Moving Box Madness

Almost immediately after our wedding, and then our honeymoon, K and I packed up our tiny apartment and said goodbye to our first place together.

I was pretty sad about it because I get emotionally attached to things and places. There were so many good memories in that apartment!

What was even sadder though was the amount of waste that could have been if I had not been conscious of it the entire moving process.

The Boxes

We had some boxes saved in the basement from the previous move and purchased many, many more to pack up our belongings. On top of those boxes, we had tons of boxes from all of the registry items that we could finally fit into our apartment.

Just so many boxes.  Everywhere!

Just a small sample of the amount of boxes

Luckily, I was able to give away pretty much all of the moving boxes for them to be reused again. I gave some to my mom to pack up all those lanterns for our wedding, I posted some on Craigslist and gave some to a friend who was moving shortly after us.

The Plastic Bags

What was worse than the boxes, was the plastic packaging! As we opened new small appliances from our registry the amount of plastic bags just piled up to the point where I filled an entire gigantic bag with them.

Recyclable plastic bags can be brought to your local grocery store and usually are not accepted in curbside recycling because the bags get caught in recycling machinery. So I just saved all the little bags until I filled up a big one and kept it in my car until I went to the grocery store next.

The Bubble Wrap

On top of the boxes and the plastic bags was the bubble wrap. So much if it. I have given some away, but still have plenty that I have posted on Buy Nothing Facebook groups. There have been a few leads, but no follow-ups so far. Any readers need some bubble wrap?!

While we usually purchase furniture pieces secondhand (we already bought a desk from Craigslist), we did get some new pieces that reminded me of why I hate ordering stuff.

For instance, our new bed frame was delivered 2 days early when K was out of town and was for some reason put down this unfinished set of stairs in the front of our apartment. It was so heavy that I couldn’t get it out alone and had to call in reinforcements. Thanks, Amazon.

At least the bed frame came early because our new mattress didn’t show up at all. Through countless calls and legitimate hours on the phone with UPS, we ended up having to pick up our mattress from the customer pickup center. Not ideal.

As destroyed as the box was, fortunately, the mattress itself was okay. Ugh, eye roll.

I am so glad that we are basically done with finding pieces we were missing for our new apartment. The boxes, the plastic, the styrofoam, it was just so overwhelming.

If you aren’t convinced yet, read Buzzfeed’s recent piece, “The Hidden Environmental Cost of Amazon Prime’s Free, Fast Shipping.” I for one am not a Prime member and happily accept the standard shipping.

Wedding Food Waste: How Much Did We Collect?

As you may know, one of my wedding vendors was a compost collection service.

Which is totally not normal and really awesome. 

Healthy Soil Compost, the company that has come to my apartment every month for the past 2 years to pick up my 5-gallon bucket, got to be a part of my wedding day.

Working with my caterers, food waste was collected in larger rollaway totes, rather than my usual 5-gallon bucket. Scraps were collected in the kitchen, as well as out in the reception space.

Me, in my wedding dress, and one of the Healthy Soil Compost containers.

Having the opportunity to support my values on my wedding day was extremely important to me. When else do you get to craft an event that is truly all about you and what you believe in?

At the end of the night, Healthy Soil had collected 139 pounds of organic material that would have otherwise gone straight into a landfill.

Our 139 pounds of organic material (aka tacos) will produce 10 pounds of finished compost to go back into the earth and grow more goodies.

This entire process saved 100 pounds of greenhouse gas carbon emissions from being emitted into the atmosphere.

Small changes can make a difference. Now, go compost for your next event!

Honeymoon Packing List…Ha, Yeah Right

You know those posts that detail every little new thing you should buy for a vacation or a honeymoon?

Or my favorite ones that refer to their list as honeymoon essentials.

This Tried & Tested: Honeymoon Fashion Essentials article tells me that I need the following:

• eye-catching carryalls (are those purses?)
• a sultry, yet sweet robe
• something that screams “newlywed” (my worst nightmare)

Honeymoon Essentials No Bride Should Go Without preaches that I must have:

• a monogrammed tote
• another robe
• and a sweet perfume

10 Things to Put on Your Honeymoon Packing List also suggests perfume and numerous special outfits…

You know what new items I bought to bring on my honeymoon? Two things: one pair of hiking socks and hiking pants.

That’s it.

To be fair, we were honeymooning in Canada and were hiking and lounging most of the time.

But either way, my point is that you don’t need a ton of new stuff for one trip. Use what you have. I had hiking socks, but not enough to go for 7 days. I certainly don’t need “eye-catching carryalls” to celebrate my marriage.

So here I am casually on top of a glacier wearing my honeymoon pants and socks (more on the glacier part in another post), and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was a little cold for teeny tiny bikinis in Canada anyway.

We definitely did see another couple on the trail in their “newlywed” attire, wearing matching Mr. and Mrs. shirts.

That’s not our style. I am also wearing my glasses because I legitimately left my contacts back in Chicago.

So if I did have to make a honeymoon packing list, I would suggest that you make sure you bring all of your visual aids.

So that you can truly see and enjoy all the scenic views.

The Oops Tag

I have been “recycling” in Chicago for over two years now and the other day finally saw something I had only heard of on the internet…

The Oops Tag.

First of all, I say recycling in quotes because I do not fully believe that even half of what I have diligently cleaned and separated makes it to a recycling facility.

But anyway, these oops tags were rolled out by the Department of Streets and Sanitation last summer in an effort to educate Chicagoans about what can and cannot go in the blue bin.

The tag is supposed to be marked with what contaminant was found in the blue bin but looks like that did not happen in the above case.

These blue bins were obviously not mine, but of a neighbor’s down the street. I noticed the tags as I walked through the alley, but I did not snoop in the bins to see what the issue was to warrant the tags.

While Chicago’s recycling rate is the pits, I am not sure these tags will do much to combat that. Now that I live in a building with an alley, people’s blue bins are much more accessible and people toss stuff in other people’s bins all the time. So controlling what happens in your bin is kind of difficult.