The zero-waste home?

I just got a library book called "Zero Waste Home," written by a woman who was able to reduce the amount of waste her family produces so much that she literally doesn't keep a trash can in the house anymore. She does have receptacles for composting and recycling, but she tries to minimize both by eating every possible scrap of food and not letting any waste at all get through the front door.

Everybody should be required to read this book, if only so they can stop thinking of me as extreme.

I can't see going to the lengths recommended (like bringing a mason jar to the butcher shop and asking to have your meat put directly into it), but it really is interesting, and I think there are some things I will try. Meanwhile, reading this has reactivated my (briefly disheartened) decluttering drive, so I've spent much of the morning going through old art supplies and adding more things to the donate pile heap mountain.

And adding to the trash, of course. This will be the second week in a row that our normally-not-even-a-quarter-full trash can has been filled to the brim. Real nice zero-waste home we've been running.