海角大神

I absolutely hate it when I throw things away. Few things frustrate me more than having a full trash can.

Why? I know that, on some level, I paid for the things that are being thrown away.

If I鈥檓 tossing the box that a prepackaged meal came in, part of the cost of that prepackaged meal was the box. The box wasn鈥檛 free.

If I鈥檓 throwing away the remaining scraps of a vegetable that I chopped up for a dish, those scraps were part of the cost. When you weigh fresh vegetables at the market, they do weigh the roots and the stems.

If I鈥檓 getting rid of a pan because the Teflon coating is coming off, the reality that I didn鈥檛 buy the best pan is coming home to roost.

If I鈥檓 chucking food from the back of the pantry or the back of the refrigerator, I鈥檓 paying because I wasn鈥檛 organized in terms of my food.

Trash is money lost. It鈥檚 packaging for products when at least some of the cost of that product went to pay for the packaging. It鈥檚 food that you didn鈥檛 find a use for and has gone to waste. It鈥檚 items that weren鈥檛 the optimal choice because you didn鈥檛 make the optimal choice.

One potential response to this is to become a hoarder. I have friends and family members who are loathe to throw anything away and find themselves collecting piles of largely useless items. They have old frying pans, empty cardboard boxes, and countless other items that simply doesn鈥檛 have a use.

That鈥檚 a questionable response because storage space has a cost. The more stuff you allow to accumulate, the more space you need to store it. It鈥檚 an incredibly common thing for people to have excessive living space in order to simply store stuff that they virtually never use, which means that all of their hoarded items is costing them.

I prefer a different response. I focus on buying items that minimize waste. In fact, if you look at many of your purchases through that filter, you鈥檒l end up saving a surprising amount of money. Here鈥檚 how.

First, buy reliable items that you don鈥檛 have to replace very often. If you鈥檙e throwing away an item that you use with any regularity, that means you鈥檙e going to have to replace it in the near future. I鈥檓 quite happy to research a product and spend 20% more on it in order to significantly increase the reliability of the item. A more reliable item is one that requires fewer repairs (saving you money and time) and less frequent replacements (saving you time and money).

Second, make meals yourself from the most basic ingredients possible. Prepackaged foods generate a lot of trash. Most of the time, you can recreate the item 鈥� or make an even better version 鈥� by simply making the item from scratch.

There are a lot of examples of this. Instead of buying tomato sauce, buy some raw tomatoes, boil them, run them through a food processor, and strain it a bit. Instead of buying loaves of bread, make several of them yourself with a single sack of flour, a jar of yeast, a container of salt, and some tap water. Instead of buying individually-wrapped slices of American cheese, buy a block of cheese and get out the cheese slicer (seriously, compare this one 鈥� you鈥檒l be amazed). In general, the smaller the volume of your waste, the closer to scratch you are with your meal and the lower the cost is.

Consider also using reusable containers for as much as you can. Instead of buying bottled water and chucking the containers, keep reusable containers in your fridge filled with water. Instead of using baggies for your sack lunches, put everything in small reusable containers.

Another tactic you can apply is to compost your vegetable waste. If you grow any sort of plants at all, you can get some value out of a small composter. Save your vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, and egg shells. Turn the mix regularly and wait until it composts into rich brown or black topsoil, then apply it to the soil in which you grow your flowers or other vegetation.

You should also evaluate the other things you toss for genuine usefulness. Can you translate this item into real usefulness in the near future? For example, I鈥檒l often save Amazon boxes, but that鈥檚 because I鈥檒l use them for gift packaging in the future. I鈥檒l save egg cartons and newspapers if I鈥檓 going to be camping in the near future. However, I won鈥檛 save a broken toaster because鈥� well, when will I ever really use a broken toaster?

Recycling is also a better option than just throwing things away. We don鈥檛 live in a community with curbside recycling, unfortunately, but we do save many types of recyclables (paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, glass bottles, etc.) on our own and take them to a recycling center regularly. While this doesn鈥檛 strictly cut down on your refuse, it does ensure that it goes to better use than simply winding up in a landfill.

Most of the time, when you strive to minimize your trash with sensible approaches, you wind up with more money in your pocket. You also wind up adding less items to the world鈥檚 landfills, meaning future generations have a little less of our trash to deal with.