My trash experiment begins

My box of trash is pretty empty so far

Today I began my "week's worth of trash" experiment and already a few hours in I've made one change. First, let me explain. Inspired by one man's efforts to keep all his trash and recyclables for one year, for one week I'm collecting all my trash and recycling in a box. The idea is to recognize how much waste I'm responsible for and find ways to cut back.

I decided to start today (Monday, Feb. 2). This morning I was paying my bills and one of my credit cards had an extra paper inside about signing up for online statements. How could I ignore that sign? I went to the website and signed up to get my bill sent to my e-mail so I can pay online. My house-related bills, like cable and electricity, are already automatically deducted from my checking account every month but I did that more to make sure I didn't forget to pay them. And in fact, the electric company still sends me a paper statement. But my credit card statements still get sent in the mail and I either mail in a payment or pay online. I had hesitated to sign up for online statements because I worried I would forget to pay the bill if I didn't have the bill lying on my table to remind me (not that that strategy is foolproof either. It's easy to ignore clutter for weeks on end). I decided I'd give this a shot though.

So for this month, I wrote a check and put the bill in the mail. Then I took the flier about signing up for eBill and ePay and sadly put it in my box of trash, which for right now is still pretty empty. But then again, I'm only a few hours in.