Burying trash or piling it up in a giant hole isn’t an innovative or particularly great solution to garbage. Even if the USA wasn’t running out of space for landfills (which it is) there are a lot of problems that come with landfills being used for garbage. 

According to the EPA, “Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for approximately 14.4 percent of these emissions in 2022.” Leachate is another problem caused by landfills. Leachate in the context of landfills describes the harmful liquid substances that landfills can produce and then leach into the environment. Landfills also necessitate disease and pest control measures. And take up space that could be better used. 

Those who spend their time on the environmental side of the internet have probably seen people who reduce their trash down to one mason jar a year or other extremes. The average US person, in 2018, produced 4.9 pounds of trash per day (per the EPA). The USA as a whole produces 12% of the world’s trash but is only 4% of the world's population. That’s not great. But it leaves room for growth and improvement! 

While I appreciate a challenge, producing only a mason jar of trash in a year isn’t feasible for most of us. It doesn’t set you up for success. I prefer concentrating on small steps that individuals can take to reduce their trash, their household's trash, and their workplace's trash, and to demand that corporations address the trash problem they are largely responsible for creating. 

As an individual, trying to reduce your garbage requires a lot of effort and research. The answers aren’t clear-cut. There isn’t one right choice for any item or individual. It can be frustrating and overwhelming. But that’s when done alone. It’s hard when starting from scratch, constantly, every time you stand in front of your trash can. So don’t do it alone. Let’s reduce our garbage together. 

Here on my Not Garbage blog, I’m going to tackle tricky trash troubles based on what comes up in my life as well as any requests. I’ll document my research and experiences. My hope is to help others see all their options in one place. Individuals are unique, so I won’t prescribe the best way to avoid trash for everyone. What I want to do instead is give as many options as possible in one easy location. 

Can trash be treasure under any other name?

Instead of trash, the categories I’ll explore are Renew/Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle, Return, Reduce, and Replace. Below is a quick peek at what I mean by each category. Let me know in the comments if I missed any categories you use.

Renew/Reuse

Become your trash's fairy godmother and turn that pumpkin into a coach. Renewing can look like a repair, a deep clean, or a part replacement. Maybe your socks need darned. Or your pillow needs new stuffing. Or your printer needs new ink. Before putting anything into the trash, check if it can be renewed. This isn’t always worth it. For example, I can’t summon the motivation to darn cheap, crappy socks. I will darn quality socks. Cheap socks move to the repurpose pile for me. That is okay! You have finite time and energy. When your budget allows, move to the replace step and buy good-quality, eco-friendly socks. Then repair those in the future! 

Repurpose

Repurposing is the time to get creative! It can be complicated and multi-step or easy and fast. If an item can’t fulfill its original use, maybe there’s an alternative. The key to this strategy for avoiding trash is repurposing that is useful or needed, and not just for the sake of making new or bigger trash. Sometimes I do the repurposing, and sometimes I send an item to a better destiny where it can be repurposed. There are a lot of possibilities for repurposing common household items. This is an area where we can often benefit from looking to the past. Previous generations had to be resourceful when repurposing limited resources. A lot of their ideas were good ones! 

Recycle

Recycling has more options than just the blue bins that might first spring to mind. Recycling suffers from a lot of greenwashing and plain old lying. Ahem, I mean marketing. Recycling isn’t a long-term solution. It’s been used by companies like a get-out-of-jail card for creating inane amounts of one-time-use plastic and other nonsense. So, I won’t give it sole attention or center stage. It’s a band-aid on a bleeding artery. It works in a few cases when done well.

Unfortunately, recyclers tend to make it hard to recycle. I hate seeing “check locally” on recyclable items. There’s not some person you can just holler at to check locally. Recycling companies' websites are crap and they don’t train the consumer on what specific facilities and areas actually recycle. This is so they appear “easy” and imply more recycling than they do. Recycling companies' communication truly sucks. I tend to give more credence to recycling companies that focus on a certain type of recycling and clearly show their processes. 

Return

Put that thing back where it came from! Please read that in the voice of Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc. Cool companies take back their products once they’ve broken or hit the end of their life. It’s worth checking for most items if the producer has a buy-back, return, or repair program. 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of uncool companies. The beauty of the mail is that you could mail those uncool companies back their trash. I’d categorize that as an activism option, but not necessarily successful recycling or repurposing. 

Reduce

Reduction often goes hand in hand with the next category, replace. Use fewer disposable items and thus create less trash. Reduce your use of plastic water bottles by replacing them with a reusable bottle. It's a big deal because plastic bottles can take over 400 years to decompose (according to earthhow.com). Reduce can also be enacted by refusing. Just say no to swag and crap you don't need. Ideally, this will result in less swag and crap being created.  Buying products with minimal or no packaging falls under this category too.

Replace

When you know better, do better. Thanks, Maya Angelou! 

Sometimes you have to throw out garbage. That’s okay. Use it as a chance to pause and reflect. Perhaps it’s an item you need that's one-time use and unavoidable. That happens. But it isn’t always the case. Take paper towels as an example. I’ve found that I need to use some. The ones I use are made of certified, renewable bamboo materials. I use those for icky animal or human messes. But for most cleaning, drying, wiping up spills, etc I use a combination of rags, reusable paper towels (the kind you can wash in the dishwasher that come in cute patterns), cloths, and other multi-use options. It’s imperfect but still an impactful change. 

Upcoming topics

Blog topics currently on my radar include pillows, batteries, yard waste, paper towels, medicine plus its bottles, shoes, and feminine hygiene products. If you are standing in front of a trash can and having an existential crisis, send me an email or leave me a comment. I’ll help you out! 

Proof that non-garbage is making its way into the trash is the growth of the landfill mining industry. There's a whole industry blooming around going back through closed landfills and taking out items that don't belong there.

If you want to support my efforts, that’s awesome. Thank you! Share my content, check out my store for secondhand items and repurposed goods, or leave a comment. I appreciate you being here. 

Let’s work together!

 

Published on May 29, 2025

Sources: 

EPA information about landfill gas https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas 

Decomposition Times https://earthhow.com/plastic-decompose/