A Trashy Experiment: Can College Students Realistically Reduce Their Garbage Output?
This story is composed of three separate parts.
For part 2, click here. For part 3, click here.
Garbage. It’s something that every single person on this planet has in common. We all produce it and we all have to deal with it. While reading Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes, my friend Baylee Carpenter and I became interested in our relationship with garbage as college students.
As students attending Purdue University Northwest, both Baylee and I have hectic schedules and try to live on a budget. As we learned more about garbage and how it affects the environment, we began to wonder what we could do. We began to ask ourselves several questions. Is trash reduction actually realistic and economical for a single person? Does a college student have the time and money to reduce their waste? How much garbage does one person actually produce? Can one person really make a difference overall? To answer these questions we decided to each run a little experiment.
For one week we decided to individually save all the garbage that we produced without trying to change our lifestyle. Then, over the next week we attempted to reduce our garbage output by various methods.
The results that I came up with were very interesting. Please enjoy.
Experiment Parameters
For both weeks I had some parameters that I stuck to, because what good is an experiment without guidelines?
For the first week, I collected as much of my personal garbage as I possibly could. This included napkins from meals, Kleenex, paper plates, plastic Ziploc bags from my lunch box, etc. I included just about everything that was my waste.
For both weeks, I did not include garbage that was “shared” amongst my family. For example, when my mother cooks a meal there can be quite a bit of waste(e.i eggshells, paper towels, banana peels, etc.). However, my mother cooks for the whole family so I did not include this waste in either of my experiment weeks.
I also did not include garbage that was not part of my “usual” weekly garbage. For example, during my first week, I cleaned out our basement. This produced a bunch of trash but I did not include this in my experiment since I only clean our basement about twice a year. I was consistent with this principle over both weeks of the experiment in order to keep my experiment trustworthy.
Week 1: Collection
For the first week, I just collected all the garbage I produced without trying to reduce it. In one week I produced three plastic bags full of trash. Along with these bags, I also used approximately 40 paper towels. I used these after washing my hands in public restrooms so I did not want to collect them. I estimate that the paper towels would have filled another two plastic bags. Additionally, I was unable to collect garbage from two restaurants that I ate at.
In the bags of garbage that I did collect, I found that the majority of my trash was in the form of plastic Ziploc bags, water bottles, and paper waste.
The source of plastic waste comes from my lunches. As a college student, I pack lunches three of the four days of the week that I am in school. Usually one meal takes 3–4 bags along with a water bottle. Thus, the amount of plastic that I throw away adds up pretty fast.
Week 2: Reduction
During the second week, I reviewed my first week’s garbage haul and came up with some methods to try to reduce my trash production.
I decided the plastic garbage was the first to go. I went out and bought some reusable plastic containers (only cost about $12) to hold my sandwiches and lunch items. I also started using my Contigo AUTOSEAL Kangaroo water bottle. It holds more water than a regular water bottle (24 oz vs 17 oz)and even has a pocket for credit cards and keys. By using these reusable plastic containers, I was immediately able to reduce my lunch trash to only one napkin per day.
Another area I tried to reduce was the my paper towel consumption. During the first week, I generally used three paper towels to dry my hands. During the second week, I found that I can dry my hands just as well by shaking off excess water and only using one paper towel. By employing this method, I only used approximately 13 paper towels in the week instead of 40.
Approximately 1.5 of my 3 bags from the first week was composed of used facial tissues, napkins, and paper towels from home. Over the next week I tried to use less Kleenex and paper towels at home, especially trying not to use them when I didn’t have to.
I also found that eating out at restaurants produced a lot of wasted material. The first week I ate at three different restaurants. Fast food restaurants gave the most throwaway trash. By trying not to eat out in the second week, I was able to reduce my garbage.
Results
By using these simple methods, I was able to reduce my garbage output from three bags to one bag. At the beginning of the experiment, I was definitely not expecting such a drastic reduction. While this experiment was not comprehensive or perfect in any sense, it does show that it is possible for one to realistically and economically reduce their garbage output.
For the next part of this story (Baylee’s experiment), click here.
For the analysis of both of our experiments, click here.
