So, our garbage went down considerably. In part it is because we experimented with one means that the Composting Guru had recommended for getting rid of dog waste, without putting it out with the trash. The practice is flushing the dog waste down the toilet. It is certainly not a practice for everyone, and we haven't truly committed to whether or not it is for us. While it works, I think we still may be in search of other, hopefully more appealing, options.

The other part that contributed to our reduced garbage this week is that we simply weren't preparing food for a crowd - we weren't entertaining or readying food for a group for camping as we were in other weeks. And, we did a MUCH better job this week repurposing our various leftovers.

We continue to be disappointed in all of the products that we buy that are not recyclable because of the grade of plastic they are. Nearly all of the dairy products (except milk) come in 5s, which we are forced to throw in the trash. (We can only save so many yogurt containers for painting projects). And we have begun to take note of the grade of plastic BEFORE buying to try to see if we have an alternative to the same product in a grade of plastic that can be recycled. For example, of the two types of packaged hummus we buy, one is packaged in a #1 container, and the other in a #5. We'll make more of an effort to buy things packaged in #1 and #2 recylceable plastic, but what ultimately drives our purchases more than what is it recycleable, is which one is easier on the budget.

We were already pretty good about giving away, selling, or otherwise donating objects so that they could avoid residency at the dump.

Into the final stretch, we will make the final leap at improvement (because we haven't made time to do it YET), we will pick up the composting bin at Retzer and with adding the composting be about low-waste as we can be at with our current consumption practices.

And, identifiably, we can make make even more effort to reduce by just consuming less in general, and re-embracing a mantra. We'll share a quote - some sources say it was a quote from the Great Depression, and others say it is a WWII quote. Regardless where it originated, it is good, frugal, sustainable, and healthy practice,

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

As a new family of five (our youngest son is 7 weeks old), we weren't sure what changes we could make at this time. The biggest change we ended up making was switching from disposable to cloth diapers for our little one. Of course, when you add up the weight of throwing away all that "waste", it can really make a difference! Another change, albeit quite a bit smaller, was buying washable breast pads in place of the disposable ones. We also have ramped up our composting a bit, even composting our facial tissues.

One of our big recycling "passions" is the recycling of plastic bags, and not just plastic grocery bags. Unless I'm mistaken (and someone please tell me if I am), all those little dry bean, rice, cereal, frozen vegetable, and toilet paper bags can be put in with the plastic grocery bags and brought to most grocery and big box stores for recycling. Spread the word!

Earth 911 has posted some fun suggestions for reusing and reducing waste just in time for Halloween. One idea I plan to try is making cans into jack-0-lanterns. I like to make my pumpkins into puree for pies and pumpkin soup, so I don't like to carve them. But I want some extra lighting effects when the trick-or-treaters come to the door. Also, rather than purchasing a ready-made costume for you or your kids, try creating one from clothing purchased at a reuse shop like Goodwill. See- reusing and reducing can be fun!
http://www.goodwillnj.org/halloween/make-costume.html

http://earth911.com/news/2011/10/26/guide-to-greening-your-halloween/?ut...

I've just submitted our final numbers for the challenge. Our garbage weight had gone down as expected. What I didn't expect was that our recycling weight went down slightly as well. The major change in our behavior was composting, so the change in recycling weight must be from newspapers that would have ended up in the recycling bin, but got shredded into the compost bin instead. Making the changes wasn't difficult and I plan to continue what we have started. Hopefully by this time next year, we will all remember to compost and I won't find banana peels in the garbage anymore!

This week our garbage output went up. Try as we might there are just some times and circumstances that are out of our control and so our garbage pile is larger. Kleenex consumption due to colds being one of them. We also cleaned out our shed and threw out a rug that was used up and had become a haven for mice. No donating that item! We have always been avid recyclers and so it frustrates us to have a larger garbage output. It also frustrates us that there are so many #5, 6, and 7 plastic containers and that they aren't recycled in Waukesha. But I think what frustrates us the most are people we know who don't recycle. Some say it's too much extra work or they don't like it that the city changed recycling pickup to once every two weeks. Maybe the city should go back to picking up recycling every week and make garbage pickup once every two weeks. I wonder if more people would recycle. Just a thought.

Look at the recycling numbers on the Culvers ice cream cups and shake cups - they are #1's!

It's interesting each week to see our trash totals going down. It makes it very exciting to know that we are making changes that are positive for our environment. We have begun to make many changes at our house. I canceled the newspaper. I realized it was silly to continue getting the newspaper when my husband and I both subscribe to online newspapers. These papers were coming to the house and no one was even reading them. Another change we made is collecting all the plastic bags (regardless of type) and taking them weekly to the plastic bag collection bins at the grocery store. This has greatly reduced the amount of "stuff" going into our garbage. It's amazing how many things are packaged in plastic bags.

I also took a look at how I purchase food. Many of the things I buy for the kids' lunches is packaged in individual cup sizes. (i.e. fruit cups). I have decided that I can buy a can of fruit and cut it up into bite size pieces and use a reusable Tupperware cup. This is also a cheaper way to buy fruit. Same goes for the kids sandwich's. I have started to put those into my Tupperware sandwich containers. No more plastic bags going into the trash. (No I don't sell Tupperware--just have lots of it.)

We continue to use our compost bin and have really enjoyed being able to put our scraps into it. Freezing the food works great. Then I don't have to constantly make trips to the bin. It does seem to be working great. Can't wait to use the compost in the garden next spring.

I have to empty three litter boxes this week. That will really hit our garbage total hard. Any suggestions on what to do with pet waste?

Today I'm baking pumpkin to get ready for pie and other treats in the next months. This is something I do every year, but this year, instead of scooping all the seeds and "guts" into the garbage, I scooped them into some newspaper and walked them out to the composter in the back yard. I am amazed by how much compost is already in the bin. After just two weeks, it is about half way full with kitchen scraps and yard waste that otherwise would have ended up in our garbage. I'm still having to fish banana peels and apple cores out of the garbage can occasionally, but it is getting better.

Well, this week our garbage was up at 20 pounds after we'd gotten it down to 15 last week. I suspect part of the 15 pound week was that we were out of town that weekend. Still making trash, but not having to count it at home! Either way, we are down 5 pounds from our baseline week of 25 pounds.

We are definitely making sure to compost everything we can. We are excited to pick up our compost bin from the Retzer and add it to the homemade one we have. Also, we are recycling more because of what we learned at the recycling facility tour. I didn't know you could recycle orange juice containers, for example. So, now we make sure we are doing that! And we are thinking harder about what we buy and trying to stay away from single use things in containers that can't be recycled.

We also learned that wrapping paper is not recyclable. So that means we are going to try to avoid it from here on out. We'll have to get a little more creative this Christmas!

We are enjoying the challenge and will hopefully get our garbage number back down to 15 pounds this coming week! It's great how this makes you stop and think about the waste you are creating.

Okay, so admitedly, this is a "CHALLENGE." Our counts are not going down. This week's garbage and recycling contained two evenings worth of entertaining remnants. We had "the family" over for a big dinner on Friday night, and had a few friends over on Saturday night. While we don't entertain often, as a fact of the matter, we will be entertaining in the future..I know that we typically buy even more than we normally would in terms of fresh fruits and veggies when we are having guests - we are famous for our salads in partiuclar. But part of the reality is that we throw away a lot of organic material that is compostable. I attended a composting workshop recently (thanks Composting Guru!), and as much as I embrace the concept of composting, I haven't ventured to embrace the practice. Depending on how our schedules shake out this weekend, we may take the leap and go to Retzer to buy the composting bin. We'll see how things are looking next week. There is still hope for us!

For those of you who were unable to attend the Recycling Education Day at the County Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) at 220 South Prairie Avenue in Waukesha, we are hosting an Open House on Saturday, November 12 from 10 a.m. until noon. This will be your chance to see what a difference all your efforts to recycle more make every day when added to those of all the other 88,000 households in 25 communities that participate! Collectively you recycle over 21,000 tons per year.
www.waukeshacounty.gov/recyclingtours

You will be amazed at the mountains of recyclables waiting to be sorted and the bales of separated paper, cardboard, cans, plastic bottles, and processed glass ready to be shipped to markets where they are made into new products.
Mark your calendars- Hope to see you all there!

- Karen Fiedler, Waukesha County Recycling

After our first weigh-in, my daughter and I had a great time researching how we could start to reduce our waste. We had a great evening forming new waste reduction habits!

The whole family is now thinking...about reducing waste. Over the weekend we picked up a composting bin from Retzer Nature Center and we began looking beyond cans and newspaper. We have had a lot of fun learning about everything we can do to...reduce!

We already celebrated some success as we submitted our second weekly challenge weights.

Thank you to everyone for taking part in the challenge!

Well, we didn't make much of a reduction in our garbage from the baseline week, only down 1 pound. We are going to have to really think about how to make less trash! We have a compost bin and love using that for all our food scraps. It seems to always be full so we are excited to pick up another one from the Retzer. I love how this challenge is getting my 5 year old to think more about garbage though. And now one of his jobs is taking out the compost. We keep the food scraps in a container in the freezer and when it's full, he takes it out. He loves being in charge of that.

And thank you to Dustin for the wonderful tour of the recycling center! Our whole family really enjoyed it. It was great to see first hand where everything goes and what happens to it. The presentation was great too and really made us think about what we buy. For example, yesterday I decided to buy the large cans of mandarin oranges Instead of buying individual fruit cups.

Old habits die hard. The composter is put together and we have started saving coffee grounds and fruit and vegetable scraps, but I have had to fish several banana peels out of the garbage can. Our garbage weight is down this week, but so is our recycling. As I look around the house, I see several newspapers that need to go out, so I'm sure the recycling number will be up again next week.

Not usually excited about garbage day, today was different! Forgot to weigh the bins prior to garbage collection but were happy to see we had 25.4lbs of garbage for a family of 5! We also have bi-weekly recycling pickup and had 26.4 lbs of recycling. Realizing we have to cut that in half for a week we feel we are starting with lots of ideas and we know we can do better.

Weighed the bins after pickup and cut the recycling in 1/2 - Totals: 20.8lbs of garbage & 9lbs of recycling. We think we do pretty well with recycling the mail, cereal boxes etc. But we need to stop buying individual soda cans (2 liters are less trash?) healthwise we should cut it out completely :) We are determined to improve with next weeks garbage.

I also read the fruit of another post - Brennan's is the answer! Minimal packaging and you get to taste the fruit prior to purchase. Makes a great place to snack and try different fruits - now you can't beat that!

Week one has been interesting. We recycle a lot and always have, but I've found myself thinking about every single thing I put into the garbage this week. No more mindless throwing. I'm a personal chef and an avid home chef, and the biggest contributor to our garbage (and the heaviest at times!) seems to be food scraps. This has made me contemplate composting, but I will be honest, I'm not a gardener nor do I want the responsibility for tending a compost heap. I checked with friends because I AM willing to transport food scraps to someone elses home for composting if I can find someone who will do it. A friend of mine offered to take my scraps for her compost heap, but also said that her mom's chickens love food scraps too! So, it looks like I'll be using an old container to accumulate the scraps through the week and then do a drop off once a week in at my friend's house. The amount of food waste I had was astounding to me. I wish Waukesha would consider a curbside composting program (let those who contribute get some compost for their own gardens....use the rest for public gardens,etc). I also wish they would open up recycling for #5 because now I'm accumulating containers and trying to figure out what to do with them. This whole challenge really will be a lesson in creativity and reuse. Looking forward to the weeks to come!

We are a little late in recording it, but we did our first weights on Sunday night. I was quite glad to see that our total garbage weight was 25 pounds and recycling divided in half was 19 pounds. We are well under the average of 5 pounds per day per person. We are already good recyclers, but I'm sure there are things that we leave out. The biggest change that we can make is composting, so I have started a kitchen container and went to Retzer yesterday to purchase the yard composter. We'll see how it goes!

Greetings, participants! As a reminder, this week is the first week to weigh your material and submit it on the website. You should weigh your material the night before or the morning of your pick-up, before you send it to the curb!

Can't wait to see all of your baseline week weights -- the weights we will use to measure your change against for the rest of the Challenge!

Feel free to comment if you have any questions!

Today my part of the fridge is almost completely empty, leaving the mustard, salad dressings, and jelly very lonely. Instead of going my normal way and grocery shopping without a list, I am going to make a list. This way there will be no food items that are forgotten at the grocery store or in the fridge. I have also planned two steps ahead and have specific recipes for certain nights, with certain people. For example tonight I am cooking chicken alfredo for my roomies and me. For pay back they also will make one dinner, such as a casserole and Mexican food (for example). We have three planned dinners, which also makes up for 3 days of leftovers…making one night do whatever you want for yourself.

To see if my roommates and I had a food waste problem I took on the duty of cleaning the refrigerator, and what I found amazed me. Jars of old salsa, jars of old marinara and alfredo sauce, pudding, grape fruits, an old rotisserie chicken, an entire bag of pre cut veggies, and lastly a half loaf of bread. At one point all this food had dreams of being eaten, either being in a recipe or just plainly by itself. But there were no dreams where they were all put, the trash bag. As I tied the trash bag together I could not help but see the trash bag as a collection of dollar signs. How much money did I lose to wasting food? How could I plan to not waste food? Was there an easy fix?

Hi, Service Learners!

Thank you for choosing Waste Less Wisconsin for your service learning project. After creating a login, here you can post about your project. Please start with a little introduction about yourself and the idea you plan to pursue. Here is an example:

My name is Chris, my job with Waste Less Wisconsin is to support people who want to create and lead their own project to reduce waste, prevent pollution or conserve resources. I am looking forward to seeing your ideas and accomplishments as you carry out your efforts and post updates here.

Please to comment on what others post too - once logged in, you can comment directly. When you are not logged in, your comments will appear after moderator approval.

In Milwaukee, recycling is available at little or no cost with a simple request that can be made via phone call. In spite of this, there are still many households that don’t recycle. In the UWM neighborhoods around campus, cans, bottles, trash, furniture etc. are all consistently left out as garbage scattered around the neighborhood. This is inefficient on many levels. The cans and bottles that students leave around UWM clutter the neighborhoods and create hazards for the elderly and the youth who also share the East Side Milwaukee community. These bottles, cans and red party cups are left outside leaving the neighborhoods trashed and denounced.

I decided to focus on recycling in my home. My whole family is big water drinkers, especially myself. We go through many plastic bottles of water a day and over the weeks and months they add up. Also, we have gatorade in plastic bottles in our house a lot. While we have recycling at my house, we don't always use it and just throw plastic bottles in the trash. I am going to focus on recycling these plastic bottles in our house instead of throwing them in the trash. I am also going to focus on the gatorade bottles. Instead of buying multiple 8-packs of gatorade bottles, I am going to have my mom buy the powder mix that comes in a can that can be made in a pitcher that can be reused to reduce the amount of plastic bottles in my house.

Alright...First blog ever! =) Ok so I am in Geog 100 & I chose Waste Less Wisconsin for my service learning agency. My idea is with the reusable water bottles. I have a ton of them and love them! No more spending money on water & its good for the environment. I want to get people to use these bottles and hopefully love them as much as I do! But I also like flavored water and I know I m not the only out there so the second part of this would be to flavor your own water. Yes they do make those little packets you can put in your water but you can also slice up an orange, lime, lemon, cucumber or whatever you like and put into your water. Let the slices sit in the water, the longer it sits the stronger the flavor will be.

My goal for this project is to help clean-up my workplace in Green Bay. There are two main issues that I've noticed over the 3 years I've worked there which include poor recycling and inadequate lighting throughout the store and warehouse. Up until now I haven't done anything about it simply because no one else has mentioned these issues.

Over the last few weeks I did a little research of what my store is wasting the most of and what policies I can put in place to reduce this waste. A few things I will take on based on the amount of these specific items being wasted are cups used by employees, and napkins and tray liners given out to the guests. I feel like reducing the amount of paper goods we use in our daily routines will be highly beneficial to our store but also possibly the company as a whole.

Almost a week since the end of the Challenge and I think our family is still doing well. We've given up buying trash bags and instead now use a small grocery bag for our waste. We put our garbage out tonight and that bag is not even close to being full! I found myself at a new grocery store the other day where pears were significantly cheaper than what I usually pay. I had them in my hand ready to be placed in the cart when I paused to consider the packaging. Normally I don't even put my produce in a produce bag and these were packed in a hard plastic container, not recyclable of course. I decided they were not welcome in my cart and back they went. On this occasion at least, I chose to pay more for less packaging.

By Adriana Chessman

As thinking about what to do to help save Wisconsin from more trash, what first came to mind was clothes. Everybody has stuff in their closet that they don't wear but don't throw away. Doing more research, we found out that you can turn old jeans into insulation. We decided to run a jean drive. Old recycled jeans is a new wave hit for green home building projects. The stuff is comparable to traditional figerglass insulation but without the health and environmental concerns.

Hi, my name is Karime. For my service learning project I want to make changes in what I do and also include my roommates in it. I live with two guys who do not recycle and when they do they throw anything in our recycling bin. I was thinking, for myself I would start by using reusable bags when I go shopping, as well as not using the small plastic bags for certain veggies/fruits. As for my roommates I want to get them involved by having a list of the things we can recycle. In the process of doing this I want to keep a blog of my progress and maybe let others know what works, what doesn't.

Please see the report and pictures attached below

After having looked at the contents of my garbage, I realize that much of what gets thrown out is organic in nature and biodegradable. Perhaps instead of filling up plastic garbage bags with more trash and sending a lot of waste to the dump, I could compost the waste. This would provide organic nutrients for a garden that has for years likely been declining in soil nutrients due to the fact that many of the same vegetables are grown each year. This project would both reduce trash and help the family garden, which would further reduce trash by using home grown vegetables instead of store bought vegetables, many of which come in packaging. Perhaps to further reduce the quantity of plastic used in purchasing vegetables, my family could use reusable bags for produce.

In accordance with Waste Less Wisconsin, myself, Amanda Szada and William Brylow as a group, are working to create and promote a recycling plan.

Our plan for our project is to find a way to implement recycling for the residents to understand. We plan on finding recycling bins to put into the homes, and also find a way to make them understand what should and shouldn’t be recycled. Our plan is to come up with a poster or some kind of visual aid to help them understand better and also serve as a reminder to recycle. We are trying to help solve the wasteful ways of the people at the work, and maybe hope that when they move out, they keep it up.

Hi, my name is Nicholas Ryan Groth. I have a few ideas to help out the community in Wisconsin. Last year, I took an Urban Studies class, and the teacher played a video about a run-down neighborhood with junk piled high everywhere. The entire neighborhood came together to start cleaning and clearing out the waste. On my route to the elementary school where I do my fieldwork, I have noticed countless numbers of "trashed" areas in the west side of Milwaukee. My plan is to spend a long day or two or three to clear all the junk out of some of these areas and make them useful again. There would be some awesome parks and green spaces for people to play on if I did this work.

I am going into a Pre K classroom in a poverty stricken area of milwaukee and teaching the kids about what recycling is, how to do it, and how it makes a difference! the kids knew very little about what recycling was when we started, but they learned what happens to things that are thrown away, and how recycling reuses those things so they don't sit in landfills. they learned what objects can be recycled and brought some things from home to sort into bins. the kids loved learning about this and hopefully will continue to do it into the future!!

On March 24th my manager explained to me how the re-usable pads that she purchased cost $100 more than the disposable pads. She is pretty excited about the re-usable pads because they can be washed and used over and over again even though they were pretty expensive. My manager said that it's important to spend money on valuable things for the residents(since they are our main priority) so she didn't feel that any money had been wasted at all.

For my project i have created a channel on youtube sharing my ideas for tips on recycling. I just posted my first video tonight! It's just a little introduction but you should all add me or check it out! My channel is thechelsdog22 I know weird but oh well. But let me know what you think.

I work in an office and one of the things that I noticed was how many post it notes we go trough each day. It is a ton. So I decided instead of using all those post its, I would bring in a dry erase board and see how that works. People can write down the day to day things and then when an email comes in or they get the information they needed they can erase the board and start over again. I work in Sandburg Residence Halls so if it becomes successful there I will put dry erase boards in Riverview and Kenilworth Residence Halls and see just how much we can cut back on money for post its.

On March 1st I conducted a employee/ resident inservice meeting where I discussed the new incontinent pads that were on it's way for arrival. I taught everyone how the new incontinent pads should be used by having my friends volunteer as I placed the pad underneath their buttocks while they were lying in bed. My job bought a couple sample pads that I passed around the classroom explaining how they were re -washable and by using these pads would help our facility save money and the community waste less.

This is another idea of mine which is trying to inform people about how bad plastic bags are for our environment and they harm they cause to animals. I think in a big apartment complex and I was thinking about making flyers and informing people about this matter and letting them know what they can do to help. In addition I am going to get my family an friends involved as well and teach them the harms as well. I also was thinking about talking to some managers at the grocery store and asking if that give a certain percent off your purchase if you use your own bags instead of paper or plastic because I know at the metro market on Van Buren does that and it would be nice to inform people about that so they have a little incentive to change over to reusable bags.

Hello, my name is Jon Leonard and my plan for wasting less has 3 parts. 1. I will never use plastic bags from the grocery store and will get my roommates to do the same. 2. I will get all of my housemates to recycle religiously. 3. I will no longer use water bottles, and will instead drink from the faucet. All of this has the goal to waste less and contribute to the betterment environment in my daily life and the lives of my neighbors.

Hi my name is Ian and I am working with Waste Less Wisconsin to address the littering problem in my neighborhood. As I walk to school in the morning I notice tons of garbage all along the sidewalk and street. Everyday I notice that it gets worse and worse. What I propose is to get my block's residents more informed as far as the pollution problem both domestically and globally. With that information I am going to propose a block clean-up where I get everyone involved on like a Saturday and we have fun cleaning up the street while learning to maintain a clean environment. I have not planned a date or even talked with my neighbors but i have a lot of ideas and i would appreciate it if anyone has any ideas of getting the community more involved. Thanks

You can check out the rest of my blog here:

http://onconsumerism.blogspot.com/

My project experience:
For a long time I had attempted to go vegetarian but had always given up after a couple of weeks. I had known the benefits and felt like it was something I needed to do but my commitment was not as great. I come from a family of daily meat eaters. Every meal that I had ever had included some type of meat. Culturally, I don't really value things like tofu and I have not always been as exposed to veggie options in my neighborhood either.

Some photos I took of the progress of the recycling program I implemented at Kiku.

(In order)

The a view of the restaurant taken from Wisconsin Avenue

What their trash used to look like. Notice how there is even Styrofoam, cardboard, glass and paper!

The pail now used behind the bar for recycling glass

A view of the bar

My manager and Kiku owner, Peter Zhang.

Mid in the semester I realized that I could reduce my breakfast waste. Every morning I would pack three instant oatmeal packets. When I would arrive on campus I would run down to the union convenience store and fill a Styrofoam cup with hot water and make my instant oatmeal. This means that I threw away 3 Styrofoam cups a week (according to various sources they take up to 50 years- 1000years –forever to decompose), 3 plastic spoons, and 9 plastic oatmeal pouches a week (since I am on campus three days a week). I realized I can eliminate this waste.

The project I took part in was the No Impact Project which aims at a personal commitment to make changes in one's every day life in order to reduce their carbon footprint. This hopefully in turn will spark a chain reaction and others will too want to change some of their ways, based off of the example set forth by me. The project consists of seven days where I partook in the reduction of my personal waste. Each day constituted a different theme or action in order to preserve and cut back on a specific resource that is normally taken for granted or used liberally. The designation for the week was as follows:

Sunday: Consumption
Monday: Trash
Tuesday: Transportation
Wednesday: Food
Thursday: Energy
Friday: Water
Saturday: Give Back
Sunday: Eco-Sabbath

Green Cleaning Reference Sheet- Attached the basket of my kit, so I never forget my research and have a place to add new recipes.

Air-purifying spray
Combine eucalyptus, lemon, and thyme with water in a spray bottle and spray to purify the air.

All purpose & Window Cleaner:
Fill a spray bottles with equal parts tap water and vinegar for a versatile all purpose cleaner. The solution can be used on multi-services (counters, chrome fixtures, tile and glass). Remember using yesterday’s newspaper is a savvy way to produce crystal clear windows. The newspaper can still be recycled too.

Carpet Care
Freshener: Add a few drops of essential oil to a cup of baking soda, sprinkle on the carpet and let is stand for 15-30 minutes, than vacuum away.

Ok so what i have been doing so far are small projects

reusing products like plastic water bottles
walking to school instead of taking the city bus
informing family and friends about BeSmart and their website
a clothes drive at my church

for the clothes drive,
i have been collecting clothes every sunday at my church
i did a powerpoint presentation to my youth group
about BeSmart and gave them facts about the environment
then i asked the youth members to donate anything they
did not want anymore like clothes, shoes, electronics, teddy bears, etc

i gave this presentation on Nov. 15th for about 30 minutes because i also gave them a questionnaire sheet to fill out

I am a student at UW Milwaukee, and I had the opportunity with my environmental geography class and Be Smart conservation to bring a change to my community. After thinking for a long time about a project, I could not think of anything that would get the attention I wanted this important project to get. After I looked at the wasteless wisconsin website, the idea jumped out at me. In the apartment complex where I live, many of the people recycle (the recycle containers are almost full after the day they are emptied) but the people that live here do not think about the reduce and reuse part of recycling. I am going to change my habits in reducing recyclables I use and have my boyfriend and everyone else in the apartment complex to do the same.

What does the environment mean to you?
This was asked to a local 5th grade classroom. I was so touched by what they were saying that I have been forced to change the route of my lesson plans. It is easy to forget the insight of a child! The following statements are quotes from their essays.

"If there was no environment the world would be UGLY!"

"The environment is your habitat; like when you buy a gold fish their nature is water and the plants....that is their habitat."

"The environment means the whole world around you. Birds flying, rivers running, grass flowing. People do good and bad things to the environment. If they are good, they cut grass, plant trees and flowers, build parks, and plant new grass. You can help the environment by recycling."

I am doing a group project here at UWM and what we are trying to accomplish is to encourage students to donate clothes to goodwill who don't necessarily have a way or time to get to Goodwill themselves. We will have several boxes around campus to collect clothing items which we will pick up and deliver to Goodwill. We are going to be posting fliers around campus to inform students of the drive and what we are trying to do. I have permission to go ahead and place boxes in the EMS Grind, Sandburg Grind, Enderis Convenient Store, and am in the process of getting permission to place on in the Terrace, which is turning out to a bigger headache then I thought it would be. That is our progress so far, I will update as progress is made.

Gabe.

As the farmers market season is over, I am starting to find that my stock of farmers market frozen veggies are starting to deplete. However I found another eco-savvy and thrifty way to shop for produce, I found a cart in the back of Sendiks’ grocery stores that sells their ripe produce for a huge mark down.I am pleased that Sendiks does not just throw their ripe produce out, but strives to try to eliminate their waste.

I have a few ideas, and my worry is that they are just baby steps. But as most college kids, I live with roommates. Sloppy, wasteful roommates. The main problem is that our landlord pays the energy bill, therefore we never even see the bill and our consumption of natural resources such as water, gas and electricity. I'd say it's fair to say we're all a little scared to ask our landlord for that bill, in case he decides to ALWAYS have it sent to us...but, I know that we all are a little more wasteful than normal because of this fact. So here is my main idea:

amhoward has put some new videos on her vlog at http://reducewaste.weebly.com

- Chris, Be SMART

Going back to 5th grade and the meaning of environment: for me it was basically my surroundings and nature. I had no idea that the environment has such a major significance in our lives. When I was in elementary school no one had ever asked me what the environment meant to me, or what I thought the importance of conservation was/is. In fact, I don't believe that conservation was even taught to me, and if it was the theory/importance was never hit home.

When I started to look back to where I first began learning about the environment in elementary school I noticed that I really didn't get any realistic education about the environment. We did use the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" program, but it did not teach long term, or realistic use. We, as students were never really encouraged to take the information home and use it in our daily lives.
My goal is to take an existing science and environmental program and make it more hands on, and fun. With this I hope that the students will be able to take what they learn and bring in home and practice it daily; and to use it through out their lives.

My blog URL is http://resaleclothing.blogspot.com/ I've only made a few posts so far, and am not having such good luck getting very many views. I just talked to a friend who works at GoodWill in Waukesha and she told me about the Purple Hearts Service Foundation. I added a short blog in regards to that in my recent post, I'm going to contact the corporation to find out where the specific drop offs are in the area and see if they do curb side pickups at all in the Milwaukee area. In regards to increasing the awareness of resale clothing stores, I am going to make a list of stores and locations in the Milwaukee area and along with my blog URL and post the information in the break room at work.

I just started a new blog the other day, it's my first time creating one, so it's a little weird for me. So far I've basically given a short background on the research I've found on donation habits and a few ways some cities/counties take action in helping the donation process. I've found that in general people won't travel very far to make any donations and that in order to counter act this problem some cities/counties have curbside donations which allow people to leave their old clothes along side their recycling to be picked up. Sometime today or tomorrow I will post a new blog listing donation opportunities in the milwaukee area.

Hi, my name is Tasha Brookshire and my project is hopefully going to be helping my new neighborhood get into recylcing.

Hi everyone,
I am Elyse Gardner. I am a junior at UW-Milwaukee, and am from Wausau originally. I am an education major.

It took me awhile to think of a project to do, but I have finally decided that I am going to design a little recycling program for the 4k-Headstart and the Before/After school program I used to work at. I am still in the process of designing it and coming up with all the ideas though! I am definitely open to any suggestions anyone may have!

Hi, my name's Tami Noblet. I'm a sophomore and French major at UWM. I'm interested in fashion and am planning to carry out my service learning project in the promotion of utilizing resale clothing stores. I plan to speak with some local resale clothing stores and do some research on the amount of money spent on new clothing and how much waste we are causing by just throwing old clothes out rather than reselling them or donating them.

Thanks to everyone who attended the Challenge Awards Event at the County Recycling Facility on Saturday. It was fun to meet you and get some team photos. We missed those of you who couldn't make it.

The County Executive and staff were amazed at what you all accomplished- an average 49% reduction in waste and 66% increase in recycling! Please see the attached press release for more details. As the headline says "Everyone's a Winner."

One way you can Reduce AND Reuse AND Recycle is by taking any paper (not just white) that has a blank side and use it at home in your printer. It's great cost savings on plain paper, too.

- You Reuse the paper instead of immediately recycling it.

- You Reduce your paper usage by using both sides of one piece of paper instead of two pieces.

- You Recycle the final product when you are eventually through with it, but you only need to recycle 1 instead of 2 pieces of paper.

What would make it easier for typical households to recycle more?

I wished many times throughout this exercise that I didn't have to be a detective to find out where to take which refuse. To drive 10 miles to deposit it seems silly. It seems municipalities could print out a VERY easy to follow guideline for recycling and pick it all up.

Make it easier for people to recycle papers. Bundling is a barrier. Our carrier picks up unbundled papers if they are in a separate recycling bin, but that is not what the recycling guidelines tell us. I think more people would recycle papers if they knew for sure that loose papers in a separate container would be accepted.

Well it's over, the last weigh in was this week. It's a little sad though. There is no more competition on "who has the least amount of trash" or "who has the most amount of recyclables." It's all over. Tomorrow we will find out who will win the big prizes, which team worked the hardest and for some of us, finally meet our team members. Well even though it's over, we are still working hard at trying to keep our numbers low and recycle big. There is always a daily trip out to the compost bin with scraps and peels. It was only 5 weeks, but it has instilled a change for a lifetime.

We have loved doing this challenge and have loved being a neighborhood team. Our neighborhood is already close but we have had a great time talking and competing in this challenge. Our kids have been a driving force and we have loved watching our kids make a difference. They are so proud of their participation and tell anyone about what we are doing. Kids can be a great example of how we should be.

Our last weight in occured Monday night. We learned quite a bit over the last month of the challenge.
Composting greatly reduces your waste; especially, if you cook at home, from scratch, frequently. Our compost bin is already more than a foot deep with scraps.
Having a forum to share ideas and tips is great! We now save all of our plastic bags and recycle them, when we go grocery shopping.
Reduce,re-use and recycle goes a long way to limiting the amount of waste sitting at the end of the driveway every Monday night.

Check out these two links for television coverage of the Challenge!

WTMJ 4 Morning Blend

Fox 6 News

Great job and congratulations everyone!

-Waukesha County Recycling

Everyone’s been talking about how heavy food is once it goes in the garbage. Obviously, cooking at home, eating leftovers, composting scraps and utilizing a garbage disposal all help to keep that weight out of the trash.

So, before we throw things away, we like to see if it has another life. Take milk cartons for example. We first cut the bottoms off. I teach painting classes and those bottoms are used as paint palates. Then we save tops for spring for the garden. We grow our veggies by seed then by april we can put tomatoes, peppers & eggplant in the garden under their "dome." We take the covers off during the day to water, then at night put the caps on. When May comes, they get washed and recycled.

As others have noted here, food is heavy when it makes it's way into the trash. Increasing our use of composting has been a huge help to us in the challenge. Our new mantra is "it's compostable!"

As some others have noted, meat scraps are trouble since you can't just throw them in the compost pile. While we are not vegetarian, we generally only have meat once or twice a week, and that has probably been to our advantage.

The best thing about the Challenge is that our kids now understand so much more about how their waste stream. They look at labels and get annoyed at manufacturers who don't mark their containers clearly or who use non-recyclable containers. Our friends & relatives were very interested when we explained why we grabbed gift wrap out of the garbage & folded it up for recycling or some such thing. All were very supportive!

What I really liked was how pro-active the girls were throughout the challenge. This weekend Abby suggested we tape the kitchen garbage bin shut so no one could throw anything away without thinking. I handed her the duct tape & said, "Go for it!"

Nicknacks were broken in my house this weekend can we recycle those as glass?

LOOK AT THESE PICTURES! We plant our garden as a family in the spring. We put the compost in the garden, dad tills it in, then the kids plant the seeds. Than we wait.... AN 80 LB PUMPKIN AND A CARROTS THE SIZE OF THEIR LEGS is what happens! Why? COMPOST!! Using commercial fertilizer is like us taking a multivitamin...OK. But if we ate healthy food all day long..GREAT! That's what compost does for our plants( future food! ) And now thanks to Waukesha Co. Recycling people, we all have what it takes- compost bins and our garbage- the compost-able kind. THANK YOU!!! If anyone needs any help composting, we'd be glad to help : )

Hi, so here are some pictures of some of the bracelets you can make using those Pop Tops! It is really easy when you get going. If anyone would like to learn, we can teach them. We are helping our Minooka 4H club make them for a recycling project this year. We have been collecting these for a while and making them when we are in the car, or other places of waiting. If you would like to learn, maybe we could hold a fun recycle craft for the kids involved in this challenge... What do you think? Our kids sold a bunch of brewer ones at the brewer game and we sent the money to Guatemala to our missionary friends. Packer season is here, so......... Maybe we could get the kids making them and help them to spread the word about recycling when people ask them where they got that cool bracelet!

OK, so I told you about the missing garbage cans. Well, I thought you might like to see the notes and rules posted around the house now. Is this girl for real? Seriously- she has taken all her and her brothers webkins tags that they save, ( but dont need to once the code is in ) and she is trying to get our recyclable weight up by putting them in the paper bin. This challenge has gotten me thinking of everything I put into the garbage- after I open a stick of butter- is that paper? a silver package of cream cheese- is that metal? I feel like I will even only buy products that I will not have to throw their bottle away, but recycle it- which helps that company who chooses to use recyclable methods. This goes way beyond putting a can into a blue bin.

It was nice this past week not to have to chase down our recycleables after the wind storm from 2 weeks ago.

Here are our findings in reducing waste: food is heavy. We try to eat all leftovers and not through away food. We also try to eat home cooked meals, from scratch, as much as possible. Most of the prep scraps go into composting. Excess grease can be burned or a limited amount flushed down a drain w/ hot water.

Our biggest change in eating habits was to reduce take out orders. This meant less waste coming into our home.

Around the house we don't use paper plates or cups. Everything we use for drinks and eating can be washed and re-used. Our biggest week of recycling followed a weekend of beer drinking with friends.

I was feeling quite smug about our impressive 6 pounds of garbage last week (that's just over a pound per person in my household!)....until I walked into my daughter's room. Apparently we've been storing all of our garbage in my children's rooms!

My nesting instinct returned with the cool autumn weather. It was time to tackle the neglected rooms of the house. Armed with a garbage bag, recycling bag and give-away box, I launched an attack. As any mother knows, there are two important rules to remember when deep cleaning a child's bedroom that is overdo for a purging:

#1: Only clean when the child is at school to avoid protests (my children not only want to keep everything they were ever given, but also the packaging that it came in!) and....

So here we are, at the very end of this challenge. One week left and for us, our last weigh in is on Tuesday. I am reminded of Halloween, as that is mainly the wrappers in the trash this week. I have seen our family change these past few weeks, instead of lazily throwing away recyclables, we get them to the proper receptacles. I am haunted by our baseline numbers and praising them for the new improved numbers of garbage and recyclables. It's amazing how much we all have learned and I think my children will benefit most from this experience.

I was thinking about entering this blog last week but I got sidetracked so here it is now. Actually the same thoughts mostly apply to this week’s garbage.

We have been recycling and composting pretty much everything we can for several years now. 8 out of our 8 1/2 pounds of garbage last week was cat litter. Our kitchen garbage is mostly light plastic food packaging so it doesn’t amount to much.

We have two cats and a dog. I bury the dog poo. I put it in a shallow trench under a bunch of pine trees on the corner of our acre lot.

I've seen a couple of posts about families tweaking their strategy for the home stretch. We too were peering into our garbage this week wondering what's next - not just for the challenge, but for "real life" or even next year's challenge.

Here's one problem - this week we are throwing out a garbage bag that is probably only 1/3 full. We're talking about alternatives, especially using smaller bags or perhaps only putting out garbage every other week like we now do with recycling. Whatever we figure out - the pay as you go garbage collection is sure sounding appealing now!

I was stunned by two things this week. First, when I asked my family what we could do for the last week to get that last bit of trash down, they dumped out the trash on the floor to see what needed to be dealt with. Here's what Bekah proposed and the others agreed to:
1) Go vegetarian for the balance of the Challenge.
2) No more candy for the balance.
3) Mom can only drink tea is paper wraps (as opposed to the foil lined wraps from my preferred teas like Lemon Lift & Constant Comment.)

I was stunned that they were so thoughtful about the process & so willing to go as far as they could. And they are doing it just to see what they can. They aren't really focused on winning. Just feeling good about doing it. It's kind of an adventure for them.

We too hosted a Halloween party, so we were diligent about reminding guests what to put where. (Luckily, our guests were teammates, so they were well aware of the rules.) My parents were in town and always asked before they threw anything in the trash, so they were on board from the start. While they taught me well with recycling from a very young age, we’re all new to composting. My mom even asked if she could put her banana peel and tea bag in the compost bucket. Attached are two photos of my dad and son taking out the first compost bag from our kitchen bucket.

http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/slideshow/AlbumID=5122788009/PictureID...

Hello All,

We fixed our technical difficulties and were able to attach our pictures along with our blog post in regards to spot checks. Please look back to our previous post to see the photos and notes.

Waukesha County Recycling

We just had a Halloween Party and, although our garbage weight will be higher this week, we did find a way to recycle a disposable helium tank we purchased. We purchased it at Walmart, so we called them and they said they would not take it back. I went to the Waukesha County Recycling website and under Product Disposal-Miscellaneous-Propane Tanks, there were 2 places listed for Helium. H&R Scrap Metal, which was quite a drive for us, and Miller's Compressing in Waukesha/Pewaukee, just down from Sam's Club. I called and they were very nice. They said typically they'll pay for propane tanks but couldn't promise any payment for the disposable helium tank, which was fine with us. We just didn't want to add it to the landfill.

We knew getting ready for our Halloween party that we were going to have to watch our garbage output, so we were very careful when purchasing food so we didn't have a lot of waste. We did served sodas from cans(recyclable) instead of plastic cups and we tried to have finger foods so not a lot of plastic utensils to throw away. Unfortunately when you serve 100 people, there is garbage. I was screaming (well not really) when I saw people throwing cans or paper away. It was a full time job monitoring my trash but I got a lot of laughs when I explained why. I should become the spokeperson for this challenge. I definately have got the word out on how you can reduce your output and increase your recycling and it is truly just being aware of what you use and how you dispose of it.

This has been a great week for new challenges. We have guests in town and I was very worried how they would respond to our new ways. Our kids have their systems down and are being very careful, so I let them explain the system to our guests and tell them what we are doing. At first, my mother-in-law was not very excited but she could see what it meant to the kids so she is cooperating (actually she is being quite the garbage stickler). It is incredible how recycling is contagious and how everyone can make a difference. When we went to take our trash out tonight we only had two garbage bags in the bin- that is huge for us. We usually fill our trash bin. We are really seeing how much we need to cut back. And composting is great. I am thrilled that we could cut back so much.

The whole composting idea is very new to our family but after looking on line I did find a few websites that talked about composting. Thought the list might help fellow composting rookies. Here are some things from your kitchen that can be composted. Fruit and vegetable peels/rinds, tea bags, coffee grounds, eggshells, and similar materials are great stuff to compost. They tend to be high in nitrogen (this puts them in the 'greens' category), and are usually quite soft and moist. As such, kitchen wastes need to be mixed in with drier/bulkier materials to allow complete air penetration. Avoid composting meat scraps, fatty food wastes, milk products, and bones -- these materials are very attractive to pests.

I knew a compost bin is a great way to reduce your garbage but I was surprised when I weighed our garbage this morning. It was an enormous surprise. I know that my husband was also out of town so there was one less living here for a few days but even still. The garbage has decreased so much in only one week.

We have been diligent in using the compost bin for food scraps and waste. I keep a small waste basket in the kitchen just for food scraps. My boys like to empty them into the bin so I typically save the waste just for them to empty.

We were already recycling everything accepted at the County MRF, so the challenge for our family has been on ways to reduce the waste we generate. Because of the Challenge we began to carefully look at everything we were throwing away and discovered we used more paper towels than we had realized. We thought by using the "select-a-size" towels was weren't using very many, but soon learned we used more than we thought we did. Although paper towels can be composted, we decided to make a commitment to using hand towels instead.

I never realized how many times a day I washed my hands and grabbed for a paper towel in the kitchen!!!! Hand towels are now conveniently placed right next to the kitchen sink. We have also gotten back to using reusable napkins at every meal.

In response to the previous entry...

"It's the only reason I don't use reusable bags at the grocery stores…I need paper bags to recycle my paper."

I too use paper bags for my recycled paper, but can't stand the thought of NOT using reusable bags at the grocery store. I've been known to ask my friends and co-workers for their excess paper bags (many people have more than they can use) so I can use them for paper recycling. You could also ask at freecycle.com for extra paper bags. We also sometimes put our paper in boxes that we want to get rid of anyway. This is nice because it holds so much more than a bag! Hope this helps!

We have really been getting into the composting thing too! I recently ordered this kitchen bin on-line and the compostable bag liners. It is dishwasher safe, wide-mouthed to easily scrape in food scraps from plates and closes tightly to keep in odor. It also has a handy carrying handle for easy depositing.

http://www.drugstore.com/qxp215936/ecosafe/kitchen_catcher_composter.htm...

Jayden our daughter has been busy sewing these bags made from Juice bags. Her brothers are busy collecting them from their friends at school in the lunch room for her. Next she is going to make a lunchable cover bag. We re-use lunchables by asking the kids to bring home their container. Jayden takes the top for her new creation, and they re-pack them with cut up cheese, crackers, carrots etc or whatever we have at the time. They fit perfectly into a fold top sandwich bag! We will send pics when she makes that one. Hey, maybe we can have the schools have a bin just for these items! I know there are other kids out there making things like these too!

What do you do with cat litter?

I just called the Whole Foods at Prospect and North, in Milwaukee. They have a "Gimme 5" program for recycling #5 plastics like cottage cheese cartons and yogurt cups. They have bins in the store & the parking area.

http://www.preserveproducts.com/recycling/gimme5.html

Whole Foods
2305 N. Prospect Ave
Phone 414.223.1500
8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. seven days a week.

Pluses –
Teachers’ Convention – My three girls were off school the second half of the week & had time to fully participate in the day-to-day details of a fully operational recycling household.
Pumpkins – Not great for recycling, but wonderful for the compost! We skipped the messy newspaper this year by carving on the driveway. The mess went into the compost, we roasted the seeds, and the rest was cleaned by the rain.
Friends – Each time we have visitors or friends over, the girls tell them all about the Challenge and show them the composter, etc. Everyone thinks it’s a great idea!

Minuses –
Teachers’ Convention – Having three kids at home all day for three extra days generates a lot of waste!

I have found that composting kitchen scraps is definitely shaving some bags and weight off of our garbage. I am a little confused about these lists I am finding on the internet that include so many additional items that can be composted such as tissues and napkins. In following the basic compost recipe, we were trying to maintain equal parts brown stuff and green stuff. Are the paper products considered a brown stuff? Is there anyone out there who is experienced at composting? How much of the paper stuff can be added? I am concerned about making a mistake with the composting and just ending up with a really nasty pile of garbage in my yard? Do I have to be very careful about the ratios of different types of waste or is composting not that exacting?

So now I'm the bathroom and I realize there is something missing....... the garbage can.

We have many pounds of pumpkin innards ready for composting. The bin is only a week old and it is already 6 to 12 inches deep. The bugs are already fully established in the bin. Decomposition has started!

We live in the town and that allows us to burn yard waste in the metal barrel. We burned several branches and piles of leaves down to ash. In a week, after it is sufficiently cooled, we will add the ash to the compost bin.

The tips shared on the blog are helping with our recycling. Thanks for sharing your ideas and information! This week looks like it will be our most productive week of recycling, so far.

This challenge is getting me to look at every thing that I toss in the garbage and ask myself if there is another option. Today's questionable item...dryer lint! I know it doesn't weigh all that much, but in a family of 5, the laundry is almost always churning out lint looking for a new purpose.

A quick google search gave me the following things to consider..

Cons:
-some of the fibers in lint will be synthetic and not breakdown
-some of the fibers will contain chemicals/dyes etc so if the goal is to create an organic compost product, this would not be purely chemical free
-it won't really add any nutritional benefit to the compost

We still have one child in diapers, but he is nearing potty training age. Once you start paying attention to how much your garbage weighs you realize how heavy they are! That is incentive to get this potty training going!

When I went out to get my newspaper this morning I was greeted by Linda from Waukesha County Recycling and Bruce who were at the curb to weigh my trash and recyclables. I was thrilled because this would give me a chance to see if my scale was accurate, and I was really pleased to see our weights were nearly identical.

My neighbor, and team member, Rhonda also came outside and we were all having a great time talking about the challenge and what we are doing to reduce our waste. I couldn't help wondering what our neighbors, not in the Challenge, would think if they saw Bruce standing on a scale holding a recycling bin or better yet a bag of trash? How about Linda and Bruce taking photos of our recyclables, trash bags and Rhonda's composting bin?

Last week when we weighed our garbage and recyclables we were shocked at the amount of trash this family produces and a little embarrassed too. In our defense, we did have a party, so that probably gave us a few extra pounds. We are almost ready to weigh for this week and we are sure the totals will go down, as we were out of town last weekend and tried to make changes with our trash. On a good note we made a few green changes this week. First we purchased a few reusable shopping bags, recycled a lot of things we normally don't, such as egg cartons, juice cartons, toilet paper rolls, junk mail and school papers. We picked up the compost bin but unfortunately we haven't taken the time to assemble it. This will be our goal this weekend.

This is our first week really watching what goes into the garbage and it is great. I thought I was going to have to play garbage police but it has been my husband who has really watched what is put where. We have never composted so it is new to us to put our scraps into a different bin. Since we have four kids, we are really doing a lot of retraining this week and making sure that we are all aware of what garbage goes where.
We have recycled in the past but we are really committed to reducing our garbage output so we have a big task ahead of us.But we will improve. Any suggestions are welcome! Boyers

My 2 year old niece is visiting for a couple days, and after I made her eggs for breakfast, we put the shells in our kitchen pail that we use to hold the garbage in until we take it out to the compost bin. She then carried it out and not only dumped all the food in the bin, but even through the container in afterward. Oh well, still working on it, but she thought it was fun. I made the picture of her composting the picture on my account for the challenge. Check it out.

Our dryer had been making a loud noise, it was under warranty so the repair person ordered a new drum. After the new drum was installed I was asked if I wouldn't mind putting the old drum out with the trash. I told the repair person about the "Reduce Your Waste Stream Team Challenge" and then mentioned "extended producer responsibility" (EPR). EPR involves manufacturers having a life cycle plan for the materials they use to make the products they sell.

Although the drum had a slight defect, it could probably be fixed, or the materials could be reused to make a new drum. I also mentioned that putting the drum in the cardboard box as trash created another problem because the box could definitely be reused or recycled and shouldn't be destined for the landfill.

If loose papers (unbagged, unbundled) are put in a separate recycling bin and they are collected by a recycling truck, are they getting recycled? I have been doing it this way for the last year or so with no notes or warnings. Should I change my ways?

I have a TV that no longer works and I was looking at the link on the website and they had a list of places to take it. I called Best Buy, and they charge $10 to take it (and give you a $10 gift card in return.) The next closest place for me was Goodwill in Pewaukee. I call and they will take it for free. They were very, very nice. I am going to take it over there tomorrow.

Question - Do I include this in my recycling weight?

It is great to see so much enthusiasm for home composting! Just a reminder that with all the food scraps you also need a carbon source. Some of you are putting in paper napkins and towels, but you can also add leaves that are falling even now.

Wow! I found out how difficult it is to weigh the containers. Really tricky the way I was trying. There is a need for good, steady balance and good eyesight. I am thinking of alternatives.
We'd like to thank my team mate Peggy for picking up my compost bin. It made things a lot easier for me just stopping by her house on the way home from work. We will probably find someone else that can use the bin, since we already have a couple bins going. We like the book that came with it and are learning a bunch of new tricks to better composting.

Paper was both our downfall & our saving grace as we participated in the Recycling Challenge this week. Just putting a brown bag next to the kitchen trash bin helped everyone to remember to recycle small pieces of paper, boxes from pasta, cereal, mail & other things we used to throw away. Along with the daily newspaper, it really adds up! On the trash end of things, paper was also a major factor. Kleenex, napkins, etc. were amongst the things we threw away & didn't really know how to reduce. Allergies are something we have to deal with & handkerchiefs were enthusiatically received, but not actually used. This mom is not inclined to push it. :) Fortunately a bathroom wastebasket full of kleenex still weighs next to nothing...

Oh Hi, just to tell you the Rajnicek family has 3 kids and 2 adults. My 10 year old daughter has been leaving notes by the garbages to "remember to recycle!"... she really wants that lap top! : )

We picked up our composting bin from Retzer Nature Center on Wednesday, 10/13. I want to take a moment to thank Retzer for the composting bin.

Today, Friday, 10/15 I put it together and have it in our back yard. It took 10 minutes to assemble.

Here are some things I thought about, when looking for a location. I wanted a sunny spot with a southern exposure to maintain a high temperature for proper decomposition. I also wanted a location not too far or too close to the house. In the winter, I do not want to trek 30 yards in snow to add to the compost. However, you also do not want it right out your back door. Vermin love warm locations in the winter and the last thing I need are mice in our house; or in the summer, snakes on the back patio.

I love hearing about the changes, both big and little, that everyone is making. Our family is in the camp of "What more can we do?". We already recycle everything possible, compost, buy in bulk, reuse whenever we can, and steer clear of packaged/ processed goods. Any tips we can get from others is appreciated; keep them coming!

Well, I was a little late today in sending in our weights. I had my son and husband doing the weighing and they left me a note, but I was confused on what numbers were what, so I didn't get it all figured out until tonight when everybody was home. Now that we all know what we're doing, I'm sure the next 4 weeks will go much smoother.

On another note, my son just did his Boy Scout Eagle project last weekend, so we had a little more garbage and recyclables than normal. I'm sure we will have quite a bit extra Halloween weekend, too, since we will be entertaining, so I'm hoping it will all work out okay.

I know we are all just getting started...but in last week's STEM Family Newsletter a list of needs for the STEM Supply Closet was posted and includes many items that end up directly in our garbage (including those pesky styrofoam containers). I attached the newsletter for those that are looking for an alternative than your trash...

We're 2 senior citizens. We have fish for pets. We compost. We recycle. Yet we manage to produce a lot of waste. I think a lot of it is packaging, and I was glad to hear we can recycle certain cartons now, although I don't use a lot of them. Some of our containers are dairy products like yogurt, cottage cheese, and margarine. We do take care of our 2 young granddaughters every week, and I suppose that adds to our bottom line. We subscribe to a daily newspaper and a few magazines. eek. I want to learn
by doing this challenge, and hope to succeed on some level.
Looking forward to this experience.
mary jo

What to say? We are excited to start this challenge as we want to do the "right" thing for our family, our future, and our planet. Since we heard about the challenge - one of the hardest things has been to hold off on implementing a few little ideas that have popped into our heads before establishing the baseline.

I must admit right from the start that when I joined this challenge I was not feeling very optimistic that our family or our team would have a chance of winning. We were already big recyclers...what else could we possibly do to reduce our waste?

Well, I have been pretty conscientious about recycling since college, but the main reason for taking the challenge was to encourage the rest of the family to participate and be EXCITED about it. Our family is composed of my husband, college graduate son, married son, his wife, and baby daughter. I care for another infant grand daughter during the day. Two cats and one hairy dog round out the family, at least until the 3 college girls come home for the holidays.

The guys are really anticipating the competitive part of the challenge. Otherwise, they would never go for it. So, whoever thought of that idea, thanks! My daughter-in-law is awesome and we are so on the same page. Her enthusiasm is contagious, and she has helped get the guys enthused.

I’m a team captain and looking forward to starting the Challenge! A friend of mine told me about the Challenge when she saw a pamphlet at the UW-Extensions Waukesha Office at the County Courthouse and I was able to get two of my neighbors to join my team. (I’ll be helping one of them tonight with their first weigh-in since they have collection tomorrow.) I also gave each of them the list of recyclable items so they know what’s acceptable. It was great to see that cartons are now recyclable!

I plan to weigh my empty garbage can and recyclables container on my bathroom scale so I can subtract the weight of them each week. From the other comments, I should probably test this to make sure it will work properly!

So many of you are still weighing in for the baseline number and we are just starting off with our trash can being on a diet. Our garbage pickup is on Tuesday so starting yesterday I have been extremely conscious of what is being thrown away and how much we consume as a family of "one use" items. I am starting to feel like we should have a trash journal but that would be silly. I have already started taking advantage of the compost bin and today I had to remind myself of all the things I was almost going to discard in the trash, could go into the compost bin. It was an awesome feeling! But getting back to the trash can diet, it seriously feels like the trash can is on a diet or rather a lifestyle change.

Hi everyone! I just got all set up here online and I am ready to blog trash and recyclables. Thus far we have tried to weigh out cans/garbage with our family scale. Well that isn't going to work…it's a fancy one so you need bare feet. So I ventured out to Wal-Mart to buy a cheap scale that might just do the trick. The one I brought home will work but I think it might be too difficult to read the numbers, as the garbage tends to cover most of the numbers. It's not a digital scale just a regular one but the window is a large circle. Garbage pick up is tomorrow for us so I better make a decision before then is I am going to take it back and exchange it. Anybody else having questions about the weighing and the scale? If you haven't practiced a trial weigh in yet, I highly recommend it!

I just got back from Retzer and got our Compost Container. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to put it together since a little critter found it's way in and chewed half the instructions, but I did it. Since we already do quite a bit of recycling, I'm very excited about adding this to our routine. I may even think about starting a garden next year.

http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/slideshow/AlbumID=2917830002/PictureID...

Hi, I create jewelry out of used aluminum cans. The display card for the jewelry is made out of soda can cartons and other boxes with coordinating colors. It is so fun to turn something disposable into something so beautiful. What could YOU reuse?