> THREE TRICKY TRASH PROBLEMS SOLVED BY BEA JOHNSON

Toilet paper comes wrapped in plastic, which often can’t be recycled. What’s the zero-waste solution? I found that I can buy toilet paper from restaurant or hotel supply stores. It’s wrapped in paper, not plastic. Now this is a place that is not near me so when I go, I buy enough toilet paper to last me a really long time. Other bathroom items also seem tricky, such as menstrual products or condoms. What do you do with those? I now use a menstrual cup and there are also reusable napkins. I personally like the cup. It’s one of those items I wish I had known about earlier because now I realize I wasted a lot of money and lot of trash space with (menstrual products) in the past. As for condoms, we don’t use them. My kids are not sexually active yet and my husband and I don’t use them. However, this is something I am concerned about because I know my kids will become sexually active soon and it would be embarrassing if our jar of trash was filled with condom packaging. That said, there are reusable condoms. What about shoes? Even if you are in the habit of re-soling your shoes, there comes a time, despite your best efforts, when they wear out. What do you do? In the 10 years that we’ve lived this lifestyle, I’ve only had one problem like this. I had one pair of boots that I had re-soled, re-soled, re-soled by an awesome cobbler. Maybe three years ago, I made a hole in the toe and my cobbler said they were not repairable any more. So I thought, who would be interested in this material? I found, on Etsy, a woman who buys second-hand boots in order to make purses and different items. I contacted her and donated the boots.