Yeah. Our pet poop has too much chance for disease that can be transferred to the food crops. Also, in the same vein, (off topic for a second) you can't use any plot of soil that is near or has been a place where any kind of vehicles have been, because the unleaded gas takes 30-40 years to dissipate, and food crops also take that up and would make you very sick).

In Austin, we have Dillo Dirt, to be used for landscaping (not for food crops). At times, The City of Austin picks up tree limbs, leaves and such. They chop it all up and then the city sells it for cheap.

I once moved into a duplex that had only had one tenant before me. I called the Agricultural extension agent to find out if I could use the septic area for a small garden and they said no, because nobody could know what all the previous tenant had put down the drains!

Jilly, sorry. This went WAY off topic and I didn't mean to hyjack your thread!

Our toilets go into a field behind our house, isn't that sort of like composting them?

How does that work?
Is there a cesspit there?

A septic tank is made out of concrete, and the waste goes into there. Periodically, it has to be emptied, and a service comes and pumps it out into a container, which they then take with them to wherever. I think this is a point of contention, when you hear about trucks emptying into streams and rivers illegally. Also, if it gets VERY full, and it rains a lot, it will overflow. there's a lot about this I do not know. It just seemed to me at the time, that it would make a good garden. This was before I knew about disease in human waste and other things going down the drain!

My parents had a septic tank at my childhood home in upstate New York. I never really understood how it worked, but i do remember overflows from rainy periods.

Tweetymom, Dillo Dirt is a great name! And talking about composting is not off topic at all - it's an incredible way to reduce our trash imprint!

Today's update - I was able to grab all the actual 'trash' I had made since I moved in and bring it to a dumpster at one of my RV parks. I was so pleased how little amount of actual trash had accumulated in the course of this month.

My baggied dog poop made up a largish amount of that trash. I am thinking more seriously about getting some kind of doggie doo composter.

Here is a worm bin idea for dog wastes - compost dog waste

and a doggie dooley in ground toilet

Hmmm. If I can eliminate the dog doo from my trash footprint, that will be a nice achievement! Then I can consider what the next biggest single category is.

That is awesome Jilly that you are so light-footed on the earth!

We have two cats - right now we put their waste into the trash. I will look into what we can do with that too!

Can you flush their waste into the toilet?

OK, about to move back into the RV...and that will make my No Net Trash Goals harder. At least in the RV parks I can mix up the recyclables instead of having to have five containers here.

But I will still need:
a trash bin
a compost bin
a donation bin
a recycle bin

There really isn't room for all this in here. Ideas?

I am really impressed with your efforts to decrease your carbon imprint. Truly impressive and inspiring. I am puzzled on one point though. How does taking the small amount of trash you have and putting it in someone else's dumpster actually decrease your footprint? It's good that you have a legal way to do this...for most of us it could mean a fine.

Kathy

ps: love www.runpee.com!

Thanks about RunPee and the carbon footprint.

My goal is no net trash, but i know realistically i will NOT get there. EVEn tribal societies created trash. But it's still my goal. I figure if I set the bar high then my result will be pretty good.

It's not really someone else's dumpster - i pay a membership fee for rv campgrounds that includes trash disposal. So it's not illegal. I don't really have any answers for how other people can handle this one. Someone would have to be creative on a case by case basis. Give your neighbor five bucks a month to put your tiny amount of trash in their bin? Bring it home to your parents? Burn or bury it (not my suggestions but people do use those options in some rural areas).

I don't have all the answers yet but i am going to keep poking at it. Surely there is some kind of solution if enough of us put our heads together.