Actually, it's not just me. We are all drowning, but not in water. We are drowning in trash. Drifts of trash along the highway, piles of trash on the street corners, bins full of trash on the loading docks. Mountains of trash. Rivers of trash. And as soon as it gets cleaned up and hauled away, there is new trash already there to take it's place.
The biggest culprit in this trash onslaught is Municipal Solid Waste, or MSW for short (I didn't make that up, that's a real acronym). This is made up of all the stuff we throw in the trash every day. Everything from old toasters to half eaten sandwiches. From cans of paint to used tissues. Clothing, newspapers, candy wrappers, junk mail, broken glasses, boxes, bottles, etc. The list goes on and on. As a consumer nation we buy and buy and buy. And as things break, wear out, or are simply outdated we throw dump, dump, dump. Unless you have recently been featured on an episode of Hoarders, you are most likely contributing to the problem.
And it's not just what we throw away at home. MSW comes from homes, businesses, hospitals, factories, schools anywhere there are people there is MSW. In 2010 we Americans generated 250 million tons. That's a lot of trash. But as much as that was, it actually represents a decrease. In 2005 we generated 253 million tons. So we are learning and improving. Slowly but surely. But before we pat ourselves on our collective backs, 250 million tons is still a lot of old sneakers and Snickers wrappers. We may be getting better but we still have a long way to go.
Our prolific generation of trash has been helped along by population increases, but that alone is only part of the equation. In 1960 each person generated 2.68 pounds of trash per day. By 2010, even after it had started to decrease, the number was still 4.43 pounds per person per day.
How do we stop this massive flow of trash? There are three main ways to stem the tide. The first way is source reduction. This means finding ways to stop creating things that will be thrown away in the first place. Reduce packaging, extend product life, increase the ability to repair something instead of replacing it. It seems that these are things we have been actively working against in the past 50 years and it's time to reverse the trend.
The second way is through recycling. Here, at least, we have made good strides. In 1960 recycling was only at 6.4 percent of the total waste stream. In 2010 we had managed to get that figure up to 34 percent. In some areas, like newspapers, we are over 70 percent recycling. Better, but still only one component.
The third way is composting. Composting involves collecting organic waste, such as food scraps and yard trimmings, and storing it under conditions designed to help it break down naturally. This resulting compost can then be used as a natural fertilizer. Win win, yes, but this is probably the most difficult to implement in many places because by its very nature, compostable waste doesn't store well and is messy and smelly to transport. Composting in your home is not so hard, but at work it can be difficult. On the other hand, a rotting banana peel is a much better addition to a landfill than a plastic soda bottle so if we lag a little bit behind on composting that's better than in other areas.
Coming back to recycling while it may sound high to say we have 70% newspaper recycling we should really ask ourselves why we don't have 100%. 70% is o.k., and it is better than 0%, but a 70 is a low C . Almost a D . We can do better than a C . Newspapers don't rot and get smelly. We usually read them at home or at work or even on the train - all places that usually have recycling bins. And if we are really reading one in the park it is still not such a burden to hold on to it until we get to one of those other places and find a recycling bin. In fact, paper in general really should be much closer to 100% and that includes office paper. There are so many places with recycling containers now that it is just not that hard to make sure that all of your paper winds up in recycling.
On the other hand, there are times when you can't put paper in a recycling bin. Confidential information like payroll reports, customer credit card information, patient health records these are all things that you can't just drop into a recycling bin in the hallway. They need to be shredded, of course. But this doesn't have to mean that you can't also recycle. Just make sure that the shred company you use recycles the paper after it has been shredded. Get green yourself, and do business with companies like Iron Mountain that are getting green. And let's not settle for a C - let's work to turn that into an A !
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Actually, it's not just me. We are all drowning, but not in water. We are drowning in trash. Drifts of trash along the highway, piles of trash on the street corners, bins full of trash on the loading docks. Mountains of trash. Rivers of trash. And as soon as it gets cleaned up and hauled away, there is new trash already there to take it's place.
