It's Been A While I Know...

Its been much much too long I know. I've been up to my ears in Darling Clementine Business and juggling Juliette's busy schedule (I mean come on, she has dance class at age 2, really!) and trying to enjoy my happy little family life with Kevin. I hate that I've neglected Urban Branches, really I do. Just know that I have been keeping up my eco ways (though a few good habits have given way to some bad habits, I'll get to that...)

I have recently noticed (not for the first time might I add) that our little household of 3 goes though a lot and I mean ALOT of trash. I honestly don't know where it comes from. Our trash can isn't huge, but it seems to get filled up every other day to the brim. Plus I am one of those people that hates even the faintest smell of rotting food. Ew just thinking about it makes me shudder, so I am usually quick to rush the trash to the curb.

Having have read Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte I know well that though we think out of site out of mind when it comes to our trash that simply is just NOT true. It goes somewhere, every day, every hour most likely our trash is being dumped. And there isn't endless space. So we better start reducing the trash we create, fast.

Here are some tips I plan on sticking to

* Stop buying small portioned food! Being a mom, it's so nice and easy to purchase a tiny bag of cheddar crackers at the corner store while out and Juliette needs something to snack on, but it's much more waste than we need. I vow work my hardest to stop doing that. I mean we have 3 Lunchskins after all, and we do use them everyday in fact, but sometimes I forget to refill, or toss in the bag or Juliette pulls them out and hids the bags in her toy bin or whatever myrid of excuses I can come up with...

Here they are if you haven't seen them, they are reusable bags called LunchSkins, they come in great prints too, we have this, this and this and we love them. Easy to clean, Juliette loves using them too!

*Curb Juliette's hand washing time. She loves washing her hands, and likes to do it by herself, well this often ends up being a 3 minute long hand washing session, and that's a whole lotta water...

*Continue shopping vintage, consignment and thrift stores for her, I did it a lot in the beginning and really have gotten away from it lately... but it is so thrilling to find a great item at a great price, plus you are giving something a second life!

*Create a scrap paper bin for Juliette to use as art paper! That's easy enough!

*Get creative, make her modeling dough from scratch, and switch to natural crayons, we sell this cute set at Darling Clementine.

*Get Juliette involved in recycling, give her little jobs, like stacking the yogurt cups or putting the papers in the right spot! Yes, will do this tonight!

Tell me some of your ideas and tips to reducing your garbage load! I'd love to hear them!