Trash, a lens on life.

During a name game on the first day of class, our instructor Megan asked us not only what we threw away while moving in, but what it said about who we are. Up first, I hastily answered with granola bar boxes, for I had dumped three boxes of cliff bars in to my desk drawer the day before. Simply because, “I like to eat. A lot”. In the introduction to his book Garbology, Edward Humes describes trash as “nothing less than the ultimate lens on our lives, out priorities, our failings, our secrets and our hubris” (Humes, 6). What would I find if I really looked at what trash I produced over a course of a week? What would it say about me?

I analyzed the trash I threw away on the go separately than the trash I threw away within my dorm room. Most of the trash I threw away throughout the day was food packaging or cleaning/hygiene related. All of it was due to convenience. 

Granola bar and gum wrappers, napkins and sandwich bags allowed me to sneak food from the dining hall, drink my smoothie on the go, brings crackers to work, freshen my breath before class. The packaging that filled my trash journal, re-enforced my comment at the beginning of the year, I really like to eat. The snack wrappers demonstrate my on-the-go life because if I ate every meal sitting in the dining hall packaging would be less of an issue. Though, the all you can eat dining hall causes its own problems with waste. While not technically trash due to composting, I feel the need to mention food waste in this project. My eyes are usually bigger than my stomach and the food is usually worse than it looks (sorry to break to you Sodexo). Some meals it’s simply a bite of pizza crust or a few carrot sticks, others it’s a plate full of cold cardboard mac and cheese I didn’t want after my quesadillas. The kitchen buys and cooks food based on how much is taken away on plates, eaten or wasted. Simply being more deliberate in my food choices so as to avoid waste would cut costs, for the university and me, as well as the environmental and humanitarian costs of food waste.

There was also a small, but significant portion of hygiene related trash, mostly paper towels. I am a huge fan of the violent hand shake, use your pants leg strategy of hand drying, but with the ease and convenience of the paper towel dispenser I use an estimated 3-9 sheets a day. To add to the paper product massacre, on the Thursday of the data collection, I dyed the ends of my hair pink. In an effort to clean up the pink splatterings on the floors and counters of my dorm’s bathroom, a huge number of pink stained tissues filled the trash. An additional result of the hair dying was a discarded pair of plastic gloves with its germ-sealed plastic baggie. Daily activities like painting my nails, moisturizing my face and cleaning out my ears, also send cotton balls and Q-tips to the landfill. 

I waited till the end of the project to collect data from what I have thrown away in my room in order to visualize patterns. Surprisingly, the trash found in my dorm room bin can be split into two sole groups: what I’ve eaten and what I’ve broken. There was no miscellaneous pile, no outliers. I had expected the large amount of food packaging, though the types of food related trash differed from the food packaging I threw away outside my dorm. There was no actual food waste, mostly because I have a refrigerator to keep leftovers in, but also possibly because I don’t empty my can often enough to keep smelly food remains in and have found other places to dispose of food waste. (I will admit to walking down stairs in order to throw away a forgotten brown banana.) I only found two granola bar wrappers, a small percentage of granola bars I eat weekly, hinting that I eat them on the go. Conversely, there was more meal related trash (sushi packaging, mac and cheese pouches, Thai noodle seasoning packets) or non-single serving packaging (cracker sleeves and seaweed wrappers) than on the go snack food.  

I am embarrassed to admit that the rest of my dorm trash is made up of things I stepped on, smashed under my rocking chair, or otherwise snapped in half. My mother’s warning for me to take care of my things and reasoning to keep my room clean now have trash project data to back them up. When I have ten minutes to get to class, work or meeting friends, the rush is compacted by the pile of dirty laundry and explosion of school stuff blending between my adjacent desk and closet. And so in the last week I’ve broken sunglasses, headphones, three pony tail holders, my tooth brush, and a hair clip. I am learning the hard way not to store things on the floor. Mom, you can say I told you so now.

The visit our class took to the landfill illustrated the large scale of trash production in the Denver metro area. While seeing the problem of trash visually represented with mountains was enlightening, the personal responsibility of garbage production got lost in the trash heap. David Orr speaks about a problem of scale in environmental disasters in Earth and Mind, “Who’s responsibility is Love Canal? Chernobyl? Ozone depletion? The Exxon Valdez oil spill? Each of these tragedies was possible because of knowledge created for which no one was ultimately responsible” (Orr, 13). However, by narrowing the lens on trash production to my own personal waste, I narrow in on my personal responsibility. In all the readings we’ve read there has been a subtle call for change, to use the knowledge of trash production to alter habits. Bringing my trash production to light will mean nothing if I don’t use it as a negative feedback system and correct my behavior. 

First off, I can simply start taking care of what I own so as to avoid un-necessary trash. I have cleaned and organized my area after my favorite hair clip met the rocking chair guillotine, but I desire to develop a habit of putting things in their places. Placing more worth on "stuff" by taking better care of my possessions will help me to be more aware of and reject the waste mentality at the root of disposable culture. As a college student living in a dorm, food packaging waste and hygiene related items are slightly harder to cut out of my life. However, there are easy options for the coming years when I have my own apartment. I can start making my own granola bars (and laundry soap, conditioner, veggie burgers and everything else pinned to my new Make Me: Packaging Free board on Pinterest). For now I can try to eat in the dining hall instead of grabbing snacks from the C-store, give up gum, using my Tupperware, not napkins or plastic bags to transport food back to my dorm or class. I can continue to use reusable bags or insist on carrying out my purchases instead of plastic bags, and continue to get sass from my friends when I bring my own fork to eat. There’s so much I, and we all, can do so our trash stops being a lens on to our wasteful habits, but instead becomes a demonstration of our environmental stewardship. 

Humes, Edward. Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash. New York: Avery, 2012. Print.

Orr, David W. Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect. Washington, DC, [etc.: Island, 1994. Print.