Monthly Archives: June 2009

June 30, 2009 · 11:54 am

Day 365: The End!

bins

Can you believe it has been a whole year! I have all kinds of things on my mind for the last day of our buy-nothing-zero-waste year, but I only have an hour on my lunch break, so I’ll make it quick.

We’re going to have the weigh in tomorrow. We have borrowed a scale, a pile of cloth napkins, and set of wine glasses, and I’ve been baking a few snacks for guests. The bins are actually looking neck and neck.

Unfortunately it looks like Rhyannon is flying out of town -her flight got changed by the airline, but I am harboring a secret belief that she is trying to escape embarrassment because Continue reading →

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June 27, 2009 · 1:40 pm

Day 362: Simple Savvy

Christine over at Simple Savvy got married last week (Congrats Christine!), so she graciously let me take over her blog for a day while she was tied up with the festivities.

If you don’t read the Simple Savvy blog, well, you should. I’ve noticed lots of bloggers straddle the line between “frugal” and “eco” or “DIY” and “a simpler life” or “being green” and “having a green thumb”. I think all these things are interconnected, or at least they’re all things that I’m interested in.In either case, Christine’s blog is right up my alley.

The theme of my guest post is “Commitment to going green” because, for us, that was the hardest part of changing our lifestyle. We talked a lot about reducing our waste, but actually committing to doing it was the challenge. We still have a long way to go, but our year long project has been a pretty good start.

Anyway, head on over to my guest post to read more.

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June 26, 2009 · 9:05 am

Day 361: Clean Bin in the Globe and Mail

With only 4 days left in our project (and at the risk of upstaging our final weigh in on Wednesday) the Clean Bin Project was in an article in the Globe and Mail today!

A national publication like this definitely reaches a scope of readership that is outside our regular network of blog readers, but it’s good for us to get outside our ‘bubble’ of support. I keep wanting to check back in on the Globe’s website to see what comments people are putting up – both positive and negative. Continue reading →

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June 24, 2009 · 11:54 am

359: Day Waste Watch Wednesday – Food Inc

Free Range Human - as far as I can tell, this originally came from http://www.usdesignstudio.co.uk

I think a lot about food. Well, food and food packaging, but they’re somewhat inseparable aren’t they? I’ve commented to many people that this year of watching our waste output has translated to a strange and unforeseeable obsession with food.

Because we haven’t been buying ‘things’, all of our waste seems to come from what we eat, and I’ve become hyper-aware of how those products are wrapped, boxed, bundled, and generally presented for human consumption.

Naturally, this has led me a little off the path of landfill waste (environmental health) and into the domain of food quality (human health). But I might add that there is significant overlap between the two. Continue reading →

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June 22, 2009 · 12:12 pm

Day 357: DIY Reuse Crafts

monica-nun-bag I have a backlog of topics I’ve been meaning to post about, and this is one of them: reuse craftsters.

The first example is do it yourself plastic bag bags.

Lyanda of The Tangled Nest sent me this story (and photo) about her friend, Sister Monika Ellis, who “used plastic bags to crochet a strong, beautiful, open-work bag using a free pattern she’d found on the internet.”

I actually have a similar bag (except white with colored flecks) that my friend’s mom made for my birthday, and I get compliments on it all the time. It is super strong and perfect for the farmers market. Plus it diverts a bunch of plastic bags (abet temporarily) from the landfill. Continue reading →

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June 19, 2009 · 1:15 pm

Day 354: New Look, Same Less Waste

Get “same less waste” . . . . like “same great taste”? . . . .

You may have noticed that we have a bit of a new look around here. It’s all thanks to Hop Studios, web designers extraordinaire, and we owe them a big thank you. Thanks guys!

They whipped up a new header image that is more like the documentary we’re making, revamped the navigation bar, and pushed us to get on twitter (check out that sweet sidebar link). You may also notice that our site is now being hosted at cleanbinproject.com (mm hmm, we’re going upscale now).

Before you get all up in arms, I just want to say that I know it’s a little shocking to come to a familiar site and not be greeted by the familiar imagery. I myself was a little shocked when My Zero Waste had their make-over, so I know how you might feel, but after a couple visits I started thinking that it was actually quite nice.

That said, we welcome your feedback. We’re not done our makeover yet, so if there is a feature you’d love to see, let us know (we have all powerful CSS control now).

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