I was thinking of trying the garbage out too, but you’re right about the floss.

Ultimately though, I think the attitude to approach this is one of: look, I’m going to (somewhat) fail. But even if I fail, I’m going to be doing so much better than I WAS doing. It’s less about reaching ZERO plastic/paper/etc, and more about greatly reducing and realizing what you need to use and what you really don’t need.

And that’s why I’m not doing paper. I use very minimal paper that is mostly just TP for number 2, and scraps of what is usually junk mail for notes and grocery lists and stuff. I’m happy with that paper consumption, and I don’t really feel the need to change.

Anyway, that’s my two cents.

So, to sum up my rambling, I plan to try (in the near future, though I can’t promise it’ll be this week, and in no particular order):

1. No driving
2. No garbage
3. No excessive water use
4. Only local food
5. No plastic

Can’t wait to see what you all do!

I’m hoping eventually I’ll find something that works. For now I’m focusing on using 3 squares of recycled toilet paper and reminding myself that it’s good to stay hydrated. Oh, and if you know any women who can pee standing up without making a mess, I’d love a lesson. I keep hearing it’s possible but no one will give me a demonstration.

1. No plastic (don’t buy or consume anything in plastic).
This is possible for me but difficult until June. Last summer I was almost off plastic except the occasional Nalgene for water and juice (I’m diabetic, hard to get around that although I did make my own juice for a month when rhubarb was in season). Finding ways to extend the season of unpackaged food is the trick, and I was at least able to cover about 2/3rds of my lunches with unpackaged food I saved over winter.

2. No paper products.
TP is of course the difficult one here. I don’t use any new paper anymore in anything I do. I take all notes and read most everything on my laptop (maybe a higher impact in the end though). When I need paper I reuse computer paper that others discarded, or in the case of TP it is recycled paper (No not recycled TP!) But I have used the wipe, fold, repeat method which uses 1/3rd TP as before.

3. No driving.
Well, I drive for work, but it’s essentially public transportation to campus that allows 13 cars a day to be off the road, so in this case I think it’s allowable. I ride my bike (infinite mpg) or moped (~80mpg) otherwise.

4. Local food only.
Again, difficult here until June, mostly because of poor planning. As I said, most of my lunches are local foods I stored since last August/September, but other than that it is slim pickings at the moment here.

5. No garbage output (compost and recyclables only).
As I said earlier I tried really hard for about 6 weeks and got down to 1.5% of the typical American’s waste. I can’t get beyond that without curing diabetes.

6. No excessive water usage
My water heater holds 19 gallons, which is enough for about 12 minutes in the shower. I usually use most of that, so I guess I could still reduce there. I use about half a gallon to wash dishes as mentioned in a comment to an earlier post. I wash clothes about every 3-4 weeks in full loads.

7. No electricity (you can leave your fridge on if you must).
This winter I offset most of the fridge’s power usage by filling it with ice made naturally outside. If I owned this place, my fridge would be outside. Have you ever wondered why we heat the indoors AND have a box to say cold there also? It baffles me, but I guess it’s convenience. I have a medium multimedia center, an alarm clock, a toaster oven, water heater, and this laptop as the only other things that use electricity. Did I mention this laptop uses the same amount of energy as a small 60 watt-equivalent compact fluorescent light bulb? 13 watts.

So I have some room to improve, and I’ll certainly need to relearn some solutions when I move in 4 weeks, but I feel like I’m on track to fit these challenges if I were to take them.