A Nearly Zero Trash Output Home

reply to post by abeverage

I support good policies and this will encourage other companies to do the same! There is no reason everything we buy cannot be 100% recyclable!

Sometimes it takes more energy ,resources , chemical and cost to recycle a product than it does to make it for the first time. When this happens it makes no sense to recycle.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
reply to post by abeverage

 

I support good policies and this will encourage other companies to do the same! There is no reason everything we buy cannot be 100% recyclable!

Sometimes it takes more energy ,resources , chemical and cost to recycle a product than it does to make it for the first time. When this happens it makes no sense to recycle.

Any and all products should have that built into cost or not be made...I heard an interesting entrepreneur once describing why should you get a meal in a container that you cannot eat?

With today's technology it makes little sense to make things that cannot be re-used, re-purposed, self-sustaining, renewable, biodegradable or recyclable. The only excuse is GREED!

One way to look at the burning of burnables is:
I burn the bones, sticks, papers and logs...and then I use the ash for fertilizer to grow plants to absorb the CO2 thus keeping it locked up in a cycle instead of it just breaking down into methane / CO2 bound only for the atmosphere.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
a) DIY burning of trash is very likely to be dirtier to the environment that industrial strength incinerators many communities use. You may feel good about yourself when you burn trash, but in fact you are polluting the atmosphere. Why bother...

Does wood, clean paper and etc non-compostable food products really count as "trash"? How different is the argument of composting "trash"?

What is really released when I burn such. And so comes back the question, are you really avowed to never enjoy the simple pleasures of a bonfire?

While you might be watching a TV or computer monitors (powered by nuke / oil / gas /coal most likely) I might be out enjoying a fire and making fertilizer in the process.

Originally posted by SteveR

Originally posted by Philippines

Originally posted by SteveR
Interesting thread. What's the point of the burning? You are reducing pollution in some ways and adding to it in others.

Compared to what else? Burying/dumping the trash out of sight and out of mind?

Is the smoke out of sight out of mind? Biodegradable materials and organics don't need to be disposed of by burning.

Plastics should always be recycled, burning them is even worse than burying.

edit on 2013/4/22 by SteveR because: spelling

Thanks for your response. I agree plastics should always be recycled, when possible. Where I live that is not possible. Would you rather I bury the plastic or burn it? One way makes sure the plastic is in the ground for however many decades, while the other method makes it disappear in smoke. I also said there are options of recycling the trash into construction materials.

Let me ask you, are you responsible for all of your trash personally? Or do you have a service pick up your trash and recyclables for you? In other words, do you dispose of the waste you produce, or have someone do it for you?

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss



Thanks for the thread. It is good to try and reuse stuff for the rubbish. We are generally very unefficient

I saw in one of your rubbish bag some tetra packs. They can be made it to lots of things if you have spare time.

wallets..



sandels...



plant pots and sun reflectors



coke cans can be made it to lots of things like jewlery or ash trays

heres some coke can lights



plastic bottles have lots of uses too. Even greenhouses that work well. Heres a thread about them,

101 Uses For a Plastic Bottle
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by purplemer


Sorry but these inventions looks like crap. With all due respect...

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Does wood, clean paper and etc non-compostable food products really count as "trash"? How different is the argument of composting "trash"?

What's composted is typically stuff that is hard or unfeasible to burn. As to chemistry of composting as compared to burning, I don't have that info.

What is really released when I burn such.

Burning in a bonfire is bound to release all sorts of nasty stuff. You can easily google "bonfire pollution"

And so comes back the question, are you really avowed to never enjoy the simple pleasures of a bonfire?

Wait, I didn't say I decided to never use open fire. It's just that you seem to go to some length to reduce pollution in one case and you are OK with the other, because you like "simple pleasures". I don't see logic in that. Why bother then...

Originally posted by buddhasystem
I don't see logic in that. Why bother then...

I'm more concerned about there ever existing a place called "Mt. Trashmore", or "Pacific Garbage Continent", that I helped build, than I am about obscure sky chemistry that using cars, TV's & computers could very easily be just as 'dirty' as.

It could be said that that little fire pit is the heart and soul of this thread, because until I only just recently began utilizing it did the notion of a 'nearly zero trash output home' even become something that seemed realistically feasible. I'll add that this wasn't a deliberate goal, it was more of a conclusion I arrived at when all these aspects came to fruition.

Originally posted by buddhasystem
What's composted is typically stuff that is hard or unfeasible to burn. As to chemistry of composting as compared to burning, I don't have that info.

Actually I compost everything I can, as I have my 'jungle' and thousands of worms to feed. Last year I had until then a habit of composting the same paper products I now burn... and it worked well until it helped fuel a termite invasion which after I removed all the paper and cardboard for them to eat they then turned and wiped out hundreds of dollars at least of my exotic tropical rootcrops. BY the time I brought in predatory nematodes to wipe them out the damage was done. Should have burned all along but lacked the metal ring.

Is skynet central tampa

reply to post by LastStarfighter


Yes.
Metaphorically, and even kind of physically (CENTCOM).

Recycled jars, especially handy for those occasional dinner parties or cocooning video marathons with friends. Everyone can just pick their favorite size and style jar. How fun is that! And I thought it was kewl that that posh restaurant in St. Pete used those neat blue bottles from fancy water to put the flowers in at the tables. I thought it was so neat I tried it too. Next time I just have to try entertaining with those beautiful glass jars. They come in handy for other stuff too, like holding pens and pencils, scissors, flash drives and many other interesting objects. I know someone who cut a plastic water bottle and filled it with dirt and used it for plantings.
I do recycle plastic bags at the grocery. I'm sorry but I refuse to put stuff in those cloth bags. Nothing like putting your fresh baked bread in a bag that yesterday had a pound of ground beef drip in it. (oh wait we aren't supposed to have beef cause they fart methane gas and those poor nations around the world can't afford it)

Other than that, I hope you don't relish the thought of the UN telling you how much toilet paper or water you can use, because that is where Agenda 21 is going. That is in addition to telling you what you can and cannot do on your own land(if they didn't take it through eminent domain).
I just love those conservation easements where they pay you to not use your own land so that a spotted owl can keep it's nest.
What's really even kooler is that now there's that bike path going down the road cause nobody can afford a car anymore and even kooler we have big apartment complexes that look just like those neat ones in the old Communist Soviet bloc.(ok that's still in the future but it's headed that way)

Hey, did you find a reuse for your computer chassis yet?
Oh one last thing, What are you burning? Plastic is toxic...

reply to post by purplemer


Sandals made with duct tape? I'm sorry but even in third world countries they can afford those two dollar plastic flip flops.

Around here, I've noticed that some coffee shops use recycled containers for their sandwiches. It is a professionally recycled product though.
My sister went through a phase of making paper from scratch. They were beautiful and wonderful colors too. It wasn't paper to really write on though, it was totally artistic.
I use those plastic baggies for packing materials.

This thread reminds me of a documentary I saw called 'No Impact Man'. It was free on Netflix. The guy lives in an apartment with his family and tries to go an entire year without making trash. It's worth a watch. I am debating giving making no trash a try. My town charges $200 a year, and that's to bring my trash and recyclables to the dump myself. That alone is good incentive to try not to make trash. One thing I would have no idea what to do with would be kitty litter. I guess that would have to go to the dump.

Great post! I also reuse glassware that gets purchased at stores and use it for drinking/watering glasses. Shoot, I haven't bought a cup or glass in 15 years.

I haven't taken it to the extent you have, and probably won't, but I will steal some tips. Good stuff. Thank you.

Originally posted by tl1977
One thing I would have no idea what to do with would be kitty litter. I guess that would have to go to the dump.

There's several wood/paper based biodegradable, fully compostable kitty liter products out there. You could also let them be indoor/outdoor cats. Mine barely every use the liter box its only there for when they cant get out. If fleas are a concern just treat your yard with beneficial predatory nematodes. Nasty micro parasite worms that infect the fleas and their larvae, along with most other bugs we love to hate but not the worms.

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by purplemer

 

Sandals made with duct tape? I'm sorry but even in third world countries they can afford those two dollar plastic flip flops.

You have to waste the ductape making those futile sandals.

For sandals you can use car tires to make indestructable tires. In another thread in Survival a member uses tires as a potoato planter stacking them as they grow upwards.

C'mon environmentalist folks. I was hoping to gain more in this process than show off in this effort. For all the enviro's that have loved to hate my talk over the years here, when walking the talk I would assume to being one-up'd / taken further on many more of my odd little habits I've sigma'd into progressionally tabulatable results. Feedback and collective developmental progression I've always enjoyed about ATS.

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
BURN!:
Big city livin':

This step is crucial in minimizing trash out out to the fullest. Until I started burning regularly just recently, the concept of zero trash output had never even been a goal or item of much thought. Now that I burn, right in the heart of the city where its very uncommon, feeding the fuel flow is part of the goals. Now meats, oils & grease, breading etc are all burned. Generally they make the fire smell just for a spell. I had a can of olive oil go rancid on me last year so stuck under the sink. Recently I've been using it for starting fuel on occasion when improper kindling ratios are a problem. Soon the oil will be all poured out, and then I'll be able to put the can in the recycle bins.

Note the pit contents when photo'd: All etc organic waste collected from the yard. My weekly practice, whenever I leave the house vehicularly, is to scoop up logs and such dumpage across my paths. Many places these enter rot before they're picked up. If they do get picked up, by the city, they get hauled to municipal composting facilty and turned to use.

THE QUESTION THIS DISCUSSION HAS WARRANTED: Chemically, environmentally, does me picking up random logs along with burning slow-composting materials from this property and turning into fertilizer via fire, when I'm 1 in maybe a 1000 that has this little fire 1-4 times per week and surely the most avid 'gardener' in that radius, is my existence a plus, a fence, or a negative, by this metric alone?

FOR FAIRNESS: I'll add that I do use some easy-to-compost materials sometimes as kindling to ensure a properly staged methane release & ignition structure that might best endure into a steady non-stopingly pleasant arsonic reaction.

Now I'll add that this municipal composting facility, I've never seen a product anywhere labeled as being the product of such. However, theres a local landscape supply that sells this so-called "planting soil", which I'm convinced is a mix between yard pickup compost, and water treatment plant 'compost'. The result is what I call "swamp muck". It's a disaster to use here in containers. Takes so much mix-ins to even get a soil that is good on plants for beyond 3 straight months, especially considering how HOT black pots here will get during such period.

However, in the ground, in our 'crap' sand 'soil', mixed in as topsoil, its quite good. Our very existence, especially utilizing mass produced fertilizers to drive much plant growth and the food we eat which can produce usefil fertilization of inhabited soils, does empower the plants of this world in general to thrive more and help make this world much more forgiving -for whatever our actual impacts truly are-. We should be able to expect some plateau where the nutrients we've 'mined' will find this world a balance where with proper composting the earth is more and more fertile (this word trancends the concept of nutrients alone here) enabling us to less and less need 'more fertilizer'.

I look at that Mississippi delta 'dead zone', I dont just see tragic habitat alterations, I see losses of different sorts as well: Businesses, homes and agriculture-proper are dumping those nutrients down the drain. Quite literally dumping investments down the drain. Maybe taking out loans to do it. Maybe with better soil testing the world wouldnt need to spend so much on N's that are excessive and will pour down some municipal drain on into the ocean? Maybe that's the trendy new green job: the community nutrient soil tester for hire guy.

Great thread. I do much the same myself. I also burn a little but only papers and wood debris in a small fire maybe once a month. I don't burn plastic ever. I just wanted to mention the other problem with fires is the particulate matter- something to be mindful of. We also recycle metal on a small scale, it keeps it out of the landfill and brings in a few $'s. It's hard work sometimes though and easy to get hurt.
I didn't know about the nematodes! Thanks, I'm going to try them for the flea problem- we've got one cat who is severely affected by the little buggers!

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
Around here, I've noticed that some coffee shops use recycled containers for their sandwiches.

And I've noticed some coffee shops recycle their sandwiches.

I like your idea, I do the same