trash-sicles

[jadey]

Okay, am I the only person in the world who freezes her garbage?

Clearly not, because my mum is the person who taught me to, but I've had a few people wig when they saw frozen garbage in my freezer and now I'm trying to assure myself I'm not a complete freak.

Mum and I started doing it when we noticed that our kitchen bin was getting stinky well before trash day. Rather than empty it twice as often and store it in the big bin outside (cold in winter, lazy the rest of the time), we took some plastic milk bags and any time there was potentially smelly garbage (e.g., shrimp tails, oily napkins, chicken bones, etc.), we popped it in the freezer. It was a great solution. Now that I'm living in my own place, which doesn't have composting or even recycling (I know ;_;), it's even more vital to me to be able to keep some gunky stuff in the freezer, rather than make trips down to the outside bin all the time (lazy, and also even colder in this province).

But is this weird? Does anyone else do this?

Comments

[ninetydegrees]

The closest thing I do is to keep spoiled goods in containers in the fridge till I take the trash out (for the same reason: smell). Fortunately, it doesn't happen very often.
But I'll have to try and do that because the reason I rarely buy shrimps is precisely the way it makes the bin stink something awful. I guess I could manage to free some place in my freezer but plastic bags are hard to come by these days... Anyway, thanks for the tip!

Re: huh

[jadey]

Plastic bags are tricky now! I remember when my childhood home used to overflow with them. Plus a lot of grocery bags now are super thin and flimsy, so they're useless for bin liners most of the time because my groceries poke holes in them. Cloth bags are my favourite for shopping, but I did have some uses for plastic, dammit...

In Ontario, I used plasic milk bags, but in Saskatchewan milk is only sold in cartons and jugs, so I've taken to bagging all of my produce when I buy it and re-using those. The produce bags are still really durable compared to the regular plastic grocery bags, I've found.

Re: huh

[ninetydegrees]

I have no idea what plastic milk bags or produce bags look like. :) In my country, the only bags you get in supermarkets or grocery shops are the flimsy, thin ones for produce/meat/fish, and reusable, very big ones for the rest. We do get very little ones in drugstores and they would be perfect for garbage-freezing but I don't go there very often. :/

huh

[angel_negra]

I've never heard of this trick before, but now that I have, I really like the idea. Sadly, there's too much in my freezer right now, but once I get my own place again, I think I'm going to try this.

Re: huh

[jadey]

Yeah, I'm just settling into a new fridge right now, so I still have plenty of space to muck around in. I'm glad that this doesn't sound like a terrible idea though!

[kate]

I've never thought about doing this for stinky garbage, though I will now!

We do it for liquids we need to get rid of but are too chunky to pour down the drain. It's actually a pretty brilliant idea.

[sid]

I do it, too! Chicken skin, shrimp tails, produce going/gone bad, pork chop bones. No-one taught me; I came up with it on my own.

[brigid]

I used to live with someone who did this and it kind of drove me nuts because she'd put the garbage in the part of the freezer I used for my food (as opposed to a neutral area or where she kept her/her husband's food), and she'd also put grease (bacon fat or whatever) in there and it would ALWAYS tip over and spill and she never cleaned that up.

It's one of those things that's a good idea in theory but in practice made me want to strangle her.

My mom used to put bacon fat in the fridge to chill before throwing it out, but she didn't like dealing with any spills so she stopped doing that.

[jadey]

Oh, nasty! That's awful and totally uncalled for from your roommate. She should have put it in a bag with a twist tie or something.

[brigid]

She wasn't very good at thinking ahead.

We get along much better since we stopped living together.

[egret]

My mother used to do this.
I don't because my apartment building has a chute in the hallway for tossing garbage down, so mine never builds up. The big smelly pile waiting for trashday is down in the cellar somewhere not near me.

[livrelibre]

Not weird! I totally do this, especially as my locale makes you buy trash tags by weight and it takes me a long time to build up enough trash (vs. recycling) to put out as a single person who's not inclined to cook. Plus the cold and laziness thing:)

[starwatcher]

.
I hadn't thought of it, but it sounds like a good idea. My mom keeps a gallon pitcher with a tight lid; it sits on the counter, and she puts the smelly stuff in there until trash day. It works pretty well... until you have to open it and dump something in. Phew! *holds nose*

I keep my apple cores in a plastic bag in the fridge until trash day. (Apple every night, to reduce acid reflux -- it works!) I'm very lazy and don't cook much -- eat a big lunch out when I'm working, then just the apple for supper -- but I keep telling myself that I've got to start cooking again; cheaper to make my lunches than buy them. I'll remember your tip.
.

[jadey]

I had no idea apples help with acid reflux! I'm going to have to try that.

P.S., if you are looking for lunch ideas, I really like the community batchlunch.

[starwatcher]

.
I had no idea apples help with acid reflux!

They really do. I found it as a "secret, nature cure" on the Internet a few years back; with eating an apple every night, I went from four acid-controlling pills per day (two prescribed, two OTC) to only one. I've told a number of friends about it, and it helped them, too; most don't need any more pills at all. (I have a particularly high production of acid.) The directions specified Red Delicious, but I much prefer Gala, and get the same benefit. I think whatever suits your palate will work.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to rethink my aversion to leftovers (even "fresh" leftovers, <g>), but it looks like some good info there.
.

[damned_colonial]

I've been known to do it, but generally only in the summer with meat/fish products.

[beatrice_otter]

I would never have room in my freezer--I buy meat and such on sale, divide it up into one-meal pieces, and then freeze them in ziploc baggies.

[telophase]

We did it because we lived out in the country and the trash only came once a week. If we left it outside, the various animals outside would get into it. If we left it inside, the cat would get into it. So anything that wasn't going into the compost pile or (after we gave up on the compost after fire ants infested it) wasn't thrown off the back porch for the deer to eat* went into the freezer until trash day.


* Sometimes deer ate it. Usually it was the possum that lived in the bottom of the wellhouse or the raccoon that lived in the top of the wellhouse that ate it.

[primsong]

I don't, but I used to have a neighbor that would buy big packs of chicken whenever it was on sale and pull off all the skin and fat and freeze it - she'd just keep adding to the block of frozen chicken skin in there until it was big enough to bother with throwing out all at once. It seemed a bit weird to me, but at the same time a great way to keep her garbage from being attractive to animals.