"On the heels of the surprisingly popular post about forgoing paper towels"

Save some softwood trees grown for nothing but paper pulp production, while increasing the demand on the water supply system and the sewage treatment plants.

And that does not even include the electricity for all the extra washing machine loads.

It is far more involved than the simple concepts posted.

"far more involved . . ."

Say more, brickeyee!

I have to admit I was thinking the same thing. There are complex systems involved in everything. It's possible for individuals to cherry pick according to their beliefs. Usually this just shifts the onus onto anther part of the system, but in the aggregate with millions of people all living differently, it evens out.

An example: In every single study I've heard about, of disposable vs. cloth diapers, they're of equal environmental impact. There may be areas where there are specific aberrations, like someplace short on landfill space but having plentiful water and water treatment, but when all factors from raw materials to disposal are taken into consideration, they each have the same impact. Someone could invent a type of diaper that's made out of low quality recyclables, that can be picked up and composted like horse manure is, diaper and all, that could address all of the millions of poopy babies but there's a logistical nightmare in there, even once it's invented. Meantime, some babies bottoms aren't happy in plastic, and others need the fancy scientific disposables to prevent rashes, some people have easy access to laundry or a service and some don't, and either way, the not inconsiderable impact on the environment is a toss-up.

Home composting isn't practical for most people. Most people do not have a lot of land. More people than not live in apartments in urban and semi-urban settings. Even if everyone who has at least a little yard composted everything possible to compost, they'd just be buried in fertilizer. Besides needing space for the composter/heap, you need something to put it on, and you only need so much. Our city has a good program. Put all plant materials in the green bin, including peelings and all, and pick up free, quality compost any time you need it. There is the waste involved in having the trucks picking it all up, but if I composted just my yard trimmings, the heap would take up my whole back yard, so I'm grateful for the truck. It might not be a good thing, but it's a lot better burning fuel than all that waste, which is what they did fifty years ago, and we need the plant life to reoxygenate the air. It's not like paving over the garden to reduce yard waste is a good idea.

The most resource efficient way of living is communally. Home cooking is really very wasteful of energy, materials and human resources. If every one grew, processed and cooked all their own food, there would be few people free to do anything else. That's assuming we could find enough land to do it on. By grouping together in towns and cities, by letting the growers grow, the makers make and the thinkers think, we have greater wealth as a society and benefit from many things that we couldn't make ourselves. Of course, we have to be constantly refining the system, making better use of resources, being more mindful of doing our part to improve what we have and all, so that by our choices we can drive the marketplace, and through that the makers, etc., around the circle.

I have nothing against the "zero waste" people, though I could argue about the meaning of "zero" with them (they slough off their waste where it's less visible). They are very conservative, however, and step lightly. (Okay, I do have a bone to pick with the mom who only lets her kids have two shirts (out of choice, not necessity).) OTOH, their way is not a way that benefits anyone else much because it's an opt out program.

Very well said plllog. I've been thinking about a lot of this in terms of "opting out" and who really benefits.

I just moved from a city where one is fined $$ if any food (fish bones, meat, eggs) AT ALL is found in one's garbage instead of in the compost waste, to a city where recycling is uncommon. I was really surprised to see just how much garbage I actually produce. Feeds my Catholic guilt. But then, so do many things!

Incredibly on-point about communal living, and "letting the growers grow, the makers make and the thinkers think." I love cities for this. Would love to see someone, anyone, pick the two-shirt bone. Pretty whacky.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Back to regularly scheduled kitchens discussion!

My friend moved to a small city. When he called the city administration to find out about recycling, they pretty much laughed in his face. He found a commercial sorting facility not too far from his house, and would bring things they wouldn't take to my house now and then (about an hour away). Ten years later there's a fully implemented garbage/recycling/green waste system. There's hope! If you feel guilty enough you could always start lobbying.

I'd love it if my city took all foods but so far there isn't an adequate facility for that, or else they're worried about explaining it adequately in hundreds of languages. A lot of people are surprised that kitchen peelings can be put with the yard waste, and I wonder where they think orange peels and potato peels come from. :) OTOH, they take any plastic, from 1-7, including styro.

We compost and it is a problem to use it all. I plan to spread a liberal amount on our lawn this spring after using that coring-thingy you tow behind a riding mower.

You know what works great for "zero waste"? Having chickens. When I was a kid & we had chickens the compost bin was really just "yummy scraps for the chickens to go crazy for". I can't peel a veggie or clean out the fridge without wishing I had just a few hens to snarf down all the food I'm about to toss. Chickens, like pigs, are omnivores who can digest protein ... including leftovers that contain meat (like spaghetti with meat sauce, or pizza). But you need space & a willing spouse for them & I only have one part of that equation :)

While I wouldn't call our household "zero waste", we try our best to do what we can. We live 6 miles from the nearest store, and it's a small mom and pop store where you can get the basic necessities. We have a large garden and a few fruit trees (persimmon, apple, and cherry) that produce all of our summer produce and puts a significant amount back for the remainder of the year. We hunt for all of our meat. I'm already at home with the girls, so I have the time to do all of this. However, I don't think it would be practical at all if I was working and I was out and about daily. My car leaves the house one to two times per month to stock up on groceries that I buy in bulk. So I also save a considerable amount on gas as well. All of our food scraps go to the chickens. They produce more eggs than our family can eat. I've started giving away the extras to friends and neighbors, and often they are generous and give us a few dollars. That money goes back into the garden and chicken feed account. Although, with this year's weather, they are still free ranging, and doing well without feed. We plan on adding a few solar panels to our new build. We also heat with a wood stove, and will continue to do so in the new house. Once again, it works for us, but it's a lot of work and a lot of preparing a year or two in advance for firewood. We don't cut down any trees, but instead use anything that has fallen. We've also planted a few hundred trees in the three years that we've lived on this property as well as planted mixed grains and grasses for the local wildlife. Of course, the wildlife and trees are most important to us. On the other hand, I agree with plllog, and feel that everything is give and take. I used disposable diapers, because the extra laundry and water usage with cloth seemed just as bad, and with well water, I always wonder about our supply.

If you have Netflix, you may want to check out a movie called "No Impact Man" about a guy who wanted to totally eliminate the trash he produced and eat only foods he could get locally. Although some of the things about it were apparently debunked, it was still an interesting documentary.

>while increasing the demand on the water supply system and the sewage treatment plants.

Not necessarily. I don't do meat at home so my towels just go in with a regular load of laundry, so no more water than otherwise (they don't take up much room in the washer). If you do loads and loads of just towels, maybe, but I don't know many people who do that.

Even if everyone who has at least a little yard composted everything possible to compost, they'd just be buried in fertilizer.

We have a small city lot ... 75 x 150 ... and a double bin compost system. I'm never at a loss for how/where to use the compost.

It really does come down to where you are located and how you do things.

When I read the thread on replacing paper towels with cloth, I immediately knew that idea would not work where I live. We are on water restrictions and last summer some towns in my area ran completely out of water for three months or more.

Using all cloth in the kitchen would definitely increase the number of loads of laundry and/or the amount of water used for each load. If the million or so people who live here all did that, we would have an even more serious problem.

natal - plllog was thinking on a larger scale than just your yard and by "everyone" she meant the 10 million plus people who live in her city, many of whom have at least some outdoor space. Not everyone gardens or can find someone to give compost to so the city composts for them and gives the compost to those who want it.

Your system works for you and a different system works for someone else which was the whole point.

Sounds like another case of cherry picking to me. If you have no outdoor space that's one thing ... but if you do it's easy enough to set up a system. Not all communities have a compost waste system available to their citizens. We have a fine curbside recycling program, but it does not include compost waste.

Want to minimize waste? Don't remodel your kitchens. Keep the original cabinets/appliances/flooring/paint colors/tiles/etc. etc. etc. forever.

That aside, here in Toronto we have forced composting. Every household has 3 bins. Compost which is collected weekly, recycling (mixed, no need to separate paper/glass/plastic) and garbage. Recycling and garbage alternate weekly pickups.

No sink disposal units - all that stuff goes in the compost, along with dirty paper napkins, paper food wrapping etc. Styrofoam food trays (meat etc) are recycled. Very little goes in the garbage.

I've been composting all kitchen and yard waste for almost 30 yrs now, and I'm having a difficult time understanding how some of you are making so much that you can't dispose of it all. My family of four cannot generate enough to work into more than one flower bed per year. Last summer, I didn't even have enough in my bin to empty any. When organic matter decomposes, its volume reduces by more than 10-fold. I don't do much gardening anymore, but I compost to reduce the amount of garbage we need to get rid of.

Have to second cooksnsews I wish we had more compost! It would be wonderful to have the option Pillog's area offers. Here we only compost paper and plastic/glass. We have a 100 by 100 lot but over the years we've extended the vegetable garden so that it now covers about 2/3 of the back yard. We have two compostbins that we simply made by drilling holes in old garbage cans. I love composting because it cuts down our garbage and helps us save money by providing nutrient rich soil. We grow a wide variety of vegetables and herbs. The deer discovered us however for the first timein August and had a feast. We'll put up fencing next year. Looking forward to getting some tips on staving off cabbage moths and sluggs from the gardenweb.

In our semikitchen remodel we used cork and partially recycled ceramic tiles. Emco makes kitchen counter chairs made out of recycled materials but they are very expensive. 100% glass tiles are too. Hope someday products using recycled materials are more affordable.

I'm not saying home composting is bad! Far from it. But just like people wish their extra lemons and zucchini on their neighbors, so do they give their excess compost. I think there's a difference between horizontal and vertical gardens, and other forms of soil to plant ratio. I have a huge amount of yard waste and quite a small yard. There are many other places where there are much larger yards, that are mostly not cultivated, where there's a lot of fall, that gets "cleaned up", but relatively less planting. And a lot of places with handkerchief gardens which are all vines and other verticals. What the city composting does is capture all the green waste from all the residential sources, plus city green spaces, parks, midians, etc., etc., and redistribute the compost to where it's wanted and needed. If you want to compost at home, there are free seminars, and supplies, but that's only a gain if you can entirely forego the green waste can and compost everything. I couldn't fit all my yard trimmings in a standard composter.

What do you mean it's only a gain if you can entirely forgo the green waste can and compost everything? We don't compost branches or diseased plant material, but what we do compost is a major gain in terms of how it benefits our yard and the environment.

What I meant was that the truck doesn't have to make a pollutant creating, carbon burning stop at the house if they don't have to pick up the green bin.

Again, I wasn't saying anything against home composting. It's great! If you have the space to create and use it, and the will to do it, it's excellent. I was only pointing out that far more green waste is generated than can be processed and used at most people's homes, since most people don't live in nice suburban or rural houses with lovely, large gardens.

pllog composting really takes up very little space and does not generate that much soil. Not saying everyone with any outdoor space should do it by any means but i wouldn't want to put off urbanites with yards or those in surburbia with small yards. My brownstone owning/renting friends in Brooklyn compost for their small flower gardens. I have a small yard and my compost is in the corner in two medium sized plastic garbage cans with holes. I cook all the time and as vegetarians we generate a lot of veggie peeling etc. You cannot/should not compost meat products. Paper towels, paper napkins coffee filters, egg shells, veg/fruit that went south in the fridge are great for composting. My Bklyn friends use their newspapers for the brown matter. I use newspapers in the paths between garden rows. The soil is poor in my area so I have raised beds. I really would love a town that had an area for residents to pick up compost. We simply cannot generate enough for our needs. I average only one garbage can full a year. One unexpected gain from composting last year were volunteer tomato plants. Evidently our compost had viable seeds! We even had a tomato vine growing out of the compost. I'm thinking of trying vertical gardening this spring on the deck. Guess I should start looking for seeds!

Chiming in to say that I can see how absurd my question is in the context of tearing out an old functional kitchen and building a new one.
Mea culpa.

BalTra, I agree and I'm sorry. There are people here who are determined to misunderstand my posts and I'm going to stop responding to the misunderstandings. It's futile.

In the context of tearing out an old kitchen, Toronto Tim has the right of it. Making do with what you have has the least impact on the environment, and joining a dining co-op, rather than cooking at home, does even more.

What you can do, for demolishing a kitchen, is carefully remove everything, rather than smashing, reuse or pass along to someone who will everything that can be saved. Separate all the different kinds of bits and recycle everything that can be. For instance, there are places that recycle ceramic tile. They're probably very few, and probably aren't available to most people, but you can find out if there's one in your area. You can reuse/recycle whatever wood you remove. You can certainly reuse (let someone else reuse) any cabinets that you can remove whole, especially if they're the modern box style. If they're built in place you may only be able to save the doors and drawers, but if they're quality, you should find a taker.

That's another thing you can do to limit waste: Forgo disposable furniture. A lot of people buy into the idea of the ten year kitchen. Builders put crap cabinets in to keep their costs low/profits high, but also partially because they figure the future owners will customize and redo whatever they put in. Homeowners often follow suit, especially if they're the type of people who move every seven years, figuring they'll get their money's worth out of them and don't want to leave a bit of value when they leave the house. That's unfortunate, because a well designed, quality kitchen should be able to stand for at least fifty years. Every time you put in planned obsolescence, you add more waste. Still, when you go for quality, you also have to balance the impact of that quality vs. something a little less wonderful. Old growth hardwoods are beautiful, but.... :)

p111og,
Your thoughts are all ones with which I agree; I'm impressed with how well, and generously, you articulated them!
Definitely on board with 'disposable' furniture. I'm lucky to have the wiggle room to do it, but am careful to purchase only when I can afford something and only things which are extremely well made (often, though not always fashionable!!)

I surely did not want to start a contentious discussion. Though I'm new to this forum it is obvious that there are many on here who are incredibly thoughtful.

I love that the recession (ahem! depression?) has put most of us in a position where we are more careful about how we use what we have and perhaps also altered where we spend our energy. I resent that a popular message is that we all need to get out and spend money in order to stimulate the economy. Hoping there will be a lasting cultural shift toward reusing/repairing/reducing, and maybe even more investment in relationships and community. More 'making do with what we have.'

But I digress to preaching.

Here's to 2011, welcome to 2012!

Thank-you for the kind words. :) Don't worry about tangents. You have no control over them, and no responsibility.

I agree that a cultural shift towards using what we have would be a good thing. I was appalled when I learned that someone in my community removed a fairly new tile roof because she didn't like the color! Who does that? I think what the spending message is supposed to be (though it gets way perverted), is that delaying your purchases because of economic uncertainty, contributes to that uncertainty because a dollar saved, rather than spent or put to work, does nothing. You're removing money from the system. Therefore, if you need a new pair of shoes, or a new car, or a new kitchen, and you have the wherewithall, go ahead and do it, and keep people working. I think that's what it's supposed to be. Not throw out your perfectly good shoes and buy new ones just to churn.