How to control your garbage

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got... until it's gone?

This morning the fine folks of my fair city of Toronto woke up to a strike by city workers, including the outside workers responsible for garbage pickup. This is as good as a time as any to provide few tips on how to manage your waste when you don't have he convenience of regular door-to-door pickup.

1) Think of your trash as a river

There's a reason that they call them waste streams.  Like a river, waste comes from somewhere, is routed, rerouted, diverted, dammed and goes somewhere else and eventually turns into something else, like water turns into vapour, to be used again... even if it means sitting in an ocean of trash for hundreds of years.  Thinking about where things come from and where they're going will help you look at your waste in a more holistic manner.  Treat it like you were on a camping trip and you might be surprised by how little waste you can produce.

2) Start at the store

Thinking of waste as a stream, the best way to reduce the flow is to not have as much in the first place.  That means:

• purchasing items that have little or no packaging
• bringing your own carrying items (kudos on Toronto for passing the 5c plastic bag fee)
• the best way to reduce your food waste is to convert as much of it into something that your plumbing system can handle.  So avoid rotting food by only buying what you need and avoid foods items with large amounts of oil and unusable meat

3) Separate waste steams

Not all of your garbage need to be relegated to a large, stinky pile. By separating wastes into different streams, you can reduce the amount of volume.  It's better to have a large bag of packing paper and a small bag of food waste than to combine them into a large mess.

Separate them into the following streams:

• items that can be cleaned and washed, like bottles and boxes.  These can be used to store errant pieces of dry packing waste and paper.
• dry packing materials like bags, cans and plastic.  Wash it thoroughly (try your dishwasher) to clean out any food residue that may rot or turn sticky
• oily and meaty food scraps should be placed in a jar or container
• vegetable scraps can also be placed in a jar or plastic container.  Small amounts of these can be buried in with household plants, buried into a vermi-composter (burying prevents insects) or placed into a backyard composter
• dust and other detritus can make a bag of otherwise clean packing materials a dirty mess.  Try to keep them separate.

4) Refrigerate to avoid rotting

The way you prevent your meal from rotting can also be used to prevent your wastes from smelling.  Store your kitchen scraps in a lidded jar and place it in your fridge.  If you find your kitchen scraps by your salad distasteful to look at, use an opaque container.

5) Dispose of your waste properly

Remember that the purpose here is not to turn your home into a trash heap, but to manage your waste and keep it from smelling up your home as you go about your busy day.  When you have the time, your city likely has a series of transfer stations that gather wastes before being carted off to landfill.  These are normally open during strikes, so use them.

If you're lucky, you'll be living in a place like Yellowknife, where visiting the town dump has attached to is a popular pass-timeand a source of surprisingly clean and useful items.

6) Tell people

By far the biggest barrier to some of these methods is the perceived social stigma attached to it.  The best way to fight this perception is to recognize that most people won't care, as long as it's clean and hygenic.  Ironically, the traditional method of leaving scraps to rot in a bag is far dirtier and produces far more bacteria than keeping your scraps cool in the fridge.