Zero Waste

As we count down the months until our last days in Iowa (how we will miss this place!) I am faced with the prospect of whittling down our spacious and fully furnished midwest home to fit into a compact little apartment in DC. Fortunately, my husband and I are not of the packrat variety, even so, things do collect. For example, over the past two years we have amassed a decent collection of kitchen appliances (you will have to pry that ice cream machine from my cold fingers), two couches, an obscenely large flat screen TV, and other items too numerous to list.

This is why I was so excited to find an article in Sunset Magazine about a family who lives a "Zero Waste" lifestyle. More on this in blog posts to come.

In a lot of ways, city living will be far more sustainable than suburbia. We'll drive less, use less energy to heat and cool our home, and we'll have less stuff.

Stuff.

Working on reducing it...

Already we have started to downsize. Books we no longer want to keep are sold at a wonderful local used bookshop, The Haunted Bookshop was always one of our favorite spots downtown. Filled with a great selection of fiction, non-fiction, and children's books (along with a few friendly cats), the shop is a quiet, relaxing respite from daily life. Since the shop has recently expanded they have been especially happy to buy used books that are in good condition.

Clothes that are cute and seasonal can be sold at my favorite clothing shop downtown. Revival has a wonderful mix of new and vintage pieces. Sorted by color and always fun for perusing, the racks inevitably have some treasured skirt or adorable top to try on. The shop recently set up a back area filled with adorable clothes for children and babies.

And of course there is always craigslist or Goodwill for giving away furniture or other household items that we no longer want or need. Better to have someone actually use our stuff than to throw it away or haul it with us halfway across the country.

We'll see how this goes...

Image from becominglds.blogspot.com.