Zero Waste Challenge — Week 30: One More To Go

With one week to go, the Zero Waste Challenge is nearly done

Week 30, around a third full of trash

As I write this, we are in the midst of the final week of the Zero Waste Challenge. Naturally, it’s time to begin some reflection, but I’ll save that longer post for next week.

When I think about just this week, I notice that we had a slight uptick in our total waste. Part of that is from getting takeout from Noodles & Co. which used black plastic containers. The frustrating part of this is that Hennepin County’s recycling center uses optical scanners, and those scanners cannot detect black plastic, meaning it should go in the trash.

Now, this is not an isolated problem to Hennepin County. We’re really in need of a larger conversation about the usage of black plastics from manufacturers and also the limitations of optical scanning. But, as it stands now, we can simply use tools like Remark to ask companies to not use plastic takeout containers. We’ve got to start somewhere!

Here are our totals for the week, rounded up to the nearest 25%.

Trash: 50%

Organics: 25%

Recycling 1: 0%

Recycling 2: 50%

Extra: None

Week 30 results of our waste efforts (trash, compost, and two recycling containers)