Trash Talk - July 2010

“We’re down to one bag of trash a month,” dear friend Katherine proclaimed proudly.

One bag a month, I thought. One bag a week would have impressed me, but one bag a month? That seems almost impossible, unless you reside on the space station, where I imagine trash pick-up is really limited.

Katherine went on to explain the seven kinds of recycling accepted in her town in a conversation that only two dear friends could have without feeling really bored. By now I was really jealous, though I perked up a bit when she admitted they still have a problem with overuse of paper towels. She assured me, however, that she really is using those ShamWows we bought and shared (and no, ShamWow is not one of the people on “Jersey Shore.”). They use cloth napkins (I could do that, I think), and run the dishwasher often. Mine runs about once a quarter, so at least I’m ahead on the lowering of energy consumption (as if this were a competition).

She also composts all her vegetable scraps and has a sizable garden, affording her family of four the opportunity to eat whatever tomatoes, zucchini, potatoes, etc., the rabbits and other wildlife haven’t plundered before harvest. That means not only better quality and more fresh veggies are consumed at her house than at mine, but also that she doesn’t have to deal with all the plastic bags and wrapping in which we tote home our produce. She always uses her own bags at the supermarket and has for years, even before it became fashionable to do so. I do this about half the time, when I remember to bring them in from the car. Once I had my own bags on my arm while shopping and still forgot to bag in them since I was apparently so transfixed by watching the cash register while checking out.

This leaves me with one question: How can one person produce all this trash?

As a consumer of many kinds of goods, I always have to contend with packaging materials. There is that hideous plastic that imprisons my memory sticks for my computer and memory cards for my camera, all 10 times the size of the product they encase, and all of which are lethally sharp as I cut them with my utility knife to wrestle out the contents. Then there is food packaging – huge boxes in which much less cereal resides than it would appear and boxes that contain individual packets of cookies or other snacks. There are the Styrofoam cartons for the eggs, foam trays beneath the meat and chicken, the little plastic cups for my cling peaches, and, of course, all those shiny packets that house my beloved Bumble Bee Tuna.

Sunday and Wednesday nights I haul the trash out in my trash can, placing it at the curb with my secret trash code visible from my front door. Code, you wonder? What is a trash code? I always take the red draw string from the big black bag (into which I place the smaller white bag) and put it outside the lid of the garbage can. That way I can tell at a glance whether the garbage has been picked up and I need to go out and retrieve the can. Believe me, in the winter, this clever trick has helped me avoid many a possible slip on the icy driveway.

Not that I don’t try to be good. I dutifully recycle my cardboard, remove the labels from my cans and bottles (more trash just from the labels), collect all the magazine inserts and junk mail and neatly tie my newspapers into bundles. (My sister, once observing the latter ritual, inquired as to whether I was recycling or gift wrapping the newspapers.) I broke down so many cardboard cartons when I moved into this house that I ended up at the orthopedist with carpal tunnel in both wrists (His advice? Don’t move again.). If I use a paper towel for a quick wipe of something (like cleaning my glasses), I’ll let it dry and reuse it for something else. I refuse bags from the store if the item is small and fits in my purse. I reuse my plastic bags, lining the garbage pails in the bathrooms and bedrooms with the grocery ones and reserving the larger ones (mostly from Kohl’s or Macy’s) for my shredded paper. If my take-out or doggie bags are aluminum pans, I wash them and reuse them for leftovers. In my town, you can’t recycle your cereal or pizza boxes or the plastic from the salad bar containers, so I feel like I am doing all I can.

Or am I?

Maybe if I consume less – buy less stuff that I probably don’t need anyway, eat less (my docs would be happy) and just try not to get all caught up in trash, I’d actually have less to toss. I’ll try the cloth napkin route and use the ShamWows more to clean up after meals to cut down on the paper towels. If I cook more and have less takeout I’ll probably come out ahead in several ways.

But one bag of trash a month? It’s only a dream for me.

Stay tuned for next month, when I consider this burning question: How can one person produce this much laundry?