Throw Back Thursday: Trisha’s zero waste day in pictures

Oh, how I remember this particular post — we were having such a terrible winter that year and I had to work from home a few times because I couldn’t make it into town. The day to day of a Simple Year project can be pretty dull sometimes, and my zero waste project was no exception. But all daily decisions add up to a bigger, more exciting picture, right? That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. Original post HERE. –Trisha

Since I was whining about how boring zero waste can be, I decided to just show you what it looks like for me on a typical day. Except this wasn’t really all that typical — I worked from home instead of braving the roads.

Hey, it’s still snowing! Decide to work from home.

Make coffee. Repeat like 8 more times. 😉 Coffee cone, reusable filter, my beloved travel mug, and a jar of bulk beans. The red bowl is filled with used grounds I’ll compost later.

Breakfast = my beloved no bake energy bar. Tastes better than a store bought bar (even Abby agrees and she’s my granola bar fiend) and is made totally with bulk bin ingredients + my homemade zero waste apple butter.

Time to take the crock of compostables to the bucket by the front door. (See? I told you we had tamales for dinner on Wednesday.)

Huh. Wonder why I’m starting to feel claustrophobic?

Not gonna lie, worked in my yoga pants the first half of the day and took a shower on my lunch break. Safety razor, paper-wrapped soap (the plastic keeper thing I bought when we were newlyweds) and bulk shampoo. I’ve been buying unpackaged soap, but Eric wanted to try something different.

Lunch is a clean out the fridge kind of ordeal. The tortilla was wrapped, and so is the cheese. Homemade refried beans, lots of fresh veggies from the produce section and a side of homemade ranch dressing. Salsa in a jar. I’d rather buy our locally-made salsa, but it comes in plastic. The jar is a good reusable size, though.

Quittin’ time! Start making dinner. I keep forgetting to mention how bummed I am my Amish butter people added this sticker to what used to be just paper packaging.

Fridge clean out continues with panini (um, really just a fancy name for “toasted cheese sandwiches”) and sweet potato fries (my one new recipe for the week. They were awesome). Totally zero waste.

Decided to attempt cinnamon rolls with the new Artisan Bread recipe I’ve been keeping in the fridge recently. Spoiler alert: It makes really ugly rolls, but they’ll get eaten anyway. Used my homemade powdered sugar and bulk spices.

Run a load of dishes using detergent in a cardboard box.

Fill the sink to do the remaining dishes by hand. Bulk dish soap and a scrubby do the trick. And no, Bear should NOT be up there, but he climbs up my clothing, I’m not even kidding, so he can reach the counter. Brat. 

Finish cleaning the kitchen by spraying down the counters. Run out of cleaner. Make a new batch in the sink. Add Citrus Bliss essential oil. I think it smells like pine and orange. It’s not the worst.

Reading my book for the second time because that’s the Trisha way. It’s weird to think this book doesn’t really exist.

The end. I was trying to figure out how to capture working from home, but decided you don’t need to see my messy desk. Let’s just say that email is a godsend — I can get into all my files that way — and that I managed to crank out one full story, a draft of another, and start on a third. Weird to write with no distractions.