I’ve got a lot of trashy friends. I say this because a lot of my conversations lately revolve around garbage.

I’ve been yammering about composting for years, in blog posts like this one and this one on BuildMeUpButtercup, not to mention in my relentless portraits of leftovers on Instagram.

But I’m not the only trash-talker. More and more of my family and friends are delivering kitchen scraps to my chicken coop on a regular basis. My colleagues are collecting spent grounds from the office coffee maker for me to take home. And at a recent dinner party I learned the hostess has dedicated the ice compartment in her freezer to collecting compost. She scrapes dinner plates into the drawer, where scraps stay frozen until she transfers them to a pail to be collected by Compost Nashville.

Bless your heart if you stumble into conversation with any of us while we’re bragging about how light and unstinky our trash bins are. We can be quite boring on the topic.

You know who’s not boring? Zero-waste evangelist Bea Johnson. The author and sustainability advocate, who pioneered the idea that a household can reduce annual disposable waste to fit in a single glass jar, brings her cross-country speaking tour to University School of Nashville on March 31, to present inspiring, pragmatic and humorous tips for reducing consumer waste. Johnson’s bestselling Zero Waste Home, referenced by global organizations ranging from Amazon, Google, and Starbucks to the United Nations, offers a realistic roadmap to minimizing impact on the planet with reusable products, package-free and bulk shopping, and community action. The free evening of conversation and Q&A opens at 5:30 p.m., with an expo of waste-reduction-oriented vendors, including Turnip Green Creative Reuse, Compost Company, and The Good Fill. Johnson will speak 6 to 7 p.m., followed by Q&A and a book-signing in conjunction with Parnassus Books.

UPDATE: The event is full, but you can sign up for a waiting list and browse a complete catalog of USN’s Evening Classes at eveningclasses.org.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE AS OF JAN. 5: Admission to the March 31 class has been opened to a larger audience, so if you tried to register and it was full, try again and you might get lucky.