Tracking Trash
I along with two other people decided we were going to try to live a week with zero garbage. We each have our journeys posted on our pages with links to them at the bottom. To do this though I decided to track how much garbage I use and what it is from in a week. I kept a log for a five day school week to see just how much trash I normally produce. With this I can try to figure out how to not produce so much waste. But before I get into all of that you should probably have a little background on me.
Hi, my name is Annabelle Engel and I am a freshman at Purdue University Northwest. I am a pretty busy person and generally I am not home for the most part. Most of my time right now is either at school, at friend’s houses or out doing things. When it is baseball season I an umpire and spend most of my time at the fields. With not being home very often that means I do not eat at home all of the time. By doing this I produce more waste than I like. I usually just stop and get something quick to eat going wherever I am heading at the time. And when I am with friends we usually just order pizza or go somewhere to eat. This is a photo taken by mroach via Flicker.
There is something that I have noticed from this week: the more convenient the more trash. All most all of my trash from this five day period is from food in some way. Everything comes in a package and sometimes way more packaging than is needed. In the chart I have organized it by the day and meals, listing what was eaten and the trash that it produced at that moment. I also have a section for any other trash that was produced by me throughout this period.
The waste identified in the chart are just things that got either thrown away or recycled. This is the trash that I like to think of as first hand, because I physically had to throw it away. But there is also trash that I like to think of as second hand trash: this is the trash that you will be throwing away soon. For instance, I had no trash when I had a glass of milk because I was not throwing anything way. The glass I used would go in the dishwasher to get used again the next day. However, the milk comes in a gallon jug that is made out of plastic. And even though I did not throw it away there is a good chance that the rest of the milk in it was drank later in the day and then the plastic jug was tossed in the recycling bin. So I am still contributing to that trash. Same goes for medicine bottles. I take five different medicines every morning and they come in a plastic bottle that when it is empty will be discarded of as well. My dinner on Wednesday, the chicken game in a plastic bag from the store and the ingredients for the biscuits came in their own packaging that when it is gone will be thrown away as well.
The thing is that basically no matter what you are doing in a normal day you will somehow produce trash or help to produce trash that later down the line will be thrown away. So the question is how does one try to produce less trash because basically everything somehow will produce trash from it at some point.
From tracking my trash for a five day period I realized how I could live more trash free and am going to do that as well as I can. For one I could not just grab food out as often, yes it is convenient but it produces a lot of trash. Instead I could make meals over the weekend to have throughout the week for when I know I will be out. Another one is possibly looking into making the cafeteria at school more green. Everything is served on a styrofoam plate and you use plastic wear to eat.
Once you know the amount of waste you use you can try to figure out how to reduce it and try to live waste free which is what I did the next week.
All through out the next week I was more cautious of what I was using. I did not stop to get breakfast throughout the week I made sure to eat at home. I did still eat from the cafeteria at school for lunch. I tried to produce less trash from this though by either getting things that do not produce much or asking to have my things all put in one container instead of separate ones. And for dinners I tried to not eat out as much. One day me and my friend stayed and actually cooked dinner instead of just ordering something and all the packaging that comes with it. It may have taken some extra time but it was something that was fun and produced less waste in the end. It is something that just has to be thought about.
One thing I already do is I carry a water bottle everywhere I go. This way I do not have to use plastic ones and then through them away. I do not drink pop very much so I do not have to worry about waste from that to much. One thing I could do when I do get pop is I could ask the place if I could fill up my bottle from the fountain instead one of their plastic cups that I will just throw away afterwards.
In the end this something that has to be worked at just like everything in life. You have to think about what you are doing and the amount of trash that will produced from it if you want to live waste free. It may not be as easy on your day to day life but it will make the earth a better place overall if people actually thought about how much trash they produce. Keep a log and see just how much trash you produce, I bet it will surprise you.
