i haven't thrown a bag of garbage out since mid-february, but it's that time and i'm sort of dreading having to do it. and it's actually only a plastic shopping bag. at this rate, my proverbial pile is going to be at a rate of much less than a green bag per year. which still sucks, but is a far cry from the supposed 650 kg a year that most of us dump into a landfill, which is something i currently can't actually fathom.

btw, if i can do this, you can do this.

a) recycle. that partially means buying things that are recyclable, which isn't hard nowadays. about the only thing i've had to turn down recently were styrofoam eggs. i mean, honestly. eggs in styrofoam? to save a tenth a cent per package? what planet does this asshole farmer live on? if you're reasonable about your shopping, this should really cut you down to organic material and plastic wrappers.

b) compost. now, listen: i agree that having compost in your house is fucking revolting. why not just go and buy some roaches at the store and let them loose? yuck. but, that's *actually* kind of how i arrived at this approach, in a round about way. see, i was a little unhappy about leaving coffee grinds and pineapple cores and other bits of organic material under the sink, so i started freezing them. after a while, i had a large pile of frozen organic material. and, why throw that in the garbage? so, i found somebody to give it to that runs a community garden. that actually solves two problems: it *stops* the shit from rotting in your kitchen and it recycles the organic material. perfect.

b.5) don't eat a lot of meat.

c) there's still wrappers. i can't recycle them here, but i'm going to see how much of it i can get rid of like this:
http://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/cheese-packaging-brigade-r.html

i think that could very well get me as close to zero waste as is possible. what's left is dust and hair. and i'm not letting anybody compost my hair, it could mess up your human dna....