How mindful are you of your consumption/disposal habits?

The average single American consumer produces on average 4 pounds of trash per day. In the average family of 4, the average increased to 4.4 pounds per day, per person for a grand household total of 17.6 pounds of trash per day. Unfortunately, it's up 1.7 pounds per day since 1960 according to the Department of Energy.

So let's think about it. How many trash bags did you dispose of last week? When grocery shopping, what percentage of your consumption was purchased in bulk? What percentage of your purchase avoided excessive packaging. What percentage of your overall shopping was recyclable?

Organic material. Americans dispose of 1200 pounds of organic, compostable material on a yearly basis as well. Learn to compost this material.

In our household, we made a very conscious effort last year to reduce the amount of waste that we produce. We have gotten to a paper grocery sized bag of non-organic, non recyclable material every three weeks. I had a sustainable earth professor who was doing this once a YEAR.

Sorry, I was noticing the size trash toters in the suburbs today, and could not believe in just size of these alone, how it encourages wasteful consumption and disposal habits. Disgusting!

I encourage everyone to take the challenge to reduce their waste disposal habits. It may not sound like very satisfying work, but it's work that I guarantee you will save the Earth!

My husband and I have been very mindful and even more so recently. We even recycle the foil off the chipotle burritos. BTW I think it is satisfying. We use mushroom trays for nails and assorted hardware, the coffee cans to store hardware parts. We try to look at everything to see if we can reuse it. It is a creative endeavor that has become a game now. Last week we had only 2 small bags of trash we are trying to get it down to one and then set a new goal. :thumbsup:

as much as possible (and don't use them at all for things that don't even need them, like onions, cucumbers, etc.). I try to always take my canvas shopping bags to the store, though I don't always make it... I have at times made the conscious decision not to buy something because it was overpackaged.

I wish my community had a composting program in place - most of my trash (which is about one 13 gallon bag a week) that goes into the garbage pickup is compostable food leftovers (rinds, peelings, etc.). I hate throwing it away, but I'm not in a position to compost in the apartment, and we don't have a community composter.

I have striven over the last many years to reduce, reduce, reduce the amount of garbage I generate (esp. by avoiding disposable shit, which shit simply pisses me off the way buy it by the goddamn metric fuckload), and recycle everything that I can.

You posted something around November about it and I won't use aluminum foil now. You had some really good thoughts about waste, I should look it up and re-read it.:thumbsup:

I'd like to read it!

And post it to my journal.

and we're just poor enough to make it worth while for some to go around collecting cans, etc. In Newton County, you have to pay by the bag for trash disposal-but recycling is picked up for free. I think that goes a long way to encourage people to reuse and recycle.

Newton County was running out of landfill space. It is one of the poorest counties in Arkansas, and some wondered how they could pay for the recycling. It has paid for itself-they sell the glass, plastic, and aluminum. And the landfill isn't filling up as fast.

Not in the state or county but at least in the town -- Kennebunk, Maine. You have to buy special bags to dispose of trash. Recycling is free and Kennebunk recycles a lot -- Plastics 1-7, bottles, cans, every kind of paper and cardboard. Also Maine has a deposit on cans and bottles so in additon to recycling this material rather than putting it in the waste stream, Maine is noticeably cleaner than states without bottle bills. This is good for the tourist industry as well as just making it pleasanter to live here. I just moved here six months ago and love it. I have a friend who moved here at the same time and she tells everyone it is cold and dark so they won't want to move here too!

You have definitely made me stop and think about how much trash we're generating. We are going to try to reduce and reuse. Too bad we don't have recycling programs in this area. We could sure use them!

We only generate 1 plastic garbage bag per week. We recycle plastic bags from the grocery store. Paper bags go into recycling. Plastic milk jugs go into recycling, as most glass, paper, cardboard and other products.

At the grocery store, I try not to buy things that are excessively packaged, like Doritos in 20 little bags. Buy a bigger bag, and then put it in smaller bags for sack lunches. Plus, you pay SO much more when you get a lot of packaging.

Fresh fruits & vegetables are best. You just put them in a plastic bag, and then recycle. It's not an inconvenience; it becomes like 2nd nature after a while.

Was raised by a Southern farm girl and we recyled before there was a name for it by using the hell outa everything so we had very little garbage. I'm not nearly as conscious as my mother and now I'm guilty! One paper bag a YEAR? Geez, I'm not even going to try to match that but I will try for one paper bag every garbage pickup day to start with. But, a question: does that exclude the matter that goes into the recycling bin like paper and plastics?

When we use up this planet, we'll all get on a spaceship and go to the next one.

Edit:
Seriously, there are people who say that.

a few blocks from me--takes newspapers, magazines, office stuff, aluminum and tin, #1&2 plastics, cardboard and pasteboard--it has to be picked up twice a week--and often, on sundays, every single bin is STUFFED.

as a single person, I buy very little in bulk, but then, I also buy almost nothing in the way of packaged goods--and I recycle organic matter into my plants--and my friends' gardens. by the way, for those of you who live in apartments, or areas where you think you can't compost--a quick tip:
take your organic matter and dump it into your blender or food processor, with an equal amount of water, and blend. this can be used on all plants, gardens, etc.

I never thought of doing that. I live by a small drainage area with lots of plants and stuff, and have on occasion thrown a banana peel into the thing... but I haven't done it much, because there are deer and turkeys and other animals that come through and I don't want to make them sick and/or get used to having food there, and/or having too much non-native organic matter that is taking too long to compost and thus visible.

But if I blend everything first (though I wouldn't include meat scraps in this), I bet I could just go pour it out there with no harm done!

What do you think?

if we need bagging or wrapping and take our own recycled bags with us everywhere.

We try not to buy. That makes things pretty simple. :)

I do all my buying on line and am always begging the sellers NOT to swathe everything in 10 unnecessary layers.

Once a month or so, our 'hood has a clean up where we try to not only clean up, but recycle whatever we pick up. We also plant. We made a garden out of a trashed up vacant lot. :)

Great question.

More likely less. I have a 20 gal trash barrel and can go three to four weeks without filling it. I don't make a serious effort to reduce waste, but I do make an effort to reduce consumption.

:shrug:

I think it's better to just use your local meat cutter.

But, if you've got to dump the body in the river, at least poke some holes in it so it doesn't float.

I avoid virtually all plastic products.
I live without most conveniences.
I use low tech, excepting this new-fangled computer.
I eat very low on the food chain.

By the time the product has reached the shelf the damage has been done. Recycling is a form of absolution, environmental church if you will. It almost puts the mind at ease in order to rationalize further purchasing of stuff.

Your post speaks to the essence. The level of change that is necessary and how to get there is what is difficult for most people to comprehend.

Meat scraps and the like we just leave out for the raccoons.
(In exchange, they leave the garbage cans alone, because there
is nothing interesting in there).

I don't know what to do with all the styrofoam packaging that
stuff comes packaged in. Curbside recycling won't take it,
and I don't know anybody else who will either. Packaging
"peanuts" and bubble-wrap we save and re-use, but a lot of
the custom styrofoam bits are pretty useless and hard to recycle.

They also won't take large quantities of cardboard, but that
burns nice in the wood stove. Not great as a primary fuel,
but good for getting the fire started, especially if the
wood is damp (by this time in the winter, EVERYTHING is damp).

I still put used kitty litter in the garbage, seems to me our
soil is pretty acidic already with all the redwoods and firs.

Padded mailing envelopes that use bubble-wrap padding don't
seem to be recyclable. Sometimes they can be reused once
or twice if they aren't too torn-up, but it is hard to open
them non-destructively, because people usually want to know
if somebody else has opened their mail before they did.

We use the smallest can that our city offers, and I think we fill one 13 gallon bag a week, and that includes diapers, plus cat litter/waste.

We try to do our best, but because of Hubby's health issues, we do produce some waste from medical supplies. Most of our waste is paper stuff which goes into the recycle, and green waste which goes into the compost.

What amazes me is how much garbage the medical world produces, and how little of it is reusable. I often wonder what will happen to medical services when oil gets really expensive. The tubing used for every dialysis patient just gets thrown away after one use.

The amount of stuff that gets thrown away is simply horrifying. All those rubber gloves, all the tubes, the needles, all the plastic pakcaging that all those things come in... simply awful. But, on the other hand, those things need to be sterilized, and I value the health of people as well. So I'm really torn about it -- and most of the stuff that's used, I don't think there's any way really to sterilize them for re-use, nor to ensure that they haven't been damaged in some way.

But hospitals, yes - a truly amazing waste of stuff. I think there has to be a better way; but I'm not sure what that way is.

and even that isn't full. I'm paying for a less than 1/3 full trash can to be hauled twice a month. I told my neighbor if she ever has extra trash, just toss it in.

The trash increases when people stay over, but that's the average for me. I recycle and the bins are usually pretty empty too.

We have NO plastic pick-up, so I import it to the nearest big city when visitors come by, it's like: "Thanks for stopping by, and here's a pile of crap to remember our lovely stay!" :-)

but if your ever buy your kids toys- talk about packaging.

I just bought some baby greens in 'plastic' made of corn. Why can't they make plastics and everything out of corn instead of oil? Wouldn't it be biodegradable? Then we could have less war and cleaner air. Sounds nice.

junk mail, newspaper, magazines, paper generated from working at home, paper packaging etc etc

But at least it's relatively easy to recycle.

I'm not too good about it. I live a "take-out or delivery" lifestyle, so there's a lot of garbage. I also kind of think that, if we as a society are really going to turn the corner on this issue, we really need to force it on the general public, who are just so accustomed to chucking things out and never giving it a 2nd thought.

I bet that, at some point in the future, people will be mining the landfills for recyclable material, especially plastic. :scared: