Hmm. I was rather surprised by my data in some ways, and in other ways I was not surprised at all.
According to Owen, the majority of mass in his Trash category came from tissues, as he was suffering a cold at the time (poor Owen!). This said, if he had not had this cold, he would have generated even less overall waste. This mass, however, was able to be composted anyways-- here lies the challenge. There is a lot of argument over whether you can compost used tissues or not-- because if you are suffering from allergies is different from the matter you discharge if suffering from a cold, which is in turn different from using a tissue to stem a nose bleed. Many different bodily fluids can be stemmed by tissues, and according to the majority of Google searches I conducted, "there is great debate over whether tissues are healthily compostable or not". Apparently this has to do with germs and such, as some well-informed individuals hypothesize that germs from a cold (which is a virus) or other such illnesses may in turn infect a compost/vermicompost. I was not aware of this at the time, so bear with me and we shall together excuse Owen. It was a mass test anyhow, he does not yet have an active compost.
My data is vastly different from Owen's! Owen wins the 1$ we bet. I have generated more net trash. Owen generated an overall 4.7oz. of sure-landfill matter over the course of a week. I generated 18.2oz. That's a huge difference! I produced just under a POUND more trash than Owen did... I knew that sandwich was going to come back to haunt me. I was unable to eat the second half of a sandwich when out to dinner with my dad at a local Bill's Pizza. This is my fault entirely, though American food serving sizes will be a project for another day...
Also, through conversation we have concluded that Owen and I have relatively different lifestyles. He eats very little processed and packaged food, while I am well known for buying milk at school to go with my morning cereal. Also, something I learned was that all of those milk containers are to be landfilled, as they can not be recycled. Along with the popular soymilk containers and juicebox containers, the paper-plastic combination proves deadly. Think of how much material could be kept out of landfills if that packaging was made more earth friendly and efficient? I'm not sure whether an all plastic (though recyclable) product would be better, or if a biodegradable plastic would work (or if the food matter it was transporting would in effect speed up the biodegrading process and render if useless as a packaging material). Either way, I am responsible for generating more trash, coming mostly from food packaging.
I had thought more of my food packaging would be compostable, but much of it either was coated with wax (rendering it un-compostable, unless otherwise noted) or was soiled with food matter that in turn rendered it un-compostable (matter such as oils, greases, etc.). I am also a platelet donor at the local Red Cross, and in my week of recording my generated waste, I was required to weigh the bandages used after my donation. Lots of waste I didn't even think of! And that's just the waste that I throw away, not even including all the tubing used for me at the Red Cross or anything that went down a toilet. Hmm... that then is just a fraction of the true waste that I generate, right? But still, so much more on the COUNTRY and INTERNATIONAL scale could be changed for the better!
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