Going Wasteless in a Waste Filled Society

Today, waste is all around us. Packages and groceries are double, and triple wrapped in cardboard and plastic to help ensure freshness. Ready to eat oranges at the store are wrapped in plastic to help ensure that the fruit is ‘fresh’ and ‘ready to be eaten’. When, that same fruit has been sprayed multiple times with preservatives and different insecticides. It is only as fresh as the farm it is grown on; the plastic adds no extra protection. Waste and the presence of a carbon footprint is inescapable, but that does not mean that efforts can not be made in every day life to eliminate some of the waste that we are leaving behind.

I set out to become as waste free as I possibly could, for a week. A whole week of collecting my trash and taking different alternatives if need be. I ate out less and used reusable bags and water bottles whenever I could, and if I produced any trash, I put it in a reusable shopping bag and brought it home to collect it. I then, at the end of the week, would weigh all my collections and see just how much waste we really produce. My mother, Vanessa Power, and my father, Eric Power, helped take part. I had my mother try to go as waste free as possible, alongside me, and I had my father continue his life as regular, but along the way, collect all the trash and waste he created. We then would all weigh our results and see the effects our existence puts on the world.

The week started out relatively easy, the only waste really coming from when we would prepare food for the night, like plastic from the ingredients and paper from the napkins we were using. Of course, there was waste during the week that we were unable to account for, like bath tissue and containers that we hadn’t finished the contents of, but we simply estimated weight at the end of the experiment by adding a few more tissues or a plastic water bottle. School and work was where I found the most difficulty. I used to take advantage of the free lunches provided at the school, however, after realizing that so much waste was coming from one meal, I realized I had to start packing my lunch instead. I used reusable silicon bags, cloth napkins, and metal silverware to ensure that I was not being overly wasteful. At my work, I would, before the experiment, make something for myself and eat it there, however, I realized how much waste that single act was producing, so, like in school, I began to pack any snacks or dinner I may need while working. I had already used a reusable water bottle, so I found no trouble adjusting to that, but I found myself needing to prepare a lot more food to not only eat, but to travel with. I couldn’t pick up a granola bar on my way out the door like I was used to, instead I would make an egg and would take time to put it on a glass dish and eat it at my own house before I left for school. 

The world generates 3.5 million pounds of waste per day, equaling out to about 4.4 pounds per person, per day. Which is about equal to the weight of a bag of sugar. It equals out to about 1,600 pounds per year, which is unacceptable. I talked to Vanessa Power, my mother, before and after the experiment began, about her thoughts involving waste production and how big of a problem it is in today’s society. “It’s a plague” she said. She went on to talk about how she has always been conscientious about her trash and where it is going. She tries to recycle and reuse as much as possible in her household, but sometimes it slips her mind because of her privilege to be able to ignore it. Eric Power, my father, answered in a similar fashion. Acknowledging that he tries his hardest, but lets it slip his mind because it isn’t a top priority for him sometimes. Vanessa admitted that it took a lot of effort to think about her waste and collect it, instead of just throwing it away like she normally would, “It took a lot more brain power and focus to realize what I was doing.” At the end of the week, we brought our collections together, my father’s being significantly larger than mine and my mother’s. We weighed the results, subtracting the weight of the reusable bag from the result. My weeks’ worth of trash came out to about 2.3 pounds, my mother’s, 2.8 pounds, and my father’s, 5.3 pounds. My mother and I, while consciously making a difference in our trash consumption and disposal, were able to cut the daily average in half. However, my father produced about 1 pound over the daily average. 

The results spoke for themselves. While it was difficult and took a lot more brain power to complete throughout the week, the work payed off and showed us that our carbon footprints matter and are very much present. While this society revolves around efficiency, we forget the impact of our daily decisions and the consequences that those can present for future generations and the Earth as a whole. It is important to remember why we are here and how to help save our planet before it is too late. This experiment made me open my eyes to what kind of life I have been living and has made me more aware to the fact that I must change my ways. And while a lot more effort went into this than expected, it helped to lessen waste, and for that, I will be forever glad that I did this.