Post #17-- Running Commentary

Overall Trash: 18.2oz. (1.2 lbs.)
Overall Recycling: 13.6oz.
Overall Compostable Recyclables: 1oz.
Overall Compostable Trash: 3.3oz.
Total Generated Waste: 36.1oz. (2.3 lbs)
Total Compostables: 4.3oz.

Okay, my family should produce about 4x4.3= 17.2oz, which is 1 pound, 1.2oz. Adding for salad-y stuff and given that we’re not going to compost tons of paper (that we’d recycle), only comp T would be 4x3.3= 13.2oz, about 3oz. short of a pound. Adding extra salad stuff, I’d say the middle ground is that my family produces about a pound of compostable material that would actually be composted.

Of our trash, my family should produce 4x18.2= 72.8oz which is about 4.55 pounds. So my family produces almost 5 pounds of trash a week. Just TRASH trash. Total generated waste would look more like this: 4x36.1= 9.025. So about 9 pounds. Peter was right, we do produce about 10 pounds of trash a week. Especially if you add up all the family combined stuff, like the finished cereal box or the fruit containers we recycle or the last of that chicken/pasta/whatever that we can’t really keep. I’ll say about ten pounds then.

So if we generate 10 pounds of waste and compost about a pound of it, we are actively saving 10% of our waste from being incinerated and then landfilled. Preventing it from adding tons of C02 to the atmosphere! It is returning to nature and will nourish a new round of the natural life cycle.

Then, if we recycle 4x13.6oz (I will keep this number because although it is heavy due to that glass bottle I had, and although glass bottles aren’t common, we go through a lot of paper)= 3.4pounds!
PLUS the recyclable compostables which make up 4x1=4oz... so in all, 4x14oz (13.6+.4)= 3.5 pounds!
So with recycling efforts we are saving 35% of our trash!
With recycling and composting we are saving 45% of all of our trash! Plus who knows how much the yard trimming weigh, but that’d add on a ton if we were to throw them away instead of composting them in the back yard. So overall, if you imagine that weight (if it were going to be trashed) we are saving over 50% of our generated waste!

Which still means that 50% of our generated waste is being landfilled, consistent with the national average. Dang. After all of this I was sure that I could save more than the national average. Huh. I am rather surprised. If only I had been able to eat that other half of my sandwich, that would have taken a ton of weight out. But I don’t want to just look good, I want to represent truthfully what is going on. I want to know what’s going on so that I can help make it better. Unfortunately, if my numbers are consistent with the national average, there is not much I can do at home. But wait a minute... That’s 50% of AMERICA’s trash. Not just 50% of MY FAMILY’s trash. What would happen if all of America composted and actively recycled? I’ll bet that a ton more would be saved! My project can’t be pointless, there is hope! If America saves about half of its generated waste through recycling and composting efforts, that includes all the business wastes and hospital wastes and school wastes, etc. What if all restaurants composted? What if all schools and businesses had efficient recycling projects? I’m betting we can change the world here, people.

And what if so many of the plastics we now have were biodegradable? What if we ALL embraced the “cradle to cradle” mentality when we make something? We as a human race have to start taking responsibility for the messes we make-- and we CAN. We just have to get off our lazy bums and do something about it. We have to stop letting people away from just thinking about money and get them to start thinking about a better world!! Think about it-- more healthy earth to go around. I’m not saying let mother nature reclaim the cities and have us abandon civilization, no-- just imagine the spaces we have now, healthier. And the spaces we have now staying spaces we have now, instead of becoming dumping grounds.