Personal Trash Inventory

From the outset, I know that I consume a lot of trash. Even prior to this exercise, I knew that I could and should reduce my trash disposal. Many times have I sat at dinner with friends in the dining halls and complained about the guilt I have about leaving so much food left on my plate. After this exercise, I still consider myself wasteful, however I hope to work on this.

In particular, the sector of paper towels, napkins and toilet paper is the main ingredient to my recipe of wastefulness. If I do the calculations, this makes up 49.4% of the items that I threw away in one week. To reduce waste in this area of my trash disposal, I can do many things. I noticed that most of the paper towels I used were used as liners when I placed things down on the counters in the bathroom in my dorm’s bathroom, or when I was using the bathroom. I can resolve this issue in two ways. First of all, I do live right across from the bathroom. So instead of placing all of my bathroom necessities on the counter, I can go back and forth between my room and the bathroom so I do not feel the need to put my items down on a paper towel. Instead, I can simply leave what I am not using at that time in my room. Secondly, I can use a hand towel I have in my bathroom to dry my hands instead of using paper towels. Once again my room’s close vicinity to the bathroom will help me reduce paper towel waste. Also, I know that in the dining halls I can reduce the number of napkins I use. I can simply limit myself to a one napkin policy (so long as the meal I’m eating is not atrociously messy).

In a sense, my sustainable choices in my current lifestyle are reflected in my trash waste. The reality is that I am a college student and printing and disposing of a lot of papers seems to come hand-in-hand with this fact. Luckily, more professors are realizing that printing is not only expensive but also a waste of paper (and trees!). Even using this blog right now is preventing me from printing out 2 or more pages. So in a sense my inventory, which shows how I dispose of a lot of paper, reflects the fact that I am a college student. Also, I do not have much waste that is plastic or manufacturing. This is because I really try to reduce the amount of unnecessary objects I use in my life – paper or plastic plates, utensils, cups and bottles included. I do use a reusable water bottle daily, and this is reflected in my trash inventory because otherwise I would be disposing of a lot more plastic bottles and containers. I opt not to taking shopping bags when necessary, and encourage my roommates and others to use actual dishware and silverware as opposed to plastic utensils and plates they have to dispose of after one use. In this sense, my inventory reveals that I am a sustainable and environmentally conscious individual and that I try to reiterate the simple changes that I have made to my own life to my friends and family. Also, I think that my inventory revealed that yes, I do live in a country and that is very material based reflected in the amount of waste that one individual such as myself can accumulate in a week, however I know there are easy ways to be more sustainable and to reduce the amount of waste I leave. I now know what my personal trash inventory looks like and now feel equipped to make changes that I know are feasible for my current lifestyle.

As I mentioned before I already knew prior to this exercise that I do waste a lot of food, however this exercise quantified the amount of food that I actually do waste. In the first few chapters of Radical Simplicity, Jim Merkel really emphasizes that humans’, specifically those living in developed nations like the United States, can reduce their intake and output of items. I enjoyed Merkel’s anecdotes about his travels around the world to see how the individuals in countries that are not well off, such as Kerala, still maintain successful and happy lifestyles. I know now that, fortunately, the items I do dispose of most frequently (paper goods) can be recycled and used for other purposes However, the issue to me now is the path that my trash takes – is the paper that I throw away at UCLA actually taken to be recycled, or are the paper towels I use each morning being thrown away into a landfill somewhere in Los Angeles? I think that my lifestyle will always be different than the lifestyles of individuals in the poorer countries he assesses, however there is indeed room for improvement in my own lifestyle concerning the amount of waste I produce. I am interested to see how this plays out in my ecological footprint!