Week 9
More than two months into Green Garbage Project and we’ve adjusted to this lifestyle so thoroughly that it’s become a habit for us. It’s hard for me to pick up where I left off since my last updates have been so brief, but I’ll do my best.
Adam and I are officially moved out of our old house and into the new one. One collosal weekend of effort and we’re more than halfway unpacked. Our new house looks more like really messy people live in it than like we just moved in which is definite progress. We hate living out of boxes, so our goal is to be completely unpacked by next weekend.
We managed to move from one house to another almost completely without creating garbage. I can’t say we were 100 percent successful, because little garbage pitfalls tripped us up along the way – little things I don’t think we could have worked around even if we’d anticipated them. We had to peel off a piece of tape in our old house while cleaning, which went directly into the trash can thanks to the dead bug that was attached – gross. A kitchen timer was broken during the move and cannot be repaired, so this now constitutes our first piece of garbage that isn’t packaging. That in itself, by the way, is quite the statement about the way our society works – that a vast majority of the unavoidable garbage we’ve accumulated over the past weeks is packaging-related. Maybe we need to do something about our wasteful packaging…. But I digress. We unpacked and, as always happens when we move, started a list of items needed to complete our new house. Among them, a new extension cord, hot pads (left the old ones at the old house, silly me), a dryer pigtail, and a holder for venetian blind cords. We accumulated a very small amount of packaging when buying these items (one more piece of tape and a plastic tag thing on the oven mitts). Still, our garbage from the past weeks fits nicely into the bottom of a shoe box. I’m simply amazed at this myself – it’s hard to believe we’ve gone from a bag of trash a week to virtually no trash whatsoever.
In other news, I started teaching again this week and was a minor celebrity to my students when I returned. We had some good discussions about why I’m doing what I’m doing, and I have some students interested in being greener and more trash-free, too! All my students now point out any time they are using a green product, from the student using pencils made from tires to the student wearing green-friendly socks. I gave away green, recycled prizes to students during my first day back as well. I mentioned in my last note that I may be working with the district’s elementary school to make the district, and particularly the high school I work in, more recycling savvy. On the teacher side of things, I am totally at a loss about how to avoid garbage created by used pens. I can’t exactly grade papers in pencil, and it’s only a matter of time before a pen dies on me. I’ll be researching this, but in the meantime, if anyone has any thoughts, please share.
I’m starting my master recycler class this week on Thursday, which I’m really looking forward to. I also posted a new, handy article to the links page – if you haven’t checked it out already, it has A to Z tips on recycling unusual items like keys and tennis shoes.
Finally, I owe a public apology to a Korean news station that was supposed to interview me live today, an interview I was quite looking forward to. My cell phone charger got buried in the move and I think my phone must have gotten confused when I first charged it and turned it back on. The phone registered phone calls but couldn’t answer them – not sure why but ended up missing the interview.
Thanks to all for reading. Look back next week for info about my first master recycler class. Cheers!
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On the pen thing– it wouldn’t completely eliminate garbage, but it would definitely reduce it quite a bit– fountain pens with replaceable ink cartridges. As a bonus, they are quite lovely to write with.
Congratulations on the move! Louise is right, fountain pens are a great idea to reduce pen-garbage. You could even go one step further and use the really old fashioned type of fountain pen, where you dip the pen into a bottle of ink. Just be sure the animals are in another room ’cause all it takes is one enthusiastic tail swipe or heat butt and suddenly your room is a bit more colorful than you intended! Barring accidents, a bottle of ink will last a very long time.
I enjoy your blog and I’m interested in ‘being green’ and commend you for taking this on. I wanted to leave a quick note-on the pen thing-I am not sure of the brand, but I did come across a company that is making ink pens from recycled materials (it looks and feels like it is made from recycled paper material) which happened to also be biodegradeable. If I come across the name I will repost- but the good news is it’s out there! Keep up the good work!
I am also a teacher and I often grade with a red pencil. Sometimes I use different colored pencils. It doesn’t really matter to me as long as my color is different from the color that my students have used, pen or pencil so they can see the corrections that I have made. I also will hand out assignments that students can write on or on the back of so as not to waste paper. Another tip, depending on the technology of your classroom, is that instead of handing out copies of directions to projects, I will make a power point slide with all of the directions on it and show the class. Then I am not using any paper! Cheers!