Zero Waste Challenge — Week 28: Decluttering Pt. 2

We worked hard this week with post-birthday organizing, and also some random trash. As you’ll see in the trash photo below, we had a very random assortment of items from our basement tool bench that are from the previous owner. Items included a used pipe fitting, assorted old screws, scrap wood, and other junk.

I don’t know how we are supposed to dispose of items like this responsibly. It’s surely not an isolated problem that we came across, so I’ll spend some additional time researching these types of materials and how to dispose of them.

We also spent considerable time over the weekend doing some organizing in our kids’ rooms for removing out-grown toys, finding better homes for the toys they do have, and ensuring that they know where to get the toys they want.

Minimizing our clutter has been a constant in our lives, and admittedly a challenge with kids. This has been even more pronounced during the pandemic as the family has upped their gift-giving as a substitute for experiences and time with them. This is not an isolated scenario as many of our friends have experienced the same result with their families.

And who can blame them? The last year has been hard and the connection to family has been one area where people are getting creative! (Thank goodness for vaccines and more visits in person!)

Here are our totals for the week, rounded up to the nearest 25%.

Trash: 25%

Organics: 100% (Not collected the previous week, so this is two weeks worth)

Recycling 1: 100%

Recycling 2: 75%

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