Click on the link below to see the article in Saturday's Journal Sentinel about the Baas family winning the Challenge
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/109359454.html

Also see attached scanned article from the Waukesha Freeman on the same day.

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all of you taking the Challenge and doing such a great job!

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.

I was curious about our recycling numbers AFTER the Challenge was over. I knew they would be higher because I could see that we backed off a bit right after the last weigh-in. But we got back on track & talked about staying focused. So today I weighed our trash again. It was two pounds! I was so excited! Then I thought about it & realized that the packing material from my new computer wasn't in the bag... It finally hit me - there was another bag in the garage - something that hadn't happened since the challenge started! The other bag had the computer syrofoam, plastic wrap and a mildewed bathroom rug that wouldn't clean-up even with bleach. So now our trash was up to seven pounds! A lot less than our baseline, but still disappointing.

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."

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.

We have had so much fun this month trying new things and recycling the materials we have found in the basement that we no longer need.

One of the new things we tried was using cloth "G" diapers for Baby Lauren. Since Zach, Jill, and Lauren moved in with us in October, they have been very supportive of the team challenge. Having Zach and Jill decide to go cloth was something I would never ask them to do, but they jumped right on it. We have included a picture of Lauren in her new diapers.

The Zimmermann family is sad this challenge is almost over. We have learned so much more than we ever imagined about our family from this challenge! It's been an awesome experience and fun! We all agreed next week when it's time to put our trash and recycle bins out for the big green trucks we will weigh everything first to keep this challenge going amongst our family. We looked forward to seeing how well we did each week.
We have told so many people about this challenge and what we learned. We hope other families start doing this as well. We have always recycled but found so much more we could be doing through this challenge. The composter was huge for us! That really cut our trash down. We are looking forward to having really good soil for our garden next summer!

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.

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.

It has been fun and a reflective learning experience. Our household has been actively involved in recycling and reducing our waste for years, but it is not until you are actually measuring your waste stream, that you start to look at things a little different and perspectives change. I would like to thank Waukesha County Recycling for organizing and holding the Challenge and for their efforts and enthusiasm. Looking forward to the Open House and Awards presentations.

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.

Like everyone else has posted it is amazing how much you can reduce and reuse by just taking a moment to analyze your garbage. This week we did nothing different, but to continue to be very diligent in minimizing garbag and recycling more. I started saving plastic bags part way through the challeng, but thought really how much can these weigh. Well now 2-3 weeks later we have got quite a large bag ready for recycling. And when you just consider how much these bags add to a land fill... We now have a permanent place to collect plastic bags as well. Also this week we were cleaning out my daughters closet and found an old pair of tennis that were in no condition to donate to good will.

Our recycling bin is kept in the garage downstairs, so it's a pain to have to run down there numerous times a day. We found a box to fit under our kitchen sink that we can throw our recyclables in and just take it down when it gets full (my sons job.) Now we don't think twice about putting recyclables in the box, no matter how big or small.

http://www1.snapfish.com/snapfish/slideshow/AlbumID=2975693002/PictureID...

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.

From reading the blog postings, it's clear, children have been a driving force in this competition and they will have a far reaching impact.

When I was a room mother at my son's elementary school back in the 1990's, in Illinois, the teacher and I decided it would be both educational and fun to have the next party a "waste free" party. We started by adding announcements about the party in notices sent to parents in the weeks leading up to the event.

We asked children to bring reusable (unbreakable) cups, dishes, napkins and forks. If families didn't have reusable napkins, we suggested a face cloth or hand towel, If plastic dishes weren't possible we suggested a Tupperware or other type of small plastic container or lid that could be used as a plate.