Trash

Day 2: Monday: Trash
"Find out if wasting less improves your life."

Today, the task was to create no trash. Think about it for a moment, do you even realize that you are creating trash? I'm usually just proud of myself for remembering to throw things away or recycle stuff. So I spent today thinking and wincing each time i threw something into the rubbish. Which made me try to avoid it as much as possible (do you think it counts if i just tucked something liek old papers away to throw out next week once the project is over? Sigh, i didn't think so.)

An examination of my trash today (sorry, this is kind of personal):
- kleenex
- cough drop wrapper
- pistachio shells
- paper towel used for drying veggies
- tampons
- napkin at the restaurant for dinner
- dryer sheets for laundry
- cotton pad for makeup

Not bad. Most of that was, i feel, unavoidable. So today I was constantly thinking about what it was that I was throwing away, but what is it like usually for me when i don't think about it? Old school papers, magazines, clothing, food garbage... I'm producing so much trash. And it goes into the garbage bag, which goes down the stairs to the trash, and into a truck, which then travels through NYC picking up other garbage, then taking it through the Bronx to the dump along with all the other NYC dump trucks (and there is a LOT of trash in this city), all of which produce so much pollution that kids in the Bronx nearby have abnormally high rates of asthma. The story of trash.

Memories of trash--
walking by a river in Cambodia, which was totally polluted with garbage. There was a fishing net draped across the river where the garbage-- old tires, plastic bags, dead animals, rotten food-- was caught. A little further down the river and around the bend, I found the swimming hole. Kids, jumping and playing in the river, maybe 12 feet from where all of the trash was filtering the water they were swimming and playing in.

another memory-- I was in Tanzania, living in a tiny fishing village called Matemwe on the island of Zanzibar. it was early one morning, and I was on my way out of town for a weekend in the main town. before leaving, i wanted to get rid of the nearly overflowing blue plastic grocery bag in the corner of my room, so I tied it up and went wandering to find the dump. But there was no dump to be found. Any trash was thrown into the strips of rocks and plants seperating one section of the village from another-- old flip flops, plastic bottles and bags, scraps of paper... But my trash bag was too big, too full, and now I was ashamed for having made so much garbage when evidently no one else did. I had papers and plastic wrappers of all sorts, empty jars of nutella and fanta cans, and I can't even remember the rest, but just thinking, wow, no one else is throwing this much away. but i had to do something, so I opened the bag and dumped out the contents, hoping no one would trace them back to me.

We are lucky to live in a place where we aren't confronted with our garbage. it smells much nicer here. but, maybe if we were, we would be horrified into not making as much of it.

Have you thought about how much garbage you make each day? How can you reduce that?