38 pounds lighter, all from recycling

Two weeks ago, Baiba Rubino had the most trash to lose. Weighing in at 63 pounds, her garbage was dumped in front of reporters and photographers, while a "garbologist" picked through her family's dirty diapers and rotting crab leg, pointing out items that could be recycled.

Hers is one of six Renton families competing in a monthlong King County contest to reduce trash by recycling more.

Thursday, the Rubinos' weekly trash weighed 25 pounds, a loss of 38 pounds from May 29. The stay-at-home mom is now running second among her neighbors after their second "Biggest Loser"-style weigh-in. The leading family, the Gallaghers, went from 17 pounds of trash to 3 pounds in one week by placing all their food scraps in the yard-waste bin. The winning family will receive a recycling consultation from King County and a $100 gift certificate to Ikea.

The county hopes the winner will spend it on more recycling bins. Rubino is eyeing a bench for neighbors to sit on in her front yard while kids play in her cul-de-sac.

Rubino's neighbors joke that she must have stopped feeding her kids or turned her backyard into a landfill. "I'm competitive," she said, "but it would have to be a trip to Hawaii" for her to hide trash.

She has spent the past two weeks coming up with simple strategies to reduce and reuse. For her, recycling is about doing her small part and teaching her children to do the same.

Recycling food scraps and food-soiled paper has made the biggest difference in how much garbage her husband and two kids produce. While her 3-year-old daughter, Anna, ran around in a purple princess gown, Rubino showed where she keeps a biodegradable, bag-lined bin under the kitchen sink. Every other day, she tosses the bag into her yard-waste cart. Any longer and the kitchen starts to smell, she said.

Stung by rising grocery prices, Rubino has started buying in bulk, which reduces trash. She stopped purchasing single-serve juice packs like Capri Sun, instead making juice from concentrate. Freezing extra food also saves money. She also used to throw out meat if she didn't have time to use it in a meal. Now she cooks it, slices it and freezes it so she can serve it on ramen noodles for Anna.

She said she came up with ideas herself. She stopped working as an assistant buyer for Costco in February after the birth of her son, and now spends most of her time at home.

"I respect that, for other people, their home is not a priority," she said. "I have time to think about this."

Because her husband is a reluctant recycler, Rubino has started "pre-cycling." When she gets home from buying groceries, she transfers her pasta from boxes to plastic pantry containers, and writes the cooking time on each container. The boxes then go into the recycling bin.

She was out of town for a cousin's bachelorette party last week, and while she didn't leave a list of recycling rules for her family, she did sort through the kitchen trash when she came home.

Her daughter asked what she was doing, Rubino recalls. "I said, 'Mommy is digging in the trash.'

"She said, 'When I grow up, can I dig in the trash?' "

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com