One might assume that my file cabinets were mostly empty following the Cut the Crap challenge I held a year ago, especially since I wrote several times about dealing with paper clutter. One would have been wrong in that assumption, however. I tackled some of the files but got behind as I kept moving through the month, blogging about decluttering the entire house, yard, and garage.
With a potential move coming up within a few months, it was time to complete the task. Well, actually, it was time to start all over and be brutal about the culling. Moving is great motivation to get rid of everything extraneous in your life, and files, especially if you are the one packing it all up and trudging up and down the moving van ramp with heavy boxes. My files always lose a lot of weight right before a move.
I'm happy to announce that I have finally completed going through every one of my file drawers. I recycled quite a lot of paper and filled the shredder basket four times. By "filled", I mean absolutely packed it full. Rather than have to empty it several times in a day, I take the shredder top off and stomp down the shredded paper so I can fit more into the basket. The total amount probably would have filled a large garbage bag.
Stop cringing at all the waste, people. The paper wasn't wasted. Innocuous paper was recycled at the city's facility. Full sheets of paper with one clean side were added to my stash of used paper for printing. (See above. Yes, that is my "computer mouse" watching over me.) All papers with sensitive information were shredded and added to the compost.
Shredded paper composts very well, adding important carbon to the pile. We have two compost bins. One is layered with carbon materials such as leaves and straw, fresh nitrogen in the form of kitchen waste, and animal manure, another source of nitrogen. The second bin is a holding bin for more animal manure (goat, sheep, chicken, and pig) mixed with the leaves I had on hand.
Shredded paper tends to clump up when added as a layer so I decided to incorporate it into the animal manure first. I dumped it all in the poop bin and used a pitchfork to mix it. That bin really started cooking after I did this. Now, any time we add fresh kitchen waste to the first bin, I use a bucket to scoop up some animal manure mixed with shredded paper and leaves to cover it up. It's working great and will produce some lovely compost for my gardening friends when we leave.
I'm working my way through other decluttering in the house and yard, but preparations for our trip are starting to take precedence. It will be easier to determine how much we need to get rid of once we have found a new home.
6 comments:
It's true that it's hard to know how brutal to be if you are looking for a home and don't know what you'll end up with. We don't need much space but the house we fell for is bigger than we need (1900 square feet) and everything fits fine in here.
Still, there's so much decluttering I need to do anyway. To keep our life in balance.
I'm so excited about your house hunt!
We shred all of our paper now and use it for chicken bedding, then of course it gets composted with the poop. We only recycle paperboard and glossy stuff now - it has cut way down on the amount going to the curb. Everyone else I know with chickens buys straw at the feed store but that adds up, plus I figure we've got this anyway so we might as well use it. Although we broke the last shredder (probably by putting too much in too fast) so we did have to buy a new one, so that definitely cut into our savings from not buying straw!
Fires, Floods, and moves are all ways to really lighten the load.
I love shreaded paper. It makes bedding for chickens (I do use straw), packing material for shipping (and packing fragile items for a move), composting as you mentioned and is great bedding for vermi-composting.
I am unduely curious about your moving ideas.
Angelina - we once ended up with a house twice as big as we needed and it looked so empty. Luckily, we didn't go incredibly overboard trying to fill it up.
JAM - once we're settled, we'll be composting all our cardboard boxes, or using them for mulch. Usually a move results in lots to recycle. Not this time!
Verde - I chose the latter (of ways to lighten the load). Another great use for shredded paper is papercrete. One of our CSA members makes it so we give him surplus newsletters as well as egg cartons when we get overloaded.
Curiosity killed the cat. :)
If I'm able to access my email and the computer during our trip, I will do some blogging. Once we've made an offer on a place that looks pretty sure to go through, I'll spill the beans on the location. Promise.
The paper wasn't wasted. But the energy to produce and move it been spent, never to return. Also the trees are gone, the roads are built, the watersheds logged. Yes lots of paper gets recycled and lots of paper is post consumer recycled. Which is great.
Not criticizing you here, just wanting to point out that recycling isn't the holy grail that make our "sins" go away.
EJ - I agree. All resources should be used wisely, especially virgin paper. The paper I print on is either new with recycled content or used with one blank side. The paper used in the financial world, unfortunately, is rarely made with recycled content. I cleared out some past property files and am just appalled at how many copies of everything realtors, title companies, and banks feel compelled to make!
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