Garbage

I hate garbage. I hate the idea that something will sit in a landfill forever doing nothing productive. I cringe when I see people throwing recyclables or compostables in the garbage.  I have been known to actually pick things out of other people's garbage, bring them home, and put them in the right receptacle.  Yes, I get weird looks; I really don't care.

In our house, we have very little "garbage." I find a use for a lot of thins most people simply toss.
Some people compost. If they have a food item that cannot be composted, it goes in the trash. Not us. *Our rabbits get fruit/veggie scraps. (Check on line before giving rabbits any food.)
*We save our onion skins in a gallon freezer bag for naturally dying Easter eggs.
*Veggie scraps (that the rabbits can't eat such as lettuce cores, peels, broccoli stumps, etc.) also get saved in a  gallon freezer bag for making veggie stock.
*Veggie water (water in which you cooked vegetables) gets saved in an ice cream bucket in the freezer until it is full. I use this water to boil the above mentioned veggie scraps for veggie stock.
*Meat/Egg scraps get fed to the cat.
*Egg shells get dried and ground up for gardening.
*Stale bread gets made into croutons.
*Food scraps that the rabbits can't eat, and for which  we have no other use) get fed to the chickens.

Then there are things that are not food but must be dealt with.
*Metallic chip bags  saved for wrapping paper.
*Glass jars tend to be saved for storing left overs as I am trying to phase out plastic containers.
*Plastic bags get put in their appropriate bag in the stair well as mentioned in a previous post.

Whenever we eat meat with bones in it (which is most of the time), I cook the bones and fat in a slow cooker for about a day. It makes wonderful stock. When I am done canning the stock,  we set the bones next to the compost and wild birds and our chickens pick them clean.

When J brings home fish, he cleans them. The guts are a much appreciated treat for the chickens. I keep the carcasses in an old ice cream bucket in the freezer. When it is full, I boil them to make fish stock. Admittedly, this has an awful odor. Once I strain everything out, the stock gets canned and the rest goes to the birds, another much appreciated treat.

J also water foul hunts. We know a man who happily takes the large flight feathers for making fishing tackle.   The rest of the feathers get composted. Some people say you shouldn't do that, but we do and have had no problems. I scrape the fat and render it down. From the offal, we eat the heart (usually that day) and the liver (for pate).   Oddly enough, even though our cat hunts and eats her prey, she won't eat any of the left over offal. The rest of the guts we give to the chickens. They eat a good deal of it.

Appliances and random things destined for the trash, J takes apart. The metal parts get taken to the recycling place for money. The non-metal parts hopefully get put in the regular recycling been; if not, then they go in the garbage.

Everything else, which isn't much,  goes in the garbage. We only use a bathroom sized garbage can  which is lined with old grocery bags in our kitchen.  We usually take the garbage out every 24-36 hours.