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Vacation Garbage

Posted at 9:59 PM on July 31, 2008 by Gina Keenan (1 Comments)

We are back from our vacation. For most of the time we were at my mom's lake cabin in Minnesota, and during that time we had waves of visitors. It was a partial vacation for me, as during that time I was also going to my mom's farmhouse and purging the house for an auction that is occurring the end of August.

Between the waves of visitors and the purging of my mom's house, I still see garbage bags in my sleep. I realize that there was a lot of us at the cabin, but still it was amazing the amount of garbage I was hauling out daily (for some reason, this duty fell upon me). The garbage was nearly all composed of food packaging and food scraps (there is no compost pile-something that we are changing this fall). Several of us here at Locavore Nation have mentioned in our blogs how our garbage has decreased with eating more local foods. However, the stark contrast between going from 1 and 1/2 bags of garbage a week to 6 or more bags was shocking, and sickening.

Even more nauseating was filling a roll-off dumpster to the brim with garbage from my mom's house. On top of that we have been hauling garbage by the pick-up load; one whole load of frozen food from the freezers. It is very sad, wasteful and makes you think what are we doing; how did this happen? Unfortunately, there is no other way to deal with old, freezer-burned food. I am guessing this generation of garbage was the equivalent of a small third world country. Sickening. It has definitely scarred me and my siblings.

On top of all of this, the compressor on our second freezer went out while we were on vacation. Where is the madness going to end?

Comments (1)

Gina, I hear your words re: garbage.
This year I've vowed to recycle even though it means we have to haul it to the dump ourselves (or put our blue bag next to someone elses blue bag in town on a curb)!
We own a paint store, so buckets are an easy option for us. We have many dirty 5 gallon buckets laying around our home in the country (never have had paint in them). My husband regularly hauls good soil from one part of our land to another...his entertainment is simple what can I say. And each day as he repairs the damage done by the armadillo, he hauls my compost to our future garden plot. This week he brought me a clean 5 gallon bucket with lid!!! It is so pretty. I keep a 5 gal. bucket under my tiny kitchen table and put all my produce scraps, paper towels and other compostables in this. Sometimes it stinks, so hence the lid. I am amazed also at the amount of produce trash I have. Corn husks, potato skins, bits and pieces that are wonderful for a compost pile. It's better than plastic freezer bags I'll say.
My son grew our garden this year. It is finished for the season since we are in a drought and it's 100 degrees each day, but we did lots of canning earlier this summer. REcyled canning jars when we empty a can of salsa or green beans makes me so proud. No trash, local food and we did it ourselves. I'm planning for next year, a winter garden and more canning projects.

Posted by Margaret Flynn | August 7, 2008 4:31 PM