OK, in today's lifestyle this is not always so practical. However, as a goal and a mindset, I think it will work very well. Try to keep & reuse every scrap. How have I applied it, and how has it made a difference?
- Food scraps. First, we order all of our poultry from a local farmer, Steve & Jackie Goode of Cloverlawn Farms, Sandusky, MI. We order them whole, so that I can cut them up & use the backs, tails, and feet to make stock. I take scraps from good stock veggies that we cut up during normal cooking activities, things like carrots, onions, garlic, celery - keep them in a ziploc bag in the freezer. Then I pull out the scraps bags (veggie & chicken), dump them in a big pot of water, and boil them for about 3-4 hours with some salt and 1-2 TBS vinegar. The vinegar helps extract nutrition from the bones. I end up with a nutritious stock that gets sort of gelled in the fridge, and throw it in the freezer in containers. Similar with beef, but I roast the soup bones first and takes about 12 hours on the stove. Now, we haven't bought beef or chicken stock from the store in several years, and boy, you would not believe how good the soups are here!
- Plastic & glass - our recycler only takes #1 and #2 plastic, so some of the other containers if they are a good size, we wash in the dishwasher, then use. For example, the yogurt tub makes a good container for nick-nacks (marbles, kids chalk, etc.). Glass jars we are constantly using for all the pickled foods we make. We bought a FoodSaver vacuum packer about 10 years ago, one of the best things we ever bought. Those bags are normally reusable several times, so we wash them by hand (soap & water), dry them out, and stack them on a shelf in the cupboard. The "EvertFresh" green vegetable bags are also reusable, so if their integrity is still good and the food in them was in good condition, we wash & reuse them. I figure, if we use it twice, that's 50% reduction in material usage. More than that, gravy.
- Refrigerator technology - there are some awesome breakthroughs in refrigerator technology to help keep food longer. We have a Maytag wide-by-side fridge, with the temperature/humidity control drawers. These drawers each have their own thermostat and humidity control, to keep meat, cheese, fruits & vegetables longer. However, there are cheaper items as well: There is a green hockey puck thing you put in your fridge, available at a lot of supermarkets and Whole Foods / Wild Oats, that absorb food gasses and reduce spoilage. We also use the Fridge Smart containers from Tupperware - now I can't say enough about these! The containers have ridges on the bottom, a special lid to prevent condensation from dripping, and closable vents to control humidity. We have kept fresh berries in them for 3 weeks or more, and they come out almost as fresh as just-picked!! No joke! We've reduced our use of plastic containers a lot, but I'm a big fan of Fridge Smart and EvertFresh (that's those green bags that have some special minerals in the plastic that absorb food gasses, so it keeps veggies longer).
- Computers - since I am a computer guy, it's no big deal for me. Perhaps if you don't know too much about them, you could sell your old equipment either whole or as parts to a local computer store. I cannibalize old equipment, pulling out the useful items like DVD & CD drives, hard drives, memory, CPU, expansion cards, network cards. Now, I have about 6 computers in my house, running things like a Windows server, web server, etc. So, every now & then something breaks, or I could use additional hardware, so I can do repairs or add-ons with little or no cost. Or, I can sell items I no longer need (oh, the wonders of eBay).
