“Another idea: eliminate garbage bags. Millions of people who live in apartment buildings and other communities carry their trash out to Dumpsters. By using (reusable and eventually recyclable) plastic trash cans in the kitchen, bathroom, office, and elsewhere, and dumping trash directly into the Dumpster, we can keep from using trash bags, helping to save money and the environment.”

I actually use paper sacks when I have any trash, the paper is biodegradable and thus convenient and non-environmentally unfriendly (or IS eco-friendly if you want :)). btw, these paper bags have accumulated over the years, I don’t get many from the stores anymore since I’ve switched to reusable bags (they were $.25 each, and I’m so surprised how much fits!!!). I probably have 100+ paper sacks and probably put out 1 sack/week. if you run out, almost all grocery stores have papers sacks that you can either A) ask for a handful at checkout/customer service, or B) “forget” your reusable bags during a large grocery run and make sure they bag in paper only.

I’m going to try to convince my family to get serious on recycling now, though they all think I’m a hippie already. I’m also doing research on a presentation to my HOA on increasing our recycling output, we have curbside recycling pickup and yet only ~25% of the neighborhood put them out. I’d love to get people to compost but outlook not so bright on that front.