Waste Not...Want Not

I swore I wasn't going to do it, I didn't really want to do it, but I have. I've started picking things out of the garbage (mine, not other people's) that can be recycled. When I see a plastic soft drink bottle that my son has thrown in his wastebasket in his room, I'm digging it out, rinsing it and putting it in the bin. I'm use to throwing ad and coupon flyers in the garbage, out of habit, now I go back and pick them out. Before, once it was in the garbage, it stayed there.  My conscience has always been very vocal.

I have noticed something that troubles me though. Since I have increased my recycling, the 13 gal. bag in my kitchen trashcan is never full when I take it out every evening and that seems awfully wasteful. But when I think that I should wait several days to take it out, I worry about any food that may be in it. Will it stink, will it draw bugs or *gasp* other creatures?

One way to fix that problem is to compost and I have been thinking about that, especially since I want to start some kind of a small garden this spring. I already have a half barrel in the yard that I had tried to grow tomatoes in a couple of years ago but I don't think the soil was very good. So that is the perfect setup for composting, right?  Except that the dirt in it is frozen solid. I tried one day to put some coffee grounds and eggshells in it, but it was a no go, I couldn't turn it over.

I want to start a "container" garden and maybe a small herb garden this spring. My yard is very small so it wouldn't be practical to have a regular garden, plus the dog would have no place to "go". Any composting I do will be on a small level. I thought I would keep an old coffee can in the kitchen and put scraps in it and then every evening take it out to the containers. Hopefully that will take care of a lot of food scraps that would normally go into the garbage, but I'm not sure it will take care of it all. I have never thought about garbage so much in my life.

For the next few days I will have to pay particular attention to what is actually going in the garbage, maybe I'm missing something that can be recycled or used for another purpose. Until the ground warms up there is not much I can do about the food scraps as I have no sophisticated composting system, just a coffee can. But I will figure this out.

Kathy