A plastic trash challenge!

Johanna over at Every week is green, decided in the beginning of February to do a trash challenge, where she keeps track of all the trash she generates through a month.

I thought this was a great idea, and I decided to join her on parts of this challenge, namely the plastic part.

Were I live here in Norway, we have pretty good facilities for recycle. My trash room have separate bins for paper, food waste and general trash. They also pick up plastic once a month, which are collected not in bins but in big plastic bags.

Right next to my local shop (just down the street), there is a big container for glass and metal cans, and you can deliver light bulbs at the store itself. Any big electrical items, can be delivered at any electrical store, paint and stuff is considered special waste and can be delivered either at the fire station or you can bring it to the local recycle centre (which for me is only 4 minutes away). The local recycle centre will take everything you could think off. You pay a small fee and you can toss to your hearts content 😉

So you see, there are great opportunities to recycle if we are mindful!

During my blogging year, I’ve come across a lot of people trying to go plastic free. I’m not quite there, as I do use my plastic containers to store food and stuff, and I do use the occasional plastic wrapper. But at the same time, I also bring my own bags to the stores, both carry bags and bags for fruit and vegetables. And I do try, to keep the amount of plastic that enters my house, to a low volume, with the unfortunate exception of necessities that happen to be wrapped in the darn thing.

But just like Johanna, I’m a bit curious on how much of the stuff I actually go through in a month, so I have decided to keep track of the plastic trash this month.

I started out February 1st, and this is what I went through my first week. It’s turning out to be more plastic than normally (I think) as I went a little crazy on bagged salads (on sale) and had to refill wiper fluid on my car:

• 1 chocolate wrapper
• 1 baguette wrapper
• 3 salad bags
• 1 mashed potato bag
• 1 puffed rice bag
• 1 windshield washer fluid refill bag (which at least uses 63% less plastic than a regular washer fluid container)
• 2 milk carton tops
• 14 contact lenses and their storage trays – I use SoftLens daily, and they come in small plastic containers
• 1 plastic box for 500 grams of grapes – unfortunately they come in boxes, no loose grapes here in my stores 😦
• Bunch of plastic that covers things like fruit, vegetables, pork chops, fish and a few other necessities

I stored most of it in a mason jar (you can see it empty on the picture) during the week, but pulled it all out to show you the stuff. I repacked it nicely into the grape box, as I’m keeping it there while I start on a new week of mason jar collecting 😉