LET'S TALK TRASH
As I walked over to throw away an empty sardine can, I thought, how many trips a day do I make to the wastebasket in a drawer in our kitchen? It is tall drawer in the center island that holds a 13-gallon, black, plastic bag with yellow ties that close it up. We have several other baskets for waste in our house, in two bathrooms and an office. Our trash gets picked up 4 times a week, M, W, Th and Sat before 11 AM. I watch a small, open, pick-up truck that comes by loaded, the driver gets out and throws ours on top. He or she, depending on who’s driving, then takes all of that to a central collection point in our little community where a larger truck comes periodically and hauls out a big load.
This is a small example of what goes on everywhere one way or another. I know some people who sort religiously and recycle plastic, paper, glass, cardboard and aluminum, put wet garbage into a compost bin and are committed to reducing, reusing and recycling. I am a fan of adaptive reuse of buildings, clothes and other material things but I did not convert and become committed to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills. It’s convenient and helpful if you have curbside pickup for recycling. We do not and I confess to not sorting, saving or taking recyclables elsewhere. The least I do is flatten the cardboard boxes and keep them separated from the rest of the trash. I see large trash companies hauling away enormous loads of plastic, cardboard and aluminum, so my secret hope is that’s where my stuff ends up.
Recycling of paper, plastics, aluminum and other materials has an interesting history. In 1031 A.D., the first evidence of recycling was recorded. The Japanese shredded their old documents and records, and remade them into new sheets of paper; selling them through mom-and-pop stores around the country. Yes, 1031!
Here are some excerpts below from the following article and there are additional sources for those interested:
5 important facts about recycling
Dirty plastics cannot be recycled. ...
Enough plastic bottles are discarded over a year to go around the planet 4 times. ...
More than 90% of our ocean plastics come from just 10 rivers. ...
The largest dumping site of plastics is not a landfill, it is the Pacific Ocean! (Featured image!)
Recycling saves energy and water, lowers pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, improves air and water quality, preserves landfill space and conserves natural resources. It doesn't make sense to use paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, steel, and petroleum products once and then throw them away!
The U.S. produces 268 million tons of waste — 140 million going into landfills — each year, with the average American tossing 4.5 pounds of trash per day. I don’t know what the “average” American is, but if there are 330 million and you do the math, that totals up to 1 billion, 485 million. Someone’s calculations are off and they could be mine or it could be the EPA. Or it could be the “average” American doesn’t include young children but they contribute trash!
If the “average” American consumer produces just under five pounds of trash each day, a family of four creates about 18 pounds. Multiplying those numbers by 365 days for the year, it all adds up to:
1,642 pounds per person annually.
6,570 pounds per family annually.
These numbers are considerably higher than the averages for residents in other nations. For example, in Europe, the average amount of trash generated by one person in a year weighs in at just over 1,000 lbs. I don’t weigh our trash so I don’t know if we are average, above or below.
Every year, U.S. landfills are filled with 140 million tons of waste including:
30.63 million tons of food.
26.82 million tons of plastic.
18.35 million tons of paper and paperboard.
13.8 million tons of metals.
12.14 million tons of wood.
11.15 million tons of textile.
8.65 million tons of yard trimmings.
6.87 million tons of glass.
4.95 million tons of rubber & leather.
3.25 million tons of misc. inorganic waste.
2.98 million tons of other assorted materials.
While plenty can’t be reused, nearly a third of what we toss can be recycled, particularly if your local government offers curbside recycling. However, sometimes single-stream recycling can cause more harm than good. Confusion about what materials are recyclable and improper cleaning before putting an item in your bin can lead to contamination. When this happens, usually the entire load of recyclable materials ends up in a landfill. The numbers, whatever they are, reveal the habits and behaviors of a mindless and wasteful society.
I was surprised to learn that almost 40 percent of the entire US food supply gets thrown out. Most discarded food ends up in landfills. In fact, food is the single largest component taking up space inside US landfills, making up 22 percent of municipal solid waste (MSW). All told, the amount of food wasted in America has an approximate value of nearly $218 billion – the equivalent of 130 billion meals. I wonder if there is an opportunity here to design a system that could gather the food that is still safe and edible and transport it to various places in a community that could use the food – schools, shelters, food pantries, homes for the elderly, There are some small examples of one to one and there is a pilot program called Rethink in NYC, mentioned in the article below. What about on a much larger scale and a nationwide program. Imagine if just 25-50 % could be salvaged. That’s a lot of money and food saved. Here’s the link with details on the issue:
https://www.rts.com/resources/guides/food-waste-america/
I have a story about a different time in the U.S. during the Great Depression and the decades immediately following. I watched my grandparents and parents use and reuse and then deal with their small amounts of trash. I remember rationing in WWII and saving newspapers and tin cans. That was then and this is now and, while there may be lessons to be learned, there is no going back, but there is a better way forward. I have told this story before of one of my grandfathers who kept a shoebox on a shelf in his garage. It was labeled “pieces of string too short to save” and when the box got full, he tied all those short pieces together, wound them into a ball of string which he then used to wrap packages in his store and at home. Thrift was a byword, frugal was a way of life. When we lived where there was no trash pickup, we had to take our separated trash to a local pick-up center where there were separate containers for different kinds of trash.
There are many definitions of trash. There’s also the trash icon down there in the right-hand corner of my computer screen where this document may end up. At least it’s not on paper!
What are your thoughts on trash? How do you deal with yours? Any suggestions for wide-spread improvements?
This article shocked me just a bit. Much more waste than I thought possible. Thanks for sharing!