Keeping Track of How Much Garbage I Throw Away: An Experiment
I’m starting an experiment today. I’m going to keep all of my trash for one month.
I want to do this as a practice in self-awareness and discipline, and to better understand our easily disposable culture. I realize we throw things away, and don’t really know or care what happens to them afterwards. I want to know how much I am contributing to piles of trash as an individual.
In Guatemala, they do things differently. People sort through other people’s trash in search of anything that can be scavenged and recycled, then sold. You can read through my visit there by clicking here. It’s different than that here. My trash will probably not be picked through by hand by anyone, but I’m still interested in what my “footprint” is.
Garbage in the Guatemala City Dump
Some rules.
1) I will save anything anyone gives me, whether it be a church bulletin, a flyer, a receipt, or a piece of paper.
2) I will not save toilet paper. I know this is a waste, but I refuse to save that crap in a bag. Gross.
3) I will keep any box, can, or plastic bag that any food that I buy comes in, as well as any packaging included if I eat out somewhere.
4) I will be keeping all of my garbage in a giant plastic bag.
5) I will be saving food scraps in a separate container from all of the other garbage.
I hope to blog twice a week with updates on this. Also, assuming my trash bag gets more and more filled, I will include some picture updates!
I hope you enjoy following the experiment.
This is going to be great, haha.
Also, I’m really happy I won’t find bags filled with poop when I come see you.
Me too.