A Trashy Experiment — How Can a College Student Reduce Waste (Part 2 of 3)
This is part 2 out of 3. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, you can find the link here.
It’s no surprise that the average American leaves behind an abundance of trash, everything from plastic bags to left over food. But what can we do to reduce our footprint? And is it actually worth the extra time and work that’s required? We attempt to answer these two questions in this three part series.
Experiment Parameters
Similarly to Regan’s experiment, I set up some parameters to make my results accurate.
For this series, we defined waste as anything we’d throw away in either the recycling or regular garbage. We know that some of the recyclables we threw away will get recycled, but it’s hard to determine the exact proportion that will get recycled. So, we decided to count it as if it were regular garbage. In order to collect accurate data on how much waste I use, I collected all of my trash in a container and then weighed it at the end of each week.
Just like in Regan’s experiment, I didn’t include shared food waste. So, for family meals, I didn’t include the left overs in my collection.
In order to increase accuracy, I monitored my waste over two week periods rather than just one week intervals.
Week 1 and 2: Monitoring
The first step I took to see how I can reduce my waste was monitor my garbage over a two week period. This data yielded some really interesting information.
The most surprising to me was the sheer amount of trash I throw away throughout a typical week. I threw away 21.6 pounds of trash throughout the two weeks, meaning I threw away about 10.8 pounds per week.
I also estimated the volume of trash I had and found that my waste takes up approximately 4.2 cubic feet per week when it’s uncompressed (my trash filled seven grocery store plastic bags each week and each holds approximately 0.6 cubic feet).
I also found that almost all of volume of my waste came from eating at fast food restaurants. Every time I eat at a fast food restaurant, I’d come home with at least one paper bag, then several individual containers inside of that bag, one cup (unfortunately it’s often Styrofoam), and then a bunch of unused condiments and napkins. Each time I’d eat out, I’d fill up a little less than half of a plastic bag, which added up very quickly when I eat out several times a week.
Even though most of the space was taken up by fast food waste, those paper bags and containers actually don’t weigh very much. I found that the majority of the weight of my trash came from left over food.
Week 3 and 4: Waste Reduction
From the data I collected, I formulated the best way for me to reduce my footprint. Since most of the space my trash took up was from fast food restaurants, I decided to cut back on eating out (which is also healthier but that could be a separate series). I also decided to prepare more appropriate portions so that I wouldn’t have nearly as much food waste.
I then used these two methods to reduce my best throughout the next two weeks to see the impact it’d have on my weekly garbage. Since these two methods of reducing my waste work very well together, I was able to achieve both of them by eating at home more often. At the beginning of each week, I bought several easily made meals and whenever I made them I’d only get as much as I know I’d eat so I wouldn’t throw away extras. And instead of tossing the occasional left over, I would put it in the fridge and eat it later.
After trying to reduce my waste, I collected the amount of trash I had at the end of the two week period just like I did before. I found that I had dramatically reduced the amount of trash I threw out. Over the course of two weeks my garbage weighed 15.2 pounds, giving a weekly average of 7.6 pounds. That’s a weight decrease of roughly 30%. That’s a pretty big difference, but the biggest change showed when I measured how much space the reduced waste took up. It took up only 9 plastic bags, about 2.7 cubic feet per week (5 bags during the third week and 4 in the final week). That’s a 36% decrease in the volume of trash I had.
So, my methods of reducing waste worked, I shrunk the amount of trash I had in both volume and weight, reducing my total waste by roughly a third. However there are other things to consider. I had to spend a lot more time every week preparing my food than I did before I tried to reduce my waste. Also, if I wanted anything besides microwavable meals and basic foods I know how to make, I’d have to learn how to actually cook. So, is that extra time and energy actually worth it? We discuss this in the final section that you can find here.
