I started experimenting with trash a few years ago. The challenge was to produce as little waste as possible. Four years ago, I produced about a bag of trash a week, plus recycling. All my food scraps went in the trash. I started purchasing in bulk to reduce packaging intake, and started composting in my backyard. I started washing dishes instead of using paper plates. These small changes added up, and I soon went from a bag of trash a week to a bag of trash every two weeks.

Today, I generate about a bag of trash a month. Much of what gets trashed cannot be recycled or composted within San Francisco, or reused by me in some other way. It includes a lot of plastics and aseptic milk boxes, lids and other random things. I try to avoid products with bulky and non-recyclable packaging, but I haven’t been able to eliminate packaging all together as yet.

Although some people may find it strange to study waste, I find it fascinating. For those of you who share a similar interest, here are some images of my material output.

These discards were accumulated from January 27 to March 10, 2008, with the exception of seven days. The waste, pictured at right, weighs approximately one pound. It does not include two plastic dairy containers that were thrown away due to high mold density. Almost empty, these weighed less than one pound total.

The recycling, pictured on the left above and dumped in a blue bin below, was accumulated over the same time period and weighs approximately 15 pounds. It does not include four glass juice containers and two wine bottles that were reused to hold water for emergencies and reduce water usage in my toilet tank. My recyclables are mainly comprised of paper. The next step is to reduce paper output.

Not pictured are two bags of compost weighing five pounds each, which tends to be my average per month. An example is included in a previous blog.

Since my scales are not calibrated or extremely accurate, I was conservative in my estimates and asked a friend to confirm the trash bag weight. Even I was a bit surprised. Based on these estimated rates, the total diversion rate for the month by weight is 93%.

Recycling: 56%

Compost: 37%

Wasted: 7%

Not far from zero waste, but not yet there either.

I can’t tell you how often I have heard the name, Van Jones, without a real frame of reference for this man. When I worked Green Festivals, his name could frequently be heard as we discussed possible or planned speakers for the events. However, I never got to hear him speak since I was always working during these events. When I moved to San Francisco and spent some time working with Craigslist Foundation, his name came up again. We were looking for speakers for their Nonprofit Nights, but he wasn’t able to present due to prior engagements. I knew he must be good, and knew that he was involved with social justice work and was somehow linked to the environmental movement, but never took the time to learn more.

Out comes The Sun, the only publication I tend to read outside the world of recycling and resource management these days. Every month, The Sun features an interview with a prominent thinker or doer. The March interview titled Bridging the Green Divide is with Van Jones. Funny, although I came so close to Van Jones in my prior work and now my day-to-day life, it took a journal from my home state of NC to close the loop.

Although his main focus is in the area of human-rights and the need to help young people rise out of poverty and inner-city strife, Van Jones also links the needs of this community with those of the environment. In The Sun interview, he makes excellent points about how people of color and with lower incomes will make a huge impact on the environment. His points are right on.

For those who face the basic concerns of life like having enough food, making it to the next pay check, keeping a run-down car on the road, putting clothes on kids and stretching to pay the rent each month, there is no time to consider, much less do, anything about climate change. They cannot afford to buy a hybrid car or shop somewhere other than Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, there are a lot more of folks like this in the US than not, and their actions will have a potentially huge negative impact on climate change unless they are given a means to participate in the solution.

Van Jones is working to provide this means of participation by initiating technical training and job opportunities for those who would otherwise not be included in the green economy and movement. His vision is brilliant, and he has the knowledge and background to make his vision a reality. Already in Oakland, CA, a Green Jobs Corps has been created as a move in this direction. Their slogan? “Green jobs, not jails.”

I encourage you to read the entire interview, which is available via the linked interview title above. Although some of us have the ability to change our behaviors and habits to reduce our impacts on the environment, it will take a much larger number of people in the US to truly turn the tides of global warming. Thank you, Van Jones, for bringing awareness to this issue.

Beth Terry, who started the site fakeplasticfish, and I met by chance at a tour of the SF Norcal recycling center, and we later took the tour of Jepson Prairie together. She contacted me last week asking for information about why I had started my business, as she wanted  to include me in a write up of green focused business people on her blog. Her article is now available via the link below, along with a picture of the two of us. She did a great job with the information I sent her. Thanks, Beth!

The Business of Green Part 2: Janice Sitton of Good Green Graces

If you haven't check the Links & Resources page in a while, check it out! There are lots of new articles and resource links available for your reference. I continually collect resource links, and hope to add a section on plastics in the near future.

If you find an interesting article or internet resource you would like to share, please leave a comment with the web address. So long as it is related to recycling, composting, conservation of resources or something along these lines, I will gladly add it to the list.

I thought I would share the fun interchange that I had recently in the SF Examiner, a free, daily newspaper here in the City. I attended the meeting the original author, Russel Morine, referred to in his first letter, and wanted to present the other side of the story. He then questioned the public process by which alleged fee was being proposed, and I couldn’t stand for that. Apparently, I got carried away with myself. I checked the facts in my second response with one source, but I should have checked them further. I meant no hyperbole. I was merely trying to present the facts.

It should be noted that the editor chose the titles for the letters submitted. In regards to my second letter, it is not a matter of running out of space, but the cost in fuel, air quality, road maintenance and time better spent to haul, and bury, our resources. Instead of reusing these materials, there are those among us who would rather spend more money to throw them away.

Trash Added Fee on Waste (the letter that prompted my letter)

Don’t Like Fee? Recycle, Reuse (my first response)

Waste Fee out of Nowhere (Morine’s response)

SF Running out of Waste Space (my second response)

No Hyperbole on Waste, please (in response to last letter)