Waste, yuck!

First off I would like to apologize for having been away.  Unfortunately I have no exciting excuse for my absence, nothing fun to report just been very uninspired in the writing department (and I am sure the world sighs a collective sigh of relief, wow burn :)).  It is just that the voices in my head that tell me what to do have been quite dormant, and therefore my life and writing has been quite dull.  As I am sure everyone's is when the voices in their head stop telling them what to do.  Oh that is just me, ok whatever.  Well the voices are back, and they are screaming right now.  They are screaming about waste.  There is nothing nice about that word, waste it is just horrible.  I must admit I am not exempt from being forced to use that word in my own vocabulary about my own actions.  Waste has come to the forefront of my attention because I noticed that in my own house it was happening quite a lot.  Mostly when it came to food.  I think I have mentioned this before, but everyone in this particular household is very picky regarding food.  The only ones who are not are the dogs (we have so much to learn from our tiny four legged friends).  Anyway it is food waste in particular that made me look into the compost, trash, disposal question that I had been pondering for so long (I mean we are talking hours here).  And just as I suspected my hypothesis was correct, I am a scientific genius, composting is the best way to dispose of organic food waste.
Now let me be clear on two things here.  1, I am not condoning waste, especially food waste and using composting as my scapegoat.  Trust me when I say that I am working on ways to reduce the amount of waste that happens in this house.  Not an easy task, but is one that is manageable.  2, my composting skills were diminishing since we moved we lost our composting bin.  But alas I discovered that a structure is not necessary when composting.  A pile of organic material works just fine (http://www.composting101.com/how-it-works.html)
So anyway to make a long story short, I am back and composting at full force.  We are making food portions smaller on the plates or certain ones that were not always able to finish.  As always were are saving leftovers.  But mostly we are trying to be more aware of our actions, especially around food.  It is easy to forget just how precious food is and there should never be any excuse to waste it.
Now just quickly back to the trash vs. disposal issue.  I was did some light research and found that food waste going to the landfill is a big contributor of green house gas emissions.  I also found that putting food waste down a disposal in the sink creates more work for your local water treatment plant.  Which also has an environmental price (great article http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_green_lantern/2008/09/should_we_dispose_of_disposals.html).  So bottom line do not waste food.  Buy and eat only what you need.  Better yet if you can, grow as much as you able, then buy, and then eat what you need.  Every little bit helps.  And side note my tomatoes are way better than the ones from the store, just saying.  But if you do have any organic material leftover compost it rather than tossing it.  And if you can't compost feed the birds with some of it and look up to see if your home city has a way to compost.  Oh and if they don't maybe start one.  No I am not being bossy I just planting little ideas, because that is what the voices are telling me.
Second side note, there have been two things happen to me recently that did make me feel good, at least on the taking less plastic/styrofoam front.  One incident happened at a local Greek fest that we went to.  I will say the festival is a lot of fun, but the real pull for me is the food.  Beside the super delicious baklava, there are these little doughnuts call loukoumades.  Basically they are like crack, because they are so good that you cannot eat just one, but there is no way in Hades (hope that is Greek and not Roman) that they are good for you.  Anyway they were serving these doughnuts in styrofoam, but I asked the people behind the counter if I could  have my order placed in my own reusable container, and instead of getting the  strange looks or just the big fat NO's that I normally get, they were super happy to oblige.  I was thrilled.  Then later on in the week I was in the drug store that our family frequents, and the lady behind the counter remembered me and remembered that I prefer to put the items in my own bag rather than a plastic one.  Anyway these are pretty small actions but they made a huge difference to me.  It is ok to say no to plastic, to take your own container.  People may look funny at you know but I guarantee one day it will be the norm, or maybe even mandatory.  You can still enjoy yourself and reduce your impact at the same time.  They do not have to be separate.  In fact it should be encouraged.  That should do it for me today.  Hope everyone is well.