Tag Archives: no landfill

Day 2 – Gillette Fusion Fail and Toilette Paper?

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This morning while shaving my gillette fusion cut my face, normally I would have used a paper towel or a bandaid but instead I just held my finger on it until the bleeding stopped.  This apparently didn’t work that well because at work my coworker Megan pointed out that my face was bleeding, fail.  I guess five blades are just too intense.  At least I don’t shave like this guy:

After showing my coworkers my first blog posts they immediately asked me, “What about TP?” (read: toilette paper).  It hadn’t really occurred to me that toilet paper isn’t really recycled in a formal sense.  I wonder how much TP adds to waste in the U.S. and how it is processed before/(during)/after use.  Sounds like I have some research ahead of me.  I can’t wait until my boss finds out I’ve been googling about the life cycle of toilet paper usage while at work. However, TP is not sent to a landfill so I think I am going to allow myself (and those around me) the benefit of using TP for this challenge.  I’m not sure that using recycled toilet paper is even a great idea anyway:

Also something I didn’t expect was paper towels in the bathroom.  You wash your hands, crank the lever, and use paper towels to dry your hands and then you throw them out.  Can those be recycled?  I’ve never seen a recycling bin in a bathroom so probably not.  Guess I’ll have to be wiping my hands on my pants every time I wash them this month.

As a side note, I had three people tell me today that living for a month with nothing more than a small Ziploc bag to hold my trash just couldn’t be done.  However, one of these people also puts Styrofoam cups in the recycling bin so it looks like there’s still some educating to be done.

Day 1 – A ‘Sustainable’ Trip to Shaw’s

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On the eve of my first day without a landfill, I walked to Shaws with my Osprey backpack to get some eats for the week.  I plan to try out a bunch of different food shopping options throughout the month to see which one fits my no-landfill requirement best.  Stay tuned.

I figured that as long as I brought a few tupperwares and only bought food that came in recyclable containers it would be a breeze.  The first stop was the fruit and veggie section.  My third “damn” of the day came from not being able to use the clear plastic vegetable bags.  This was mostly because they didn’t have recycle symbol on them so figured they weren’t legit.  So I just put all of my veggies in my cart which was kind of crusty and gross-looking.  I guess I have to make sure I wash them well before I eat them.  Either way I’m probably just boosting my immune system anyways by exposing myself to whatever bacteria is lurking there.

Next I went to the a la carte section to try and get some chicken, rice, and other food.  I told them what I wanted and handed them my tupperware which they vehemently refused.  I talked to 3 different employees, one of them being a manager, and all of them refused to put the a la carte food in my personal tupperware.  They simply refused without providing an explanation.  They kept saying, “no we can’t do that” and “no we don’t do that here”.  I would have been happy with any kind of explanation but blatant refusal without reason just irritated me.  I was so flustered I didn’t even think to check whether or not the containers they provided were recyclable, I guess I’ll check next time before I bash Shaws too badly on their sustainability.

I then went to the deli/butcher area and asked the guy for some burgers and gave him my tupperware.  He simply zeroed the scale and put in two patties and commented on how it was a great idea to bring my own box, “Good for you dude”.  He then just put the barcode sticker on my lid, no big deal (except that I’ll probably have to throw out the barcode sticker at some point, or I could just keep sticking barcodes on top of barcodes on top of barcodes).  I’m not sure why the a la carte section didn’t play along.

I bought apples, bananas, cucumbers, carrots, hummus, OJ, and cereal.  Unfortunately I didn’t realize that the cereal would have a plastic bag inside that may or may not be recyclable.  I’ll have to read up on that.  Also I’ll have the issue of composting to deal with because I’m sure it’ll only take a few days before my roommates will want to kill me for leaving my temporary compost materials in the kitchen.  If you have any suggestions please let me know because I really only have a few days to figure this out before things get gnarly.  KThanksbye.