Challenge – Show Us Your (Plastic) Trash!
Beth throws down the gauntlet, upon which Soots proceeds to gnaw. Nom nom nom! It is plastic, after all. Yummy!
So as you all know, I’ve been collecting and tallying my own plastic trash for almost two years. The experience has been educational for me, and I hope, for readers of this blog. I’ll keep doing it. But now it’s your turn.
THE RULES:
1) Collect all of your own plastic waste for a minimum of one week. (Longer is okay, too, but try to separate out the weeks’ collections.) What qualifies as yours? Anything that benefits you. So, if your housemate or significant other brings home a tub of yogurt that you both share, the tub goes in your tally. But if you hate yogurt, never touch the stuff, and wouldn’t have bought it for yourself in a million years, it’s not your responsibility. What about stuff for your kids? I’ll leave that up to you. Whatever you decide, just be consistent about collecting it. Personally, I’d be very interested to see how much plastic waste is generated by babies, since I don’t have children myself.
2) Try to live the way you normally would. It doesn’t help to artificially reduce your plastic consumption for the sake of a one-week tally if you will go back to living with more plastic afterward. Think of this exercise as a scientific experiment. Nothing more.
3) At the end of the week, take a photo of your stash and list out the items. You might also want to include details about what things are recyclable in your community or not.
4) Guilt is not encouraged. Nor are comparisons with other people whom you perceive to be doing “worse” or “better” than you in terms of plastic waste. This exercise is for purely educational purposes. Guilt doesn’t help.
5) After tallying your plastic waste, try answering the following questions:
- What items could I easily replace with plastic-free or less plastic alternatives?
- What items would I be willing to give up if a plastic-free alternative doesn’t exist?
- How many of these items are from “convenience” foods that could be made from scratch with less packaging but might take more time to prepare?
- What items are essential and seem to have no plastic-free alternative?
- What lifestyle change(s) might be necessary to reduce my plastic consumption?
- What one plastic item am I willing to give up or replace this week?
- What other conclusions, if any, can I draw?
6) Guilt is unnecessary.
7) Email your photo, tally, and answers to questions to me along with as much personal info as you feel comfortable sharing: Geographical location, gender, housemate/relationship status, work status (at home or away from home), children living with you, etc. These factors might influence the amount of plastic waste you generate and would be interesting to know, but are completely up to you of course.
8) If you have your own blog, feel free to post your tally, etc. there as well. And let me know the URL so I can link to you.
9) There is no time limit for doing this exercise. I would love to publish a series of “Show Us Your (Plastic) Trash” posts over several weeks or even months, depending on the response.
10) Guilt will only get in the way of understanding. It’s not needed for this challenge.
11) Seriously.
Who’s in?
Hi Aaron. Looking forward to hearing about your experience with the challenge!
I’m in! Thanks for the push. 🙂
Am starting today.
@Chile — I was messing with Rob. I really want everyone to make their own rules and stick to them. For you, being one of the thriftiest people in town, I’d say don’t count it unless it’s ready to be thrown away… no matter when you purchased it… because you’re not buying new ones anyway.
The point is that it doesn’t help if everyone continues to buy new plastic but doesn’t count it because they intend to find an alternate use for it. It doesn’t help to collect a million plastic bags in your house. But that’s not what you’re doing.
(I heard Rob and Arduous are forming a band. I think you’d be great in it!)
To everyone — figure out the rules that feel right for your situation and stick to them. Just be clear about what they are when you write up your analysis.
Oh Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob. What do you think? 🙂
Reuse is fine. Reduce is better. We know you are the master of finding alternative uses for things. The DIY king. But for purposes of this challenge, I would like to see you play the guitar instead of the piano. (Oops. Sorry. Just finished watching American Idol.) I mean tally your plastic before you reuse it. And then feel free to show us exactly how you will reuse it.
Of course, you could also tell me to shove it, but you did ask my opinion, right?
You and Ruchi should start a band.
@Ruchi — I would say it’s up to you how knitty gritty you want to be… just be consistent about it… and do separate out items that are made of plastic vs. items that are simply coated with plastic. You won’t be able to get an accurate weight (if you choose to weigh your plastic) for those items since they are mostly paper or metal. Also, not all glossy paper is coated with plastic. Some gloss is from clay. Sometimes it’s hard to know what is plastic and what isn’t.
The main point of this exericise is to heighten your own awareness, so whatever works for you is what you should do. Since you’ve already been working on reducing your plastic for a while, maybe you want to push yourself harder. On the other hand, with the stresses of schoolwork, maybe you just want to give yourself a freakin’ break. Either way, you’ll get no judgement from me!
Love ya!
@Lisa — it can be any week you want to do it. There is no time limit. I’d like to keep it going for a while. So start when you’re ready.
@techie_chick — love your idea of starting right away — and I am sure your tweet about throwing stuff away was a joke, right?
@Cheap Like Me — Do you want to cross post on Fake Plastic Fish?