My wife read item #3 on my wishlist? and was surprisingly interested. I say surprising because most of the work of managing a trash-free household would be on her. The challenge involves generating no trash for 30 days; all waste has to be recycles, composted, or re-used.

Since we moved to portland, our trash footprint has improved significantly. When we first moved in, it was a struggle to fit one week's worth of trash into the little city-provided blue rolling bins. We would stage materials in the dining room and immediately fill the bin after each trash day. It became a serious problem when I forgot to roll the trash out.

Now barely five months after moving, we struggle to fill the bin at all. Putting out the trash last week seemed like a waste of energy for such an empty bin.

So, what changed?

Initially, most of the waste was related to moving. We painted nearly all of the house. Those neutral beige walls presented an empty canvas, and after living in apartments for so long, we were eager to fill this canvas. After painting came the packing materials hugging our precious belongings. The third nail during the move was take-out food. No fridge plus no energy to cook resulted in a plethora of half-full food containers.

What remained after the move is not well understood. I believe we continued to generate a discarded packaging and food waste. This would explain how we got to the point we are today. With most of our discretionary budget going to our bathroom renovation?, we have reigned in other budgets which apparently means less trash.

We are still a long way from going 30 days without generating waste so we have decided to get intimate with our trash. To this end, we have are keeping a log of everything we throw out in a week. I am curious to see how long it gets.

Here is our list for the first day:

• 3 paper towels
• bag from baby carrots
• eg shell
• food from the drain collector
• tea bag
• used dryer sheet
• Yuki's animal waste
• 2 swiffer wetjet cloths
• dust collected from the floors
• banana peel
• wrapper from a package of raman
• plastic wrap from a plate of cookies

I challenge everyone to keep a list for a week and see what you can learn.