Kitchen recycling/composting organization?

[Jabberwonky]

Once upon a time, I found a recipe for worm food that includes ground eggshells (which I guess worms love because of the grit?), cornmeal, wheat flour, and ground oats. So I make a batch of that every few months. My worms definitely like it.

 

[Hinotori]

We have curbside recycling. Yes, even out in the country. Paper, cardboard, plastic bottles & jugs, and cans. Glass we have to take to the recycling bin at the dump as it contaminates the rest and isn't allowed. They have electronics recycling there as well. They also offer yard waste bins but we don't need that out here, it's more for the city people. My recycling is mostly cardboard.

I don't bother with composting anymore. Food scraps are tossed to the chickens if they will eat it or just tossed into the garden. Much of the year it will rot away entirely in a couple weeks at the most. Bigger pieces of cardboard I use to kill weeds. Eggshells are dried, crushed, and used on plants or given to the chickens.

 

[Hinotori]

I get my meat by the primal and break it down to steaks, burger, stew meat, etc. Excess fat is trimmed off and rendered for use. The leftover bits go to the chickens or dogs. I do use plastic here because the meat last longer with no freezer burn.

Mom just gave me some soupbones from this last half beef she got. After I cook them and strip the meat for soup, I'll toss them back into a crockpot to make some bone broth. I cook it until the bones crumble and sieve them out. Chickens get that. Broth is usually cooled in a pan so I can cut it into cubes and freeze. It adds body and mouth feel to soups.

Plastic bulk bags are one of our biggest trash items. Can't do much for that. I have mesh produce bags for fruits and veggies.

I don't feel the need to try for waste free, just low waste.

 

[CrealCritter]

Thank you for your reply and welcome. It sounds like you definitely know how to make the most out of your reused items! I am curious how your wife plans emergency water storage. I have heard that it won't store permanently and has to be used regularly. I usually just keep a sealed gallon or two of distilled water on hand because we need it for other uses anyway. It's probably a good idea to have more than that on hand. I always thought it would be nice to have a homestead near a spring! I also wish that we lived somewhere close to a Byrne dairy, where we could use their glass system of milk containers (if they still have that system?) But alas, we are too far away.

We used our emergency water storage 3 times this year during boil orders. One boil order the entire county to the east of use was under boil order. In our country it was several days where there was no bottled water to be found in our county. It just so happened we got hit with boil order the same time during to water main break.. Sure you can boil water while under boil order, that's what a boil order is for. But so much more better when you have water stored you don't have to boil. What if water doesn't come out of the faucet when you turn it on? That happened to us when the water main broke, I believe it's wise to think and plan for such things.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

 

[flowerbug]

...What if water doesn't come out of the faucet when you turn it on? That happened to us when the water main broke, I believe it's wise to think and plan for such things.

agreed as we keep some drinking water from the well stored for emergencies as we don't want to be stuck trying to get to the store perhaps through downed trees or power lines or other such things like heavy snow falls and power outages. we also keep water for flushing the toilet. with the really prolonged dry spell we had this early summer and up until about a month ago it would have been difficult to get enough water out of the back ditch to fill a bucket for flushing if we had to go that far and melting snow in the middle of winter in a house with a small propane fueled fireplace would have made something like that really a challenge too.

after the plumbing fiasco this spring i also bumped up our water storage amount by a few gallons because the smaller pressure tank holds less and runs out faster.

 

[Jabberwonky]

We used our emergency water storage 3 times this year during boil orders. One boil order the entire county to the east of use was under boil order. In our country it was several days where there was no bottled water to be found in our county. It just so happened we got hit with boil order the same time during to water main break.. Sure you can boil water while under boil order, that's what a boil order is for. But so much more better when you have water stored you don't have to boil. What if water doesn't come out of the faucet when you turn it on? That happened to us when the water main broke, I believe it's wise to think and plan for such things.

Jesus is Lord and Christ

What are the chances of that happening?! I'm sure it wasn't funny at the time, but it's a little bit funny reading about it now.

 

[flowerbug]

...I don't feel the need to try for waste free, just low waste.

IMO every bit counts.

 

[murphysranch]

Hinotori: your area is just like mine. But DD has glass pickup bin, so the very few pieces of glass I have go to her every other month or so.

WINCO has plastic bag recycling. If I have bread bags or other types that I don't need, they go there to their recycling bin.