Remember awhile back when I told you about that woman who decided to take the plunge and create a zero waste home? It was a mind-blowing concept–which obviously would take a crazy amount of commitment, but it is still totally commendable.
The garbage we generate must be on a lot of people’s minds because a recent series of pictures by photographer Gregg Segal features families and individuals with the garbage they generated over one week is sweeping the internet.
The photographer wanted to show what the amount of garbage we generate over one week would look like. He had the people lay in their garbage, and then snapped a photo. You can check out a couple of his pictures on treehugger. It’s actually pretty interesting to see the amount of stuff {and what kind of stuff} people throw away over 7 days.
What do you think? Would you be embarrassed to let someone see you laying among your garbage? What packaging is in your garbage that you KNOW you could cut back on?
~Mavis
Maxine says
We’re fortunate to live in a county where we can recycle almost everything. My mom in another state can only do certain numbers of plastic, but at least all paper and cardboard. We also compost, and recycle what plastic wrap we can (although the Washington Post did a story on what happens to the plastic bags you recycle back at the grocery stores and nobody knew, except it prob. goes to China to be incinerated), we use reusable bags kept in the trunk (more incentive as we have a bag tax), so really the only things being thrown out are wrappers from food (and monthly female waste, just can’t get my mind around a diva cup or washables yet – so yes I don’t want to lay around in that!). I’m pretty cheap so when it was pointed out in an article that you pay for the packaging that you throw away I’ve paid attention – although you really don’t have a lot of choice sometimes but I’ve noticed companies are reducing the packaging and changing from styrofoam to pressed cardboard more.
Elise says
I live not far from the lady who lived a year and generated a quart of garbage. In fact, I work in her town. I don’t mean to call her out, but she states herself that her family would leave packaging of large purchases at the store of purchase and have them dispose of it rather than take it home and dispose of it themselves, so there’s a little more to the story. I do commend her on her reduction of food packaging in general, buying bulk, etc.
That being said, our family of 4 generated one paper grocery bag of garbage a week. I’m not quite sure how or why, but I recycle all paper except for tissues, taking plastic “windows” out of cardboard packaging and recycle it. But even so, we usually only recycle one box of paper a week too (a cardboard wine box – held 12 bottles). I’m going to look into this project when I have another moment and participate in the pictures! I think it would be fascinating!
Love you Mavis 🙂
lynne says
Just 2 of us in our home…one paper grocery bag of garbage a week + a quart size milk carton filled with “wet” garbage that is not compostable. Recycle everything we can, bring my own bags to the grocery (unless I need a paper one for the garbage can), and buying in bulk. I reuse the plastic Ziplock style bags by washing them, and recycle them when they have gotten holes. Cotton napkins, hankies for blowing the nose, and I have a few reusable feminine pads for “that time of the month”…would love to get more, or make them myself.
I’ve read about this lady, and watched her videos…it is inspiring, but sometimes I just need to have a bag of potato chips :-). I think if we all do what we can, and “reduce-reuse-recycle”, it would make a huge impact. unfortunately, a lot of people just don’t care. Thank you so much for your website! Love it!! Lynne 🙂
Jen Y says
i wouldn’t be embarrassed because we rarely have any trash. We live in a rural area & our motivation was the very high cost to have our garbage picked up. When I’d managed to get it down to one bag every few months we dropped the service & carry our rare bag into town when it needs emptied.
The company my husband works for recently reached a zero waste goal as well. It was very exciting for them with around 1400 employees.
Elise says
I wish we could cancel or downgrade our trash service. I tried when I was single, as I really generated almost NO trash at home (granted I ate breakfast and lunch at work…), but our suburban community doesn’t allow you to cancel service unless the property is empty. I imagine this is partially backed up by public health needs vs. rats that might become more frequent if people didn’t have their trash picked up weekly. I know that’s the reason our green can pick-ups went from every 2 weeks to every week when we started using them for food compost as well as gardening scraps.
Mavis says
That is frustrating that you can’t even have them come every other week!
Heather says
We recycle, reuse and compost everything we can. I would be embarrassed to have someone see the frozen food I threw out today. I didn’t realize it was still in the freezer, but it was almost two years old so I figured it needed to be thrown out rather than eaten.
Mavis says
As much as I try to avoid that, sometimes the “out of site, out of mind” saying goes for my freezer items. I hate to waste them!
Harry says
Im surprised you guys haven’t heard of Bokashi yet. Its kind of like composting, but you can compost way more types of stuff. Even dairy and meat. And best of all, you can do all this indoors! And no, it doesn’t stink. Its so not gross! My better half was very skeptical at first, said I’m going to stink up the whole house. He’s a convert now too, cant stop telling people about it. He even brings me his work colleagues kitchen scraps! I’m not all clued up on the science of it, but you add your waste, about an inch thick in a bucket with a strainer and a tap (I bought mine online, but there’s lots of plans floating around for building your own), then you sprinkle a handful of Bokashi inoculate over this, add a layer of waste, another handful of Bokashi. I put almost everything in there! It works on a anaerobic principle, with pro-biotic cultures. Yes, the same ones as in your good digestion yoghurts! Why send paper and cardboard to be recycled when with this method you can compost it? All you do when the bucket is full is keep it closed up for two weeks, then add it to you compost heap, or even bury it for 2-3 weeks and you have the best compost ever! Its so much faster than traditional composting. I have an extremely small back garden, and didn’t want an unsightly stinky compost heap, but I want to do my share for the environment. her by us in SA there’s not set system for recycling. So this was my solution. I basically just put out a small bag of plastic for collection now. It really is an amazing process. And no, I don’t work for a company that sells the stuff or anything. LOL.
Love your page Mavis!!
Mavis says
This is fascinating Harry! I’ve heard of it but never looked into the details of it.
Harry says
You should google it Mavis, its super easy and cheap, and the only effort you have to put in is chopping up your waste into smaller pieces. I do it while making the waste, like when im peeling potatoes, ill chop the peels smaller before putting away the chopping board. Or when I have a banana, ill just stand and snip the peel with my kitchen scissors. You don’t have to if you dint want to, but it speeds things up.
I have a serious case of greenhouse envy by the way, yours is supernice. Here by us you have to buy imported products as greenhouses aren’t a thing here, and It almost costs an arm and a leg. Busy with collecting windows to build my own, nearly there.