7 Ways to Reduce Trash

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Glad. The opinions and text are all mine.

According to Duke University Center for Sustainability and Commerce, the average person generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day!  Y’all, that is 1,530 pounds of trash per person, per year. Yikes! Before kids, Andy and I were trash reducing pros. Two kids later, well, we try our best. The ultimate goal is to consume less. The less you buy, the less you will have to throw away. Makes sense, right? Lucky for everyone, this method will also save you some bacon! After consuming less, the next best thing to do is reuse. (I wrote an entire book about crafting with kids using everyday things!) If you can not find a way to reuse or give the item to someone else, the next step is to try and recycle the item. I’m excited to partner with Glad to bring y’all easy tips for reducing trash.

7 Easy Ways to Reduce Trash and Save Money

1. Reusable water bottle and travel mug

Instead of using disposable cups, bring your own! Bonus: Starbucks, Caribou Coffee, and Dunkin’ Donuts offer discounts on coffee when you use a reusable cup!

2. Don’t buy single serve packages

Instead of buying single serve snacks for the kids, I buy a large bag of say, veggie sticks and then put them directly into Max’s stainless steel lunchbox. Same thing with things like yogurt, try not to buy the individual containers. Instead, buy a large carton and scoop a single serving into a bowl. That’s another good one, use a reusable lunch box, we love this one.

3. Compost

See that little silver pail in the picture above? That’s our compost container that sits next to the kitchen sink. We compost things like fruit and veggie peels, egg shells, coffee grinds, paper towels, and tea bags. Composting saves us so much room in our trash can and doubles as plant food! See my tips for composting with kids here.

4. Reduce your trash can size

In Austin, you can choose between 4 trash can sizes. We have the second smallest trash can at 32-gallons. Having a smaller trash can forces us to think more about what we put in the trash. Bonus: It costs less each month too! Here in Austin, a 64-galloon trash can costs $24.30 and a 32-galloon trash can costs $19.15. That saves your family $61.80 a year and helps keep trash out of the landfill, win-win! The little guy is our weekly trash can and the big blue can is our bi-weekly recycling can.

5. Reusable bags

A local law in Austin bans businesses from handing out single use plastic bags. Since 2013, I’ve been brining my own bags to the store. I just keep a bunch in the back seat of my car and now I think it’s weird when I’m somewhere else and they give me bags!

6. Go paperless

Sign up to pay your bills online. Bonus: This also ensures that your bills will be paid on time and saves on the cost of stamps! Consider reading magazine and newspaper subscriptions on your tablet.

7. Stop getting junk mail

I saw a statistic that claims the average American gets 30 pounds of junk mail a year, wowzers! Get your name off of the advertising mailing lists by clicking here and filling out the short form. You’re welcome 😉

Here’s the deal, no matter how good we are at reducing trash, we still have trash each week and we need a trash bag that won’t tear or leak. So, for our kitchen trashcan we use Glad Kitchen Pro trash bags!