Eating Scraps

To be honest, I never really knew what was the big deal about food waste being tossed out into the landfills. I mean, I've heard about it and all, how that it's a bad thing for the environment, I just did not get why. Nor cared enough to bother taking five minutes to Google about it to find out the reason, until now. (Is Google as a verb supposed to be lower case? Haven't troubled myself to figure that one out yet, either.)

So yeah. I kind of just took for granted what was being said by the greener people than I am, that our uneaten scraps of food were, like so much other stuff, contributing to the detriment of the environment. I could not reconcile in my own head, however (what little time I did spend thinking on it) why tossing leftovers into our own compost bins is an eco-friendly thing to do, but having it hauled away by others to rot elsewhere was an entirely different and bad thing.

Well, consider me educatated now via EcoWatch.org:

"Rotting food in the landfill releases methane, a green house gas which contributes to global warming. Methane traps 23 times as much heat in the atmosphere as the same amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and the release of methane from landfills accounts for 34 percent of all methane emissions in the U.S., according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

I guess even organic trash can be bad news. Which would explain why the composters are forever tossing and fluffing about in their piles, letting in the oxygen that keeps it rotting in a better way. Okay, makes sense now why keeping so much from being dumped is a good thing.

What is the best way, of course, to not have to deal with so much food thrown away in the first place is to quit doing it so much. I'm seriously amazed since I've started hanging on to what I used to just toss out, not enough to keep, actually turns out to be an awful lot to use up.

Sure, that is a fine green thing to do, and a right way to think of it, but you would be surprised also how much less food you need to buy to make it through the week. I know that now.

Only fairly recently have I started storing away what little of this or that I have left over, just to see how things added up and if I could remake something out of what I'd normally just chuck. Interesting what you can do with garbage.

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Laundry Soap

I probably ought to mention that I haven't always been such a wackadoo about living so cheaply, nor was I one to spend an awful lot of time thinking very much about the environment. It has only gradually progressed to how funny I am about it all now over the last few years, and then only due to a most desperate downward shift in my own personal economy back then.

Going from riches to rags can have its advantages in terms of evolving a new and better outlook on things, though. I don't intend to nor would I want to change that, however rich I might end up some day. But it's still relatively new for me, so I do admit that I am in no position to offer up any ground-breaking tips on frugality, as I mention over in the sidebar there; nothing new here.

This blog is truly only to document what it is that I am doing now, and as I've mentioned before, to keep track of whatever new things that I will hopefully learn as I go along. It's still an ongoing adventure for me, a gradual one, and sometimes I discover that I am a bit retarded about considering some of the most basic of things.

Take laundry detergent, for example. Despite all of my jabbering on about this and that to do with laundering clothes (however infrequent and in practically primitive fashion) in order to save money and resources, being better for the planet blah blah blah... it never occurred to me about the detergent I was using; that I could be concocting the stuff myself. Duh.

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Changing Clothes

To change or not to change, that's the question; or when is the better question, to change clothes, I mean. I suppose at some point there comes a time you really should, but for me that time usually comes later than sooner. Although I do go further than most folks might be predisposed to even think about, I will admit.

I've said before in babbling on about reasons why I hand wash my laundry, that I get away with a lot just being single, but it's really not such a bad thing wearing mostly the same clothes more than just once before getting them clean.

I suppose there are some people who actually do manage to get some way dirty during the course of a day. I mean those others who do stuff besides just mostly sitting around, like I do. Other than when I step outside for a smoke I don't do too much, hardly anything that would get me dirty, that's for sure.

Yeah, it seems to me a total waste of the resources required to always be wearing different clothes; water, utilities, detergent or soap, time, effort... for no real reason. I mean, other than the clothing nearest to your most secret of parts, I think you should be able to pull off several days' worth of wear between washings.

Not to mention the clothes lasting longer, not getting roughed up tumbling through the laundry so often. Particularly me and my hand washing my own clothes, along with my lazy streak, it works out well all the way around. Except for some sort of accidental spillage or, God forbid, if I have to do something that might workng up a sweat, I'll let go maybe a week's worth of days without cleaning laundry.

Told you I may stretch it out for longer than most, but come on, even giving half that number of wearings you'll be saving lots. Like Mike Lieberman (his blog feed over there in the sidebar) said about wearing the same shirt for four days in a row, he saved quite a bit of wasted water. Not to mention, of course, all of the other resources I've already brought up.

So that's what I do. Something to at least keep in mind, wearing your clothes more than once or twice before just out of habit tossing them toward the hamper. Save the clothes, save some work, save some time, save some utilities, save some money. It's really a no-brainer.

Finally, I'd bet it's safe to assume you're not headed out buying new shoes or somehow getting those cleaned after a single wear. And with shoes we're talking feet, people... feet.