Garbage in/Recycle out & WORMS

I'm so proud of myself! Frugal living lends to learn about recycling. With my area allowing a burning barrel, I burn all paper products. Since I eat a lot of produce, that makes for a lot of waste. But wait! Waste is not something I relish. This spring, I got WORMS!!  I put them in...like a future raised garden spot. I sure hope they stick around for the winter. Yeah, I should have made worm bins, but after a million or so fruit flies in the plastic bin I had them in at first, I wanted it to be more natural. Risking the worms skipping town, I put them in this raised bin area. Last time I looked, I found some, so they lived and hung around through a 100 degree summer. Now they have to live through a zero degree winter. I have an abundance of produce, an entire half size freezer full, for the worms. I put produce scraps in an old blender with some water and blend it up, pouring it into freezer bags.

Other recycling things. I don't go through a lot of milk, but when I do I get the plastic half gallon containers. Those are good to cut the bottoms off and use as animal food scoops. Empty bleach bottles are good for the same thing and more heavy duty, bigger scoops with thicker walls.

Today I took a look at recycle bins in the town I work and it looks like I have a free place to put my aluminum cans, tin cans, and glass-green and clear. There weren't any bins for hard plastic. That seems to be the bulk of my household garbage. It's so cool. Where I used to have a 30 gallon can of garbage a week, it now takes me about 6 weeks to fill the same size can.

More recycling is that I buy most my clothes and shoes at thrift stores. It probably shows! How many times have you bought something new, washed it and it loses shape, shrinks, or fades? Buying second hand, the fabric won't change upon washing, as it's already been washed a bunch. Plus, with shoes, I've wasted a lot of money on new shoes that really didn't fit or I just don't like the feel of them once I start wearing them. Paying $2-7 for a pair of shoes, it doesn't bother me if that happens. I just donate them back when I'm done with them. Periodically I go through all my clothes and shoes and donate any I don't like or wear back to Goodwill or somewhere.

Small kitchen appliances are cheap at thrift stores, too. My worm blender is a thrift store item, plus when it crashes, it only takes a $5 bill to replace it.