(image via blog.envirosax.com)
Gooood Morning SuperForest!
Have you ever asked yourself what exactly trash is? I picture trash bags on the curb awaiting pick up. I picture vast land fills, where bulldozers compress our trash into layers beneath studded metal tires. Our current system for dealing with trash is totally unsustainable, but there is another way.
Consider, what would happen if starting today, you took total responsibility for the trash that you produced?
Here at Zero One, we use a system that has dramatically decreased the amount of trash we put out. And the reason is this: We’ve discovered what “trash” actually means.
Trash means = the unusable airspace between recyclable objects. So, trash = nothing!
Look at the average bag of trash and you’ll see what I mean. Inside, we find kitchen scraps. These nutrient rich scraps are perfect for composting and adding to the garden, so let’s collect them and set them aside. The paper goods and bathroom trash can also be composted, so those come out too. Now, let’s collect the aluminum and glass for either re-use or recycling. Okay, what’s left… Plastic.
Accepting that plastic comes in many forms, types, and modes of recyclability, let us treat it as a whole mass and look at it all objectively. There are bigger plastic objects, usually made of hard, sturdy plastic, like detergent bottles and water bottles. There are very soft and pliable plastic objects, like cling wrap, ziplock bags, and packaging. And there are food containers which are sort of in between. Now our goal is: condense the plastic into as small a space as possible.
To do this, we take all of the soft and medium hardness plastics and shove them into the big sturdy plastics. Plastic bags and ziplocks get rinsed and shoved into the bottles as well. Food containers get scissored into spirals and condensed. A short stick is used to ram the soft plastic into the plastic bottles and in the end we end up with very sturdy, very rigid plastic bricks which will last for an eternity if one cared to build something out of them, and we generate very little trash.
Build something clever using indestructable bricks, or simply stockpile them, the result is the same: A drastic reduction in the amount on trash one produces. As in, a 90 percent or greater reduction.
Trash, in the case of most trash bags you see actually means: the airspace between recyclables, compostables, and plastic bricks.
It is up to you, SuperForesters, to reduce that airspace and thereby reduce the amount of trash you produce.
Where you compost those compostables, re-use those recyclables, and store those plastic bricks is the topic for another post.
Who is up to the task of saving the world? The world awaits your reply.
Love,
Jackson
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