How to do a Trash Audit

Dump out the bags and start organizing.

(This could get a little messy, so we recommend doing it outside or on a tarp of some kind.) Put on your globes and dump out each bag (make sure to keep your recycling separate). Start to organize it by what it is. (For food scraps, just keep that all together in one pile! No need to specify a banana peel vs an apple core.)

Tally it up.

Once you’ve organized your piles, use your paper and pen to write add tally marks for each item that repeats itself. For example, each milk carton in the trash will get it’s own tally. For food scraps, just tally each time you see a food scrap (or a group of food scraps, like peels from a carrot). Get as specific as you can, but if you have a lot of small things you can try your best to group them together.

Calculate.

Now that you’ve got your numbers for each category, you’ve got a pretty great picture of what you’re throwing away/recycling. Now you’ll want to do some quick math to figure out how much waste you could possibly be diverting if you started composting. To do this, first you’ll want to add up all the total tallies for each category. Then, grab your handy dandy calculator and plug in this quick equation: total number of food scraps divided by total of all trash. Now multiply that by 100, and bam! You’ve got your percentage of how much of your trash would be diverted by composting. If you want to learn more about composting, check out our guide here.

Evaluate the rest of the list.

Now your diverting percentage may be great, but what about the rest of the trash? This is a great place to start to evaluate what are the types of things you’re throwing away on a regular basis.

Go through the list, and start with the biggest offenders. For example, let’s say you had 20 paper towels. Start here and ask yourself: “Is there a reusable option I can use instead to cut back/eliminate my use of this product? Do I need it at all?” And this will give you a great starting place to find alternative swaps and start phasing out things you don’t need. Check out our complete guide to low waste products and swaps here.

And don’t forget to do this same thing with your recycling. While recycling may be slightly better than putting something in a landfill, it’s still better if we can completely divert our recycling as well.