Save Your Trash But Skip the Planet

Seven-Day Trash Log

Day	Compost	Recycle	Trash
9/24	½ Enchilada Rice	Gum Wrapper Wheat Thins Box
9/25	Eggshells Cookie	(Plastic) Cheese Wrapper Coffee Cup Sleeve	Shoelace Plastic Ice Bag Saran Wrap (Hot) Coffee Cup
9/26	Rice Tortilla Chips Sweet Potatoes	Plastic Bread Wrapper Oreo Wrapper & Box Advil Wrapper	Ice Bag Muscle Milk
9/27	French Fries	Yogurt Container Advil Wrapper Saran Wrap	(Hot) Coffee Cup Ice Bag
9/28	Grapefruit Rind Kiwi Skin	Pizza Box Paper plate	Muscle Milk Plastic Silverware
9/29 (Camping)			Paper plate (3) Plastic silverware (2) Kiwi Rind Orange Rind Plastic Cup Muffin Wrapper Muscle Milk Banana Peel Paper Bowl
9/30 (Camping)		Gatorade Bottle	Paper Plate Muffin Wrapper (2) Kiwi Skin Orange Rind Yogurt Container Plastic Silverware

“Otherwise those 102 tons remain virtually invisible, too big to see. We chuck pieces of [trash] in the can every day, push it out to the curb every week and then forget about it as if it’s gone. But that clever vanishing trick hides the fact that nothing people do has more impact than their waste” – Edward Humes

After just two days of simply noticing my trash production, I have also noticed an interesting side effect: I am trying to stop throwing things away. Two days of realizing how much waste I create, and I am already bothered. Only, I am not so much bothered with why I make this much trash, but how I could appear to make less. I have a collection of boxes and plastic bags in at the foot of my bed – not yet thrown away, so not yet garbage, right? Wrong. They will become garbage, and they will be thrown away. I cannot hoard in my dorm room, I cannot hide from my trash. 

 Once we throw out our waste, we throw out its image in our mind. We immediately shift to creating more waste, because the trash we just made is now out: but out where? Out of mind, yes; but not out of sight. Landfills are constantly being filled with more and more waste, growing proof of our addiction to trash. My weeklong trash log is not significantly long or interesting, but it is also fabricated. These bags at the foot of my bed were used this week but they do not appear in my log – there is no acknowledgment of their existence as trash yet. The world’s problem of waste, my problem of waste, is so prevalent we fight to ignore it. I prolong throwing away my bags and America prolongs acknowledgement of substantially growing piles of trash within our country. Ideas for waste solution have not become a prevalent thought in America, causing people to continue to use the current waste management system without ever contemplating the effects of their garbage or a way to slow down their own personal waste stream. Edward Humes speculates on this phenomena of ignorance in Garbology and questions, “why we are also so obviously clueless about the true size of our waste” (155).  This lack of knowledge regarding our trash supports David Orr’s argument for Ecoliteracy: in order for America to fix our waste problem, we must first recognize and be knowledgeable about the problem. Although this knowledge must become widespread, it needs to begin where it can first be applied – higher education systems. Beginning from the “top,” this education will be able to streamline into various communities because it reaches a diverse group of people.

Americans are urged to continue to buy in order to stimulate the economy. This constant loyalty appeal allows the consumer to carelessly purchase objects that are manufactured to be thrown away. Company's manufacture plastic wrapping to be thrown away seconds after a package is opened. This process perpetuates the inevitability of trash because Americans are continually being urged to consume. Personally, my trash log reflects perfectly the planned obsolescence of plastic bags within any athletic department of our school. With support from the school, athletes have the availability of a trainer almost every day of the week, with access to ice machines virtually around the clock. However, this access coincides with the use (and never re-use) of plastic bags and high levels of saran wrap. If I go to the trainer for a bag of ice, they will automatically and without hesitation saran wrap it to my body (this encourages us to ice for the appropriate amount of time). Unfortunately, this also perpetuates the unnecessary use of high amounts of plastic that will never be reused. I threw away five plastic bags and even more saran wrap within this seven-day log. Clearly, the use of ice is encouraged in order to keep our bodies healthy and functioning, but this does not need to coincide with the continued use of plastic.

 Before we even get to these plastic bags however, we workout. My team works out 2 times a day, five days a week. Half of these workouts are conducted in the gym, where we are strongly encouraged, if not forced, to drink Muscle Milk after each workout. These drinks are provided for us in a fridge in the gym, so they are readily available and easily accessible. However, the containers Muscle Milk is sold in are not recyclable – they are a combination of tin, plastic, and paper. With each athlete being encouraged to drink one after each gym session, this waste builds up heavily as well – often having to restock a fridge multiple times a week. Again, this pattern is consistently reinforced within my trash log – I threw away at least 4 containers within 1 week.

Although these strategies are extremely important to help athletes stay in peak physical condition and to prevent injury, the techniques being applied to distribute the strategies are far from ideal. Using cloth bags as a possible alternative to plastic for icing is a simple step every athlete can take to reduce their personal waste and to reduce the amount of waste created within the athletic department. Re-usable plastic hand blenders (a cup with a wire that you shake by hand) are also a simple solution to the amount of waste being created by Muscle Milk containers within the athletic department. Although Muscle Milk Collegiate sponsors us, I am sure there is some alternative to using a single-use container every day for hundreds of athletes.  With over 300 student-athletes in our undergraduate student body, these levels of plastic use are extremely high, and extremely unnecessary. In general, only 25% of recyclable material ever gets recycled. So, according to this statistic, only 25% of these plastic bags will be recycled or re-used at all. This creates a staggering amount of waste within our campus, and it goes almost completely unrecognized. Student-athletes are often viewed separately from the general population of a campus, although we create the same amount, if not more, waste as any other person.

Orr’s theory of Ecoliteracy within higher education systems applies tremendously to the idea of student-athletes. We are being educated while being given the opportunity to further our careers as athletes – this means we need to be educated about the impact our double lifestyle has on our community. Starting in higher education, the idea of an “eco friendly” sports system would not only catch on at a collegiate level, it would encourage high schools and smaller programs to become more Ecoliterate as well. This streamlining of knowledge within a sports system is a great way to keep people interested and engaged in becoming Ecoliterate. Our trash is everyone’s trash, and we need to recognize the effects we have on each other. 

Works Cited

Humes, Edward. Garbology. New York: Penguin Group, 2012. Print.

Orr, David. Earth in Mind. Washington, DC: Island Press, 1994. Print.