Trash Journal
Response
After
recording my trash for seven days, I have come to realize many things about my
personal trash output and other habits I have regarding trash. Throughout the
entire experiment I threw away 52 different things, 23 of which were recyclable
and 8 of which were compostable. Which I think turns out to be a pretty good
percentage in terms of actual trash and reusable materials. The opportunity I
saw from this project was to find out my individual impact on the well being of
our planet and as well as the awareness to see what others are throwing away so
that I can help them realize how important recycling our goods actually is.
As I was
recording my trash, I began to think back about things I had thrown away. My
mind drew a blank and I realized that I actually don’t throw away that much
stuff; I hoard it. I tend to always put things away on a shelf before I throw
them away. Any kind of bag or box is saved because I always think they will be
used for something else eventually. However, I also save any napkin that hasn’t
been used fully, any packaging for something I buy in case I need to return it.
In other words, if it has a chance to get used again, even a small chance, then
I save it for some reason. This is ultimately what separate’s me from the
average consumer, someone who would accept all plastic and paper bags from a
store for something they can carry in their hands. Someone who doesn’t recycle
at all or if they don’t see a recycling bin close to them then just throw their
plastic bottle in the trash. An average consumer who wastes food on a regular
basis and takes portions that they cannot eat. I’m not just giving these
descriptions based on generalizations; I’m giving them because I see it every
day. Above all else, the average consumer who sees all of this happen and
either doesn’t notice or doesn’t say anything to the person taking advantage of
our lifestyle today. When you see someone violate this simple code, it doesn’t
have to be a personal attack, it can just be a simple, try and recycle that
next time just to get people thinking about what they are doing. Yesterday, a
friend of mine grabs a whole plate with a cheeseburger and French fries, he
then goes to get a drink and comes back with a bowl of rice and steak stir fry,
basically two meals. He eats the bowl of stir-fry and doesn’t touch the
cheeseburger or fries. I said something and luckily I was still hungry so I ate
it for him. This is just one example but it happens everyday multiple times a
day for almost every college student I see. A new habit of mine is looking in
people’s dorm room trashcans and seeing every bottle or can they’ve used in the
trashcan and not the recycling bin. It drives me crazy and I always say
something while I physically put the recyclables in their proper location.
During this project I started to think really hard about things I can do to
minimize my ecological footprint and the big one that stood out to me is the
amount of paper towels people use after washing their hands. I haven’t used a
single paper towel to dry my hands since because if you think about it, your
hands are really only wet for 20 seconds after you wash them. The simple things
such as this go a long way and ultimately will help us to change from the
luxurious lifestyle that we are used to today.
Although
our current economy strongly supports consumerism and the ideas of planned or
perceived obsolescence; I feel as if change could be right around the corner.
With the idea, “could be,” as the main focus I still believe it to be very
possible to change the way we operate. This all starts with a very underrated
term, that I believe is not known well enough, Eco literacy. The understanding
of how we are able to live on this earth without completely destroying it at
the same time. There is no reason for anyone over the age of seven years old
(kindergarten) to not know this term and understand the true meaning of it. I
truly believe that our youth should be learning numbers, letters and Eco
literacy. There is truly no point in learning anything at all if you don’t
learn what is happening to our earth because all knowledge will be useless when
we have no resources left. Everything we depend on but don’t think about at all
is at risk, the climate, nature, all species including human beings and all of
the beautiful things nature has to offer. Not to mention this is “largely the
results of work by people with Bas, BSs, LLBs, MBAs and PhDs. (ORR P.7)” It is
so clear to me that the upper class in our society is such a large contributor
to the problems of nature that we are facing. When I go into some of my
wealthier friends houses at home and see the things they take advantage of I
cannot believe it even though I have seen it so many time. One of my friend’s
families uses paper plates and plastic cups for every single meal because they
don’t like to get their real glasses and plates dirty, they live in a 2 million
dollar house. His dad has his MBA and is one of the smartest men I know, but
thinks that he’s smart to use a new paper plate and plastic cup every time he
eats or drinks. This is not just one house that does these kinds of things;
this is almost every house I’ve seen that is bigger than the average home. Its
not a stereotype, it’s the truth; the upper class does not take care of the
environment at all.
The fact is
that we haven’t waited too long and we can indeed still try and change the way
we take care of our earth. The other fact is that our trash is not decreasing;
we only have so much time to fix these problems. The longer we put it off the
harder it will be to change our ways and fix the problems. There are so many
simple things we can do; if we got rid of plastic water bottles and people just
had their own water bottles to fill at water stations, we could cut out 1.5
million tons of plastic each year[1].
If all bathrooms were required to have air blowers as dryers then we could cut
out half of our usage of paper towels. The amount of packaging that is used for
everything we buy is ridiculous. This is something we, as in consumers, can
fix. Ultimately if we stopped buying things that were over packaged, the
retailers would have to change. This goes the same way with products that don’t
last long enough, planned obsolescence. Again, if we didn’t buy it then they
wouldn’t waste their time making it. In the end, the government can either save
us or watch us fail because they have most of the power that influences us to
make decisions every day. If there were a fee for not recycling then people
would be more induced to recycle their goods. Ultimately it is in our hands as
individuals to do the right thing everyday with things that we no longer have
use for; if it happens to be trash then so be it, throw it away. But if it’s
recyclable or compostable or can even be used by someone else you know, then we
need to make the appropriate decision on where we put it. These simple things
will help us develop good habits and after a month or so of doing it, you won’t
even notice your doing it. It worked for me.
[1] The
Sierra Club. http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/bottled_water/
Friday 9- 21
1 sticky note
2 paper plates
1 plastic fork
1 peach core
2 cans
1 tin foil wrap (petes)
Saturday 9-22
1 banana peel
1 bag of chips
a popsicle stick and wrapper
2 paper towels
7 cans
1 paper cup
1 glass bottle
Sunday 9-23
Two paper plates
A bunch of lobster scraps
A plastic fork
2 napkins
4 paper towels
Monday 9-24
1 granola bar wrapper
1 small pizza box
1 banana peel
2 Napkins
1 hot chocolate paper pouch
Tuesday 9-25
4 pieces of paper and an envelope
apple core
Fingernail clippings
2 chicken bones
Wednesday 9-26
1 peach core
1 paper hot dog holder
Thursday 9- 27
1 cardboard food container with some chips in it from nagel
A piece of saran wrap
7 cans
1 plastic cheezits bag and the box
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