"Every year, the United States generates approximately 230 million tons of "trash"--about 4.6 pounds per person per day. Less than one-quarter of it is recycled; the rest is incinerated or buried in landfills. With a little forethought, we could reuse or recycle more than 70 percent of the landfilled waste, which includes valuable materials such as glass, metal, and paper. This would reduce the demand on virgin sources of these materials and eliminate potentially severe environmental, economic, and public health problems."
Ok, I have not weighted my garbage to see how much I accumulate in a week, but I know I am not contributing 4.6# per day! (That might be an interesting experiment.)
I was remembering a cross country trip about 10 years ago from South Dakota to LA in a semi. It had been years since I had been on a cross country trip and I was really excited. The driver was forever eating and it would not have been difficult for him to fill up the interior of the truck with garbage. (Trust me, when I owned trucks, I have seen some really raunchy interiors by drivers who were pigs!)
It got me starting thinking about all the trash we create and do not know what to do with. While going through uninhabited parts of the west, I said we could bury all the trash out here in the middle of nowhere.......one of the hills for plastic, one for newspapers etc. He just laughed at me.
I noticed the closer we got to LA, the more trash was strewn/left alongside the highway. I asked the driver if he remembered me saying that in the middle of nowhere would be a good place for a landfill. He said he did. I said evidently the people out here in California have already started doing that, but they are not sorting it!
I was totally amazed and appalled. Anything people did not want they dumped right by the side of the highway! There were bags of garbage strewn over the landscape, old tires, whitegoods, toys and anything you can imagine. The parking lots were filthy, and not just at truckstops, but malls and grocery store lots too. It was a very eye opening experience, but not one I was NOT ready for. The flora and fauna was so beautiful, but all I could think about was the trash it was probably hiding or was entangled in it.
___________________________________________________________________________________
My daughter and I were discussing the price of our sanitary services. Last month there was a notice on my bill that the fee would be going up. With the increase of fuel costs and higher landfill fees it was enevitable. I live alone I usually can get buy with one container a week, in the summer I have more at times, as there is stuff from the yard I will not recycle.
Having to pay for throwing stuff away seems silly, but then I grew up when we could burn our trash or it would go to our own landfills on the farm. It was great fun digging around in our landfills and seeing all the neat stuff my family threw away over the years. (Gezzz, I wish I had some of those Avon perfume bottles now!)
My daughter remarked that she had very little trash after she started sorting out all the recyclables. (I don't think our part of the country is good at recycling.) DUH! What an idea of keeping the cost down! Recyclables are not counted as part of the container.
I find if I crush or tear up any of the light weight cardboard packaging, it seems I have alot less trash and can fit more in a bag. So I save on bags and can get more garbage in my can. Does that make any sense? In actuality I do not usually have a full can. If the cardboard is torn up in smaller bits will it deteriorate in the landfill quicker?
We need to stop being an unconscious consumer. Think before you buy and ask yourself if you really NEED “it” think about how much you really wanted it, will used it or how it will actually add to your life. Being GREEN can also be frugal.
Personally I make a game out of it and try to think of at least 3 uses for things that are about to go in the trash. This year I am really going to be more conscious of packaging of the products I buy. Even now I try to reuse packaging for something else if possible. When buying meat, I can buy it out of a case and have it wrapped in freezer paper, so do not have the Styrofoam packaging to deal with later. The Styrofoam trays can be used for snacks, dog dishes, torn up and used for drainage in pots, paint trays, drawer dividers.... T
Some of the glass bottles as olive oil, wine, BBQ sauce etc. are being saved to be used as vases for garden flowers for the neighbor ladies. The jam I buy at the discount bread store comes in jars with handles, which are great for vases, outdoor beverages, holding pencils....
Little yorgurt containers work great for little leftovers to go in the freezer for soup, the work perfectly for making my "instant" oatmeal packets for breakfast, they are great to store screws and extra paint for touch ups....
Old household items should be recycled HGTV has some great ideas. The web has a ton of green living, recycling and reusing sites. Please take the time to look for some of them.
Questions in my mind:
Do people still use trash compactors? I have a built in one... my foot.
If you save things that you have decided you can recycle, will you have more stuff to deal with?
Gezz I hate to throw things and even as a child I was always going through our trash to see if there was something "good" that Mom threw out. Mom was frugal too. So maybe these ideas are kind of ingrained.
If I do nothing else on this blog, I would like to encourage people think!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment