In the end, I couldn't help myself. I just know that someone is going to clear out the refrigerator at work and throw away a ton of the food that is still hanging around. So, last night, I made a nice plate to take to a meeting I had up the street. It's not required to take food but I knew that people would eat it if I took it. So I picked up some cheese and salami and pepperoni and olives. Yes, this goes against my belief that eating just to get rid of food when you don't need to eat is the same as throwing the stuff away. But, I couldn't fight the urge.

It turned out to be a great idea. At least two people hadn't eaten dinner before the meeting and were starving and afraid that all there would be were sweets or junk. They were incredibly happy to see real food. I was happy to put it to good use. One of my meetingmates took the leftovers home to make pizza. I feel much better.

My trash for the week consists of:

teabags (bag in composting tag in recycling)
Tea wrappers- two in recycling, several in the trash
veggie bits into the composting
plastic wrap that was on some containers I found in the cupboard

my big trash is dog poop. I live in a city and I walk the dog in the park so I have to pick up his poop and throw it away. I reuse the plastic bags from the farmer's market and grocery store which means lot of extra plastic for clean up. But, when I've looked up biodegradable dog poop bags, they average over 10 cents each and I'm not sure about the expense vs the plastic. The problem is that I don't have any other way to recycle the plastic bags so I feel better that they are at least being used for something.

Wste Not Want not

I ran across the Confessions of a (Sometimes!) Serendipitous Girl which is a cute (in layout)and smart (in content) blog by a woman who has recently relocated to Oregon. SSG is planning on starting a food budget of $40-50/week and will be posting about her shopping and menus. I have a feeling that she will come up with some new ideas that I can certainly use.

She also posted the first of Food Waste Friday pictures, an idea she got from the Frugal Girl. I was considering a similar idea myself (err, great minds and all that?) but it's hard for me because my housemate adds a lot to the trash!

If I'm going to pursue this, now is the time. My city is switching to a one plus one trash pickup. This will mean once a week for trash and once a week for recycling. I'm beyond excited about the recycling because I have so much more of that than trash anyway.

In fact, my actual trash is usually only a few plastic bags that food comes in, the plastic covers from oatmeal,

Recyclables: cardboard oatmeal container, egg cartons that go back to the farmers, milk bottle that also goes back to the farmer. Bread bags which I can use for cleaning up after the dog (ok, it's a total stretch to call this recycling)

Compostables: tea bags, coffee grounds, vegetable ends.

As far as my food waste goes, I'm pretty careful about it. If I have a sense that something will go off before I can eat it, I figure out how to freeze it or try to find another way to make it last longer. A few years ago I got a dehydrator for my birthday because I needed a way to handle all the figs my tree was producing. Since then, I've used it for all sorts of things, some more successful than others.

I'm fairly happy with the extent to which I've cut down on my waste. I'm still looking to reduce it more, if possible.

On another note: I'm watching King Corn today. I was hoping to buy corn on the cob at the market tomorrow but now I don't know. I know that the film isn't about corn in that way but I've always have strong reactions to films about food. I have to be careful because I'm always dropping foods out of my diet because of it! Anyway, it's a great documentary and I highly recommend it while you wait for Food Inc to come your way.