We are a Midwest, middle-class family of 4 (one adult, three school age kids) with 2 cats that produces less than a 13 gallon trash (kitchen size) bag of waste for the landfill per week.

We haven’t always done this well in diverting our trash from permanent waste storage facilities, and there is always room for improvement, but here is what we are doing now:

Our community curb side recycling program takes 1 & 2 plastics, paper and chipboard, tin and aluminum and clear glass right from our front yard. The cost of this is included in our regular trash service, whether we use it or not. A few years back, I discovered that my mom’s community curb side recycling program will also take plastics 3-10 and colored glass. So now we save those in a box in the basement until we visit her or she drives up for a kid’s music program.

Most of our kitchen waste can be composted, as we have few meat scraps. With the busyness of caring for a young family, I have always been a lazy composter. I have a large tub (a repurposed Tupperware cake storage/transport container) that sits on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. During meal preparation, or as the kids are clearing their plates after a meal, food scraps get put there. Refrigerating it keeps it from attracting bugs or giving off odors until it gets full and one of us takes it out to the compost bin in the back yard.

Here, my laziness continues. I have read the appropriate percentages of lawn clippings to food waste and how often to turn the pile, etc., but I have determined that this is for the compost bin of people impatient for their black dirt. I’m in no hurry. I just keeping piling my food scraps on top, occasionally toss on a few weeds from the yard when I can convince the kids to pull them, and in a year or two or three-Voila! Dirt. My compost bin (came with the house) is cleverly designed with little doors at the bottom, so dirt can be removed from the lowest portion of the bin without disturbing the garbage on top.

When I bought this house five years ago, the former owners left some presents for me: empty paint cans (in case I wanted to touch up the walls before I chose my own colors), a kitchen counter portion left over from a remodel, a storage cabinet 5 feet tall made of scraps of lumber, and also a set of used tires. All of these things I was able to freecycle. As I have remodeled the house, I also found homes for the used carpet on freecycle. The unused radiators went to the scrap metal recycling place.

With three growing kids, there is a continual flow of new and used clothes through the house. I generally limit all of us to a week’s worth of clothes for each season. This keeps purchasing costs down and it makes it difficult for laundry to pile too high. I have identified a recipient for the outgrown clothes from each child. My daughter’s clothes go to a woman at work whose daughter is a year younger and about the same proportions as mine. My youngest son’s clothes go to a different woman at work whose youngest son is slender and can’t wear the hand-me downs from his two big older brothers. We generally try on last year’s clothes at the start of a new season. What doesn’t fit gets bagged up and taken to its new owner.

I have also worked on reducing what comes into the house. We rarely eat out, so don’t have the difficult-to-recycle food containers from restaurants to dispose of. For gift-giving occasions, I request an experience-gift or gift cards. (Last year, I got the 3 day loan of a convertible sports car from a friend! Way too fun, but totally impractical—I had to make three trips to get the kids home from Tae Kwon Do lessons.)

The kids like getting stuff, but they outgrow toys like they do clothes. This summer, we are going to have a toy garage sale. They can keep the money from whatever they sell and get something more to their current tastes. When I think about acquiring something new, I often ask myself, “How am I going to get rid of this when I am done with it?”

We take cloth or string bags when we go shopping. I reuse school supplies as much as possible. In fact, I have sent the same unopened box of watercolors to the same elementary school for 4 years and 3 kids! I take my lunch to work in an insulated container and eat up the leftovers- no waste there.

As I find a ways to reduce what goes into our trash can, I explain to the kids what to do with each item and the reason behind it. They have been composting apple cores and bread crusts since they could open the refrigerator door. I noticed last night as my 12 year old finished up a poster-board presentation for school that he picked up the paper scraps and put them in the recycle bin without any reminder from me. It’s not a big deal—it’s just what we do.