Since I moved into my place, I have been taking a close look at my budget. One line item I think I can do away with is a monthly trash service. It costs $14/mo for trash with no recycling and $18 for trash and recycling.

I was thinking I would just do all the waste myself, and that this would be a great way to encourage me to have as small a trash footprint as possible.

So i set myself up with several recycling bins, a compost bin, a trash bin and a Donations bin. All are lined up in the kitchen.

The recycling stuff I take out each time I go shopping in town, which is easy. The compost gets dumped into my compost pile when it's full. I take the Donations out when it gets full.

Trash is the tricky one. I pay for an RV campground membership and i do my laundry at those. I try to remember to take my bagged trash out when i go, and to use the dumpsters (I am already paying for it, so why not?).

I look forward to actually seeing how small an amount of trash I actually create each month. I have to retrain DH to compost things like coffee grinds and food wastes.

It's not like $18 is a huge amount to spend each month, but i think of it as an extra $216 over a year. smile