A Trashy Experiment-Part 3
This is part 3 of a 3 part story. For part 1, click here. For part 2, click here.
As stay-at-home college students, both of us had similar results.
Regan’s Conclusions
For Regan, attempting to reduce his garbage was mostly worth the time and effort. He was able to reduce his garbage by two thirds, from 3 plastic bags to 1 bag. One method that worked out for him was eating out at restaurants less. As a stay-at-home college student, he doesn’t eat out very often, only 2–3 times per week. By eating out half that many times, Regan was able to reduce his garbage since restaurants tend to give a lot of waste material. However, most college students don’t live at home and, by necessity, eat out much more than him. Therefore, he realizes that this method doesn’t work for everyone.
The method that proved to be most beneficial to him was using reusable plastic containers to carry his lunch instead of disposable ones. By spending approximately $12, he was able to easily eliminate the majority of his plastic waste. By using reusable plastic, he will save money in the long run by not having to purchase ziploc bags and water bottles.
Baylee’s Conclusions
Baylee found that he could pretty significantly reduce his weekly waste by eating out less and serving smaller portions. These methods cut his weekly waste by roughly a third, saving roughly 3.2 pounds of trash a week. While eating out less did save him money, this reduction came with other costs. For one, it cost him several hours a week for preparing meals. It cut hours out of his week that he’d normally spend doing something else and he found this inconvenient.
It also costed him variety. Since he doesn’t have much cooking skills, he was very limited in the types of food he could eat. While it’s an option to learn some more cooking skills, he unfortunately doesn’t have much extra time for that.
In contrast, serving smaller portions had no negative impact, it cut down on both waste and calorie intake while costing no extra time or money.
For his final findings, Baylee found that completely stopping going out to eat wasn’t worth it to him, but reducing how many times he went out was. He also found that reducing meal portions was definitely worth it, it didn’t cost him any extra time and reduced his waste significantly.
Final Thoughts
We both found that eating out produces an exorbitant amount of waste material. For one small meal, fast food restaurants give a lot of garbage such as paper wrappers, napkins, plastic containers, silverware, straws, and condiments. By not eating out as much, we both found that we produce less waste. Additionally, we found that we generally ate healthier since a constant diet of fast food is not good for the body.
Overall, we came to the conclusion that the feasibility of garbage reduction depends on a person’s lifestyle. Even though both of us are stay-at-home college students, our lifestyles differ quite a bit and therefore our garbage output differs. Thus, the methods that both of us used to reduce our trash output also differed. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that it is possible for college students to realistically reduce their garbage, but there is not a specific method that will work for every person. Each person has to find a method that works for their situation.
However, the most important finding of our experiment was that thinking about what we throw away was the key to reducing garbage. Since we had to collect each item of garbage we threw away, we began to notice how much we throw away individually. Using this knowledge, we were able to come up with realistic ways to cut back on our garbage output. We believe that this is the starting point for anyone who wants to reduce their garbage footprint. Think about how much garbage you produce. Try a little experiment like we did. You may be surprised what you find. Then, come up with some ways to reduce the amount of trash you produce. See if you can realistically reduce your waste.
Tried an experiment like ours? Tell us about it! Describe your experiment in the comments below and tell us what methods worked for you.
