One man's garbage is another man's treasure

I recycle paper, bottles and cans like everybody else does (or should), but I also have another little rule for myself. Nothing goes in the garbage if I think anybody else could possibly have a use for it. Whether I can afford to be wasteful or not, I refuse to become part of a throw-away society.
I once took a silly little toy from my cereal box to my manager and asked her if her young son would want it. She tilted her head and looked at me strangely until I explained I'd rather find a home for it than see it go in our landfill. She then laughed and agreed that was a fine extension of recycling. She took the toy home too.
People are usually touched that you thought of them if you have an item you suspect they'll have use for. If that doesn't work, charities will happily take almost anything.
Garage sales, eBay or Craigslist are good alternatives too. The strangest items will make you money. Or, again, a tax receipt from a charity works too.

Bags o' milk

When I moved to the US I was amazed that there were no bags of milk in the grocery stores here. Ten years later, it seems that is being raised as a great idea. See Slashfood and Wikipedia for descriptions and pictures.

The articles I've read point out that a thin plastic bag is a huge environmental improvement over milk jugs, that countries around the world have been doing this for years and that, for the most part, it is much more convenient. Unless you are one of the posters that can't handle cutting a corner off a milk bag without spillage. The stores I frequented in Toronto actually sold a little cutting tool to help with that problem.

What I didn't see in any of the articles was something I consider the most convenient part of bagged milk--that you can freeze it! Typically, I'd buy a 3-pack, with each bag being just over a litre (or a quart, for those of you who don't speak metric), slip one into the milk pitcher and toss the others in the freezer. That lets you stock up on milk when it is on sale and prevents running to the store because you are out. Unless of course you forget to note you're taking the last bag out of the freezer.

Because this option hasn't been available to me down here, I'm constantly pouring bad milk down the drain, something I rarely had to do in Canada. Sometimes, that's because the gallon jug was on sale for just 10 cents more than the quart jug, so now we've got a system. We keep a quart jug that we fill from the gallon jug and then the rest goes in the freezer.

If you've never done this, you're probably thinking thawed milk will be different somehow, either in taste or consistency. Not! It thaws beautifully and the kids have not noticed the difference. Trust me, if anyone could, they would.