Reduce Personal Waste Ch.3

The problem:

I chose the goal to reduce my personal waste because I believe its one of my largest parts of my footprint. It is said that every two hours we throw out enough waste to fill the worlds largest container ship. The average American produces 29 pounds of personal waste each week. It is expected that by 2030 the amount of household waste produced will double.

The problem with personal waste is once we are done with it, it is easy to believe you have no impact after. The truth is once we give our personal waste to our local dump our curbside pickup it then goes to landfills or is burned. The action of burning waste is the worlds largest source of dioxins, which is an extremely toxic chemical.

My actions:

My first thing I wanted to focus on was my “quick throw away” items. These are things I receive quickly and in return throw away right after. Some examples would be a plastic bag at the grocery store, a plastic straw at Starbucks, using a Keurig cup in the morning before school, etc. all these items I use weekly but am usually in such a rush that I don’t think twice when throwing them away. There are approximately 500 million plastic straws used daily worldwide and 1 trillion plastic bags are used and then thrown away daily worldwide.

First, I needed to collect my supplies. I already have stainless steel straws and reusable cups but they were not somewhere that I had easy access to. I moved my straws from the “unknown” draw over into an open container by the kitchen entrance. I did this so when leaving I could grab them on the go and have no excuse. I also moved my reusable cups out of the back of the cupboard to a easy access cabinet above the sink. Once again, I was moving my tools to a spot where I knew that even in a rush I could still grab them and take them wit me. A great tip is to put these things in places you’ll be anyways. I put the cups and straws near the sink and doorway, two places I go multiple times everyday and pass when leaving the house.

Now that I have my G2 and enjoy driving, I am usually the one who will go and pick up the groceries for the family. This means I am the one in charge of bagging and transporting the groceries home. When looking at my lifestyle I realized that when I get to the grocery store I automatically think about using reusable bags, but most of the time I’ve left without them. Therefore, I chose to collect 10 reusable bags we had lying around the house and put them underneath the back seats of my car. I suggest putting as many as 10 because sometimes you come home and unload the groceries but forget to put the bags back right away. Having plenty of bags ensures that even if you forget to put the ones you use back right away there will still be some there for use.

What I accomplished:

Recognizing habits, I had within my own lifestyle and changing them in order to reduce my personal waste.

What to do:

So, there is obviously a world crisis on how we deal with our waste. I believe the world should focus on more cradle to cradle approaches. The diagram below explains further.