Note: Our daughters, Greta and Ilsa, might just be the world’s best sports.

Greta, who is twenty, lives in Brooklyn where she studies acting. Because of the pandemic, she has spent a LOT of time this year at home with us in Vermont doing many of her classes online, but no matter where she is, she’s been doing the Year of No Garbage right along with us.

Meanwhile Ilsa, who is fifteen, is a sophomore in high school. She is completely at the mercy of her mom’s crazy-ass projects.

When I wrote my No Garbage True Confessions last week they both immediately chimed in with examples from their own experiences, and they were too awesome not to share. I hope you enjoy them and I wish you a super-safe, super-festive, and super-low-garbage Thanksgiving.

Greta’s List

1. I have flushed Q-Tips.

 

2. I have put the absorbent pads that come under raw chicken and steak (we have dubbed them: “meat maxi-pads”) into the “Health and Safety” garbage. Because, Ew.

 

3. I have tortured my boyfriend with the great wall of jam jars containing little random bits of plastic that I have no idea what to do with.

 

4. I have sworn vehemently at plastic forks.

 

5. I have sat on the floor and stared blankly at washed and dried plastic wrappers that have no rightful place in the universe.

 

6. I have had multiple debates with my boyfriend on whether or not it is okay to ask for “No receipt.”

 

7. I apologize when I compost Kleenex.

 

8. Shunning plastic wrap, I have saved food in wax paper until it no longer resembled recognizable food.

 

9. I made my friend take a bacon wrapper home.

 

10. I have only just barely resisted the overwhelming urge to pick up a paper straw wrapper off of the NYC street after someone littered in front of me. I mean do they know who I am? I am the queen of the plastic fork stash!

 

Ilsa’s List

1. I hide wrappers behind my computer monitor. This is a good strategy, because if I can’t see them, they don’t exist.

 

2. When we disinfect the desks at school, I apologize to the Clorox Wipes before throwing them out.

 

3. I find damp paper towels in the pockets of my coat, my backpack and my jeans. When I can’t stand it anymore I employ the “Health and Safety” defense. I apologize to them too.

 

4. I asked my friends to take their Halloween candy wrappers home.

 

5. Whenever I eat something that has a plastic wrapper that needs washing, I stash it next to the sink and then RUN AWAY.

 

6. Price tags from new clothing: get shoved to the back of the drawer. I’ll think about them next year!!

 

7. My friend regularly offers to take wrappers home for me so I can have what everyone else is having. It’s sooooo nice of her, but totally against the rules! I took her up on it only once. Okay, twice.

 

8. I annoy EVERYONE by checking for recycling numbers on EVERYTHING.

 

9. When people ask me what all this is about I reply: “It’s this thing… garbage… can’t have… year-long… NEVERMIND.”

 

10. If all else fails, try handing it to Mom. Then RUN AWAY.