Garbage day happy dance!

Yesterday morning I woke up to the sound of trucks picking up the recycling along my street — and it was music to my ears!

You see, yesterday was the first day of post-garbage strike pickup here in Toronto. Finally, my garage is starting to breathe easier, and I can start cleaning out those questionable and expired items in my fridge.

When we moved, we didn't have bins for pickup. Because we don't generate a lot of trash, we figured we'd just hold off for a week or two while we waited for our tags and bins to arrive. They came two days before the strike started. So that means we had a head start on the garbage piling up in our garage.

Luckily, we were able to send a rather smelly load off with family who live outside the city, but that still left us with a mountain of recyclables as well as all those boxes and bits and bobs that come from unpacking and moving.

And, as miserable and stinky as the strike was (it was getting to the point of holding my breath on the way to the bus stop), it did teach me to change some of my slightly lazy garbage day habits.

For starters, I'm now much more thorough when rinsing out my recyclables. A storm cloud of fruit flies is a powerful incentive.

I'm also more aware of the huge amounts of packaging that I was bringing home each week from the grocery store, as well as the ends of fruits and veggies that sometimes languished in the back of my fridge. I started to plan meals and snacks more carefully and freeze leftovers. I generally reduced and reused wherever possible — and it really did make a difference in the number of bags being added to our pile.

What about you? Did the strike make you change your garbage habits?