Just read an AP story about Ari Derfel, a Berkeley caterer, who saved his trash for a whole year, composting food scraps. He apparently kept every tissue, every receipt, plastic bottle, and wrapper and put them in bins in his apartment. Here's Mr. Derfel's saveyourtrash blog. I just emailed him to ask if he would do an interview for the blog. Got the photo from Mr. Derfel's blog via The San Francisco Chronicle (photo by Kim Komenich)
5 comments:
Wow, great story. Thanks for those links.
I didn’t think we generated much trash until I started weighing it for the Riot for Austerity project. Even now that we’re done with catalog season, about 4 lbs. goes to recycling and 2 lbs. goes to the landfill every week. That adds up to a scary number over the course of a year. We’d have to seriously alter our shopping habits to do any better.
I know what you mean about having to make some deeper sacrifices just to make more of a dent in reducing consumption levels -- and you and your husband are already doing a whole lot towards that end as it is.
For Mr. Derfel, as per the SF Chronicle article, he saved what amounts to 96 cubic feet of waste for one person and I'd be curious to find out how much that would weigh.
How did you weigh your trash? Would it be hard for my family to do the same for a week? Please feel free to send any links to previous posts you might have on ths topic, to help broaden the discussion! Hope you are having a happy new year!
Hmmm, now that you mention it, I’ve never described my specific technique.
I have a bathroom digital scale that weighs to the nearest 0.2 lb. It’s not sensitive enough to measure only two pounds at a time, though. So I step on and get a current measurement for myself. Then I step on again with garbage sack in hand and get a measurement for myself plus the garbage. I subtract the first value from the second to find the weight of the garbage alone.
For recycling, I have an additional step of subtracting the weight of the curbside tub, which is surprisingly heavy at 5.2 lbs. even before it’s filled.
Hope you’re having a happy new year, too! Ours is off to a good start.
Ohmygosh, that's brilliant. I could do that and not feel too embarrassed dragging in my recycling and paper bins long enough to weigh ourselves. But I better not get any lip from the paper bin about my weight, the pot being black, and all that.
is that guy crazy?
i can't belive he saved his trash for a whole YEAR!
i like your blog, but you find some wierd things!
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