my husband strongly opposes starting a compost pile in the back yard, maybe by carrying this nasty bag of trash around with me, I can change his mind!). We have the company holiday party on friday, so that only gives me three days to find a trash bag that will match my dress!

For lunch, I went out - the restaurant had real silverware, plates, and cloth napkins so no trash from that meal, but I feel like it is cheating a little bit :) During the afternoon, I chewed gum and considered swallowing it to avoid generating trash, but thought I'd save the drastic measures for the second week. I also couldn't refuse a few pieces of leftover halloween candy (who could?!) so I saved those wrappers too.

I was able to go most of the day without using a paper towel, paper napkin, or tissue - by the end of the day I couldn't take it anymore, and decided I HAD to blow my nose :) Not sure if anyone has broached the subject of toilet paper, but let me just say that keeping toilet paper is a deal breaker. It's my one "gimme" :) OK, too much information, moving on...

I ate dinner at Whole Foods and without even realizing it, I grabbed a plastic fork and paper napkin - doh! At least I can compoost the unbleached compostable paper container that my salad came in... Next I accidentally used a Qtip to remove my eye makeup - by this point I'm feeling like a really awful person. Better call it a night!

Here is all the trash I've got so far: