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Margaret Hochla
El Reno, Oklahoma
I have been married for 27 years to Victor and have 4 children. The two girls and two boys range in age from 25-10 years. We are pleased to still have one grandparent from each side of the family ... More about Margaret
Sareen Dunleavy-Keenan
Minneapolis, Minnesota
I live in Minneapolis, in 1.5 story craftsman bungalow with beautiful woodwork, but a tiny lot. Sharing this space is my husband Brendan, 'baby' (5/07) and 'new baby' who is expected to join the fold in August. More about Sareen
Gina Keenan-Klages
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
My name is Gina, and my husband's name is Patrick. We have three children, ranging in ages from 1 to 5 years. Our household also includes my mother, who is living with us from September to May. More about Gina
Donna McClurkan
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Early January may seem an inauspicious time to begin an "eat local" project in Southwest Michigan. As if to underscore that point, nearly a foot of snow fell in Kalamazoo on January 3. More about Donna
Cher Stuewe-Portnoff
St Louis, Missouri
My first father-in-law taught me to garden in the mid-1960s. Over the next few years, with a family of five to feed, I read everything I could find about nutrition ... More about Cher
Vera Schabicki
Ashland, Mississippi
Four years ago my five children, one husband, two dogs, one cat and I moved to the rural South from a large northern California city. We went from .12 acres to a rambling 57 acres. More about Vera
- oh yeah
- Love
- successes and failures
- Hurrah for (kind of) local juice!
- Wow, it has gone fast!
- You must be brave
- Perhaps to give you some insight
- Finale: The Meaning of Life
- Meeting Joel Salatin ... and other posts from the cutting room floor
- The snack that does what?
< Feeding a family is a challenge | Main | Local food in a hurry? >
Surprising side benefit to eating local
Posted at 10:26 PM on January 16, 2008 by Gina Keenan (1 Comments)
A week and a half or more into this experiment of eating local foods, and I have noticed something amazing (amazing to me at least); our garbage has dropped by one full bag, plus some, a week.
I have been trying to decrease the volume of garbage generated by our household for the last three years. We compost and recycle, but to no avail. Last summer, I decided to take the drastic step of getting the smallest garbage can available by our waste management service. We basically halved our space for garbage, but did not follow suit and decrease generation of our garbage accordingly. This predictably resulted in garbage overflow.
My husband would get crabby on garbage night, having to cram and stuff the garbage into the container. On garbage pick up morning, we would already be behind the eight-ball, and I would have to evaluate whether or not to take the half bag of garbage left in the kitchen garbage can to the curb, set it discretely beside the already overflowing garbage can, and hope the garbage collector would take it.
But no more! Yesterday, my husband proudly rolled the garbage container out and the top was completely down.
Comments (1)
Gina - Hello from single-digit-cold Kalamazoo. We had the same surprise, but with recycling. On pick-up day tomorrow, our bin will be about 3/4 full rather than the usual full plus 2 paper grocery bags.
Posted by Donna McClurkan | January 20, 2008 12:03 PM