Louise's Utopia: The Trash Dash

This past week, we had to make our bimonthly trip to the dump.  In writing this blog, I learned that bimonthly can mean either twice a month or once every two months.  For my purpose, I mean once every two months.  Why am I going to the dump every two months?  For the sights and sounds, the wildlife, the scenery?  While the dump may have all of those things, the real reason is that when you live in the country often you have to take care of things yourself.  One of those things is the trash.  Unlike the city, where you take for granted that a nice clean green truck will come every week to dump the garbage and every other week for the recycling, in the country things are not so easy.  So, we have to take care of the trash ourselves.  With this reality though, we have become much more aware of what we throw away.  

There are several considerations when dealing with trash disposal on your own.  The first is where to store it.  For our sake, we purchased the dumpster pictured above, and photographed on the coldest day on the Coteau, from a local manufacturer.  This is useful for a number of reasons.  It keeps the trash contained in one location.  The rodents and other critters are unable to get inside of it.  Also, for the most part, it keeps the trash dry.  Another consideration is what to keep the trash in while it is in the dumpster.  After dealing with ripped bags and shoveling old smelly trash from the bottom of the dumpster, we quickly learned that heavy black bags do the trick.  Everything stays contained, and you do not have to deal with foul smells when loading the trash from the dumpster to the truck or trailer.

Another consideration is recycling.  Because we both do not like putting unnecessary trash in the landfill and because we do not want to go to the dump too often, we have become recycling experts.  The garage always has some amount of recycling being stored.  Plastic bottles, cans, cardboard, and paper, all are stored.  Unfortunately, the closest single-stream recycler is an hour and a half away, so sometimes the pile gets pretty big.  Nonetheless, we recycle whatever we can, and keep it until we go to town.

Further, to reduce the trash, we also can compost things like vegetable waste or coffee grounds.  We have been just dumping things on the ground in a pile, but this year we are going to construct a proper compost pile.  We hope to turn some of this common waste into rich compost for the garden.  I will write a blog on it when I have it up and running.

When we do go to the dump, we also have to separate the trash further.  Only true garbage can go into the landfill.  Metal goes into a metal pile, wood and construction waste goes into another pile, tires, etc.  It can be a real adventure getting the trash from the house to the dump and into the proper locations.

In conclusion, while personally I do not like anything about the dump, because I can see that it is an environmental catastrophe waiting to happen, I try to do my part as best I can.  I would never throw batteries, chemicals, or paint into the garbage.  Things like this are held and brought to a proper recycling location.  I also try not to be so wasteful.  If I can give things away or repurpose them I will.  Not everything has to be mindlessly tossed.  This has been one advantage of having to deal with the garbage ourselves.  We have become much more intentional about what we use, and how we use it.  I hope to turn going to the dump every two months to every 3 months, as I reduce my waste more.  Finally, one upside of handling my own garbage is that it is much cheaper.  I dumped two months' worth of trash this week, along with an old washer and dryer, for $22.00.  Try doing that in the city, bam, kicking it up a notch! Tell me some stories of trash you may have, Oscar. Please share, comment, and heart, or do all the above. Love ya! :)