Post #7 Almost There and Still Here

Hiya, everybody!

While it looks like I was taking a very long break, I have been busy. My AP Biology teacher also advised me to change the immediate tone of my project, making it more about what I can do rather than attempt to change the world immediately. I feel better, I can calm down :)

So, what I've done it had my friend Owen collect his trash for a week, and I am currently undergoing the same process. Owen cleverly made a system for himself, dividing the waste he generated into four categories: Recyclables; Trash; Recyclable-Compost; Trash-Compost.

The recyclables, of course, will follow the pattern I already explained, they would be picked up, shipped by Waste Management to the plant in Avon where they are baled and sorted and shipped out again to truly recycled: incorporated into something new.

The Trash is what we can't recycle OR compost. These are the items that will end up in a landfill no matter what. Diapers, for instance. Or styrofoam, if your region doesn't recycle it. (Newton does, but you have to make sure it is free of all food matter and then make a trip to the Rumford Ave. facility yourself, definitely a turn off for many residents, unfortunately.)

Compostables go into two categories: recyclables and trash. I shall explain.
Compost-R: It is common knowledge that paper is recyclable. Tons and tons of paper is used and recycled every day! But a lot of the paper that is recycled is also compostable... not the paper with the chemical inks, not the ones with chemical dyes or food grease and such, but lots of regular paper such as newspaper (a choice bedding for worms!). Think about it-- if you wet it a little bit, it comes apart rather easily. It decomposes. Worms really enjoy an environment with damp paper shreds and will eventually incorporate them back into the ecosystem. Therefore, since paper is compostable, yet recyclable, it goes under the Compost-R grouping.

Compost T: What do you do with the salad clippings that go uneaten? Toss them. The grapefruit rind? Toss it. The yard clippings? Toss them (or in my family's case, put them back behind the trees where we now have a pile of leaf-hummus that is coming along quite nicely). These materials, most notably food scraps, go into our trash bins and are taken away to be either landfilled or incinerated (like Newton's trash). Now comes the main point of my whole project-- how much of that material could have been composted?!? How much compostable food matter does my family toss out? How much of it is landfilled or incinerated? Because that doesn't need to be there, it could be an excellent source of food for my upcoming vermicompost.

I am currently working on formatting Owen's data for publishing and it will be up soon.