New Year - new garbage

It's almost 2011.

in 2008, I started a blog for Oscar - he was 3 1/2 - but we couldn't commit.

But, we'll try again since we still can't shake the garbage addiction and have also added recycling and yard waste to the fascination. This past summer, we started a composting experiment. We live in an apartment now and composting is difficult. But, we have a porch, lots of fruit and vegetable ends and some earth worms to help us out. It was fun, semi-successful, but now we have earth worms vacationing in our pantry until spring.

Oscar attends a "no waste Wednesday" school now, which has prompted no waste lunch efforts on our part, and no waste projects. Kids use a lot of paper. So do adults. We have our work cut out for us!

We've encouraged recycling in our apartment building and have been on the alderman and city of Chicago to increase the number of recycling cans/dumpsters over waste cans/dumpsters. A buddy of mine shot some pictures of Oscar for a portrait project at school and wanted his portrait in front of a garbage can - check out a clip from his rant on the alderman and why we don't have more blue cans instead of black cans:

Oscar + garbage = LOVE

It only makes sense that as we get close to our 4 years together, that we create an outlet for one of our most cherished subjects. Garbage.

When I say "we" I mean my 3 1/2 year old son, ironically enough, named Oscar, and myself; and when I say "our" most cherished subject, I mean Oscar's most cherished subject and my admiration for his intense love of something so atypical.

I honestly can't pin point when this interest became so profound in his life, but, as we move forward, I can say that I have a sneaking suspicion that this is not a phase, and if it is, well, we'll be in it for a while.

So, why not embrace it and see what's so interesting about garbage, eh?!