The trashman
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Ari Derfel of Berkeley, California may be one of the people glad to see the year end. He's been keeping his trash -- all of it -- all year. He blogs about it here. His house -- where he's keeping all of his trash -- looks more organized than mine -- where I'm not.
According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the trash helped him learn how much stuff he throws away. It also helped learn a lot of new things to do -- outdoors -- in order to escape the trash.
If you're thinking of trying this idea, here's his simple guide to saving your trash.
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1. As the rules suggest, I keep everything I generate first hand in my personal life. I don’t keep all of the trash I generate at work for work specific purposes. It would be far too vast. But, trash that I create for personal use at work does have to be kept. For example, if I go out for lunch and get a burrito during work, I have to keep the aluminum foil that wraps the burrito. If I get a bag of chips, I have to keep the bag. If I get a drink, I have to keep the bottle or can. However, if our company orders boxes of food from our organic wholesale distributor, I don’t take the empty boxes after the chefs empty them.
2. If I go out of town, I have to bring everything back with me. I went to Hawaii for 2 weeks during February of 07. I brought home roughly 15 lbs of trash with me in my suitcase.
3. If I go out to eat and there is a white piece of paper covering the table instead of a linen, I take that piece of paper home with me. If I order French fries and they are served on top of a piece of paper I take that piece of paper home with me.
4. I keep dental floss. I keep condoms.
5. I don’t keep toilet paper, but I keep the toilet paper rolls so I know how much I’ve used in a year.
6. If I go backpacking for a week and take a ridiculous amount of packaged food with me, it all comes home with me at the end.
7. Virtually every time there is a judgment call to be made, moments in question where I have to decide if I keep it or leave it behind, I keep it. Seriously. I have been diligent, disciplined, committed, and determined to stick to the spirit of this challenge. It’s been an amazing meditation.
Tess Vigland of Marketplace tried this a few months ago, only the difference was she had to haul it all around with her. That worked for about two weeks.
Now, here's the thing. Clearly there's a statement being made about our ability to generate trash. But here's the EPA assessment of trash generation in 2006. (Source here)
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We each generate on average about 4.6 pounds of trash/garbage a day. But look at the map closely. That number hasn't really changed in almost 20 years. So even as we become more of a throwaway society, with electronics and all sorts of other junk, we're not really throwing away more; we just have more people.
And look at our rate of recycling.
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Our rate of recycling in Minnesota is higher than the national average (about 47%).
But it appears the amount of trash the average person tosses is higher, too. Reduce.org says the average Minnesotan generates 2,000 pounds of trash a year -- 5 1/2 pounds per person; well above the national average.
