Trash(Environmental)

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We recycle, what few clothes we don't completely wear out, we donate. The only food remains that don't have another purpose is chicken/turkey bones(some of those get boiled for soup), and we still have a kitchen-sized bag of trash a week. We have a compost pile, chickens, a dog, cats. Guess city folk can't have all that. I was noticing some houses have up to 10 bags a week waiting to be picked up. Where is all this trash coming from? How sad that there's so much waste.

Guess I just needed to rant.

What are your thoughts on the subject of TRASH?

-- Cindy (SE In) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), March 11, 2001

Answers

I get one grocery bag a month,, its mostly the strofoam from packaged meats.

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), March 11, 2001.

IT is incredible how much trash we Americans generate. Hubby and I were commenting last week as we passed a landfill on the way home from town, how much of it has filled up since we moved here. Hard to believe there could be that much trash. As we sat outside Sam's selling girl scout cookies yesterday, I was noticing people's carts as they left. Almost everything is double and triple wrapped. A lot of that could be eliminated in my opinion. Jan

-- Jan in CO (Janice12@aol.com), March 11, 2001.

If you take in your own large canvas bag to bring home your groceries instead of bringing them home in all those little plastic bags, they eye you suspcisiouly like you're trying to steal the store! We need to EDUCATE as many people as possible about the waste!

We throw away and throw away....it's ridiculous. I'm not a "radical" environmentalist....but I do believe we will be held accountable for the way we waste things!

-- Suzy in 'Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), March 11, 2001.


Family of 3, 1 bag every 2 weeks.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), March 11, 2001.

What I hate are "country folk" that seem to think the sides of the road or an empty field are their personal dumping grounds!Here in KY, it seems that there is no solution to the problem.

-- nobrabbit (conlane@prodigy.net), March 11, 2001.


I didn't realize there was already a thread about trash on here. Oh well, this one's a little different.

-- Cindy (SE In) (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), March 11, 2001.

Can you say "consumerisum"? DO not get me started!!! My in laws look down thier noses because I buy my step son clothes from "JCPenny outlet store". when I do buy them.

I TRY to recylce card board, aluminume... Last time I took aluminume to LIberty DH made fun of me, but the funny thing was that 90% was his beer cans. I just have to smile and shake my head. The meak shall inhearit the earth... or what is left after the waistfull have thier way with it...

-- red hen (redhen@fiberia.com), March 11, 2001.


Can't blame it on the burbs.... I only have maybe... MAYBE one tiny bag per week. I even recycle most of the styrofoam for crafts - and the dogs get the bones - even chicken, etxc (just not the 'splinter' bones off the drumsticks). Some of my neighbors are rediculous (Sp) I can't figure how lazy they are that they have so much trash!!!

We are allowed to burn here, but no one - even me - seems to do it. I don't need to (yet??), but there are some who could. Oh well.... I won't be here that long and once I'm on the farm, well, I won't have to look and wonder anymore!!!

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), March 11, 2001.


Question: What does Disney World do with its trash? Answer: Bury it in Tommorow Land and let someone else deal with it.

Seriously, I've seen articles to where landfills will be mined sometime in the future for the resources in them.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), March 12, 2001.


For 2, it's been 17 months between 30# bags here in the city where it cost $1 a bag to put out. Curbside recycling is free and we put out our bin every 6-7 months. (They make terrific laundry baskets to use in between.) It is a very passionate subject for me and a lot of fun in finding solutions. It's much easier than you would think by just being aware of packaging, your shopping and daily behavior. I HATE WASTE OF ANYTHING. I could write A TON on the subject. My MIL who lives alone puts out a bag every other week. I bite my tongue and keep quiet. Geez. Check out www.ZeroWasteAmerica.org.

-- Sandy Davis (smd2@netzero.net), March 12, 2001.


Ooops, I forgot to mention the best part--we practically live off of the good trash I pick up on Thursday, curbside shopping day! FREE is my favorite four-letter word!

-- Sandy Davis (smd2@netzero.net), March 12, 2001.

I think we've been generating about half a plastuc grocery bag every week. It would be less if I tried to recycle all the glass jars we've been breaking, but a lot of them have had jam and such mixed with the glass splinters, so what else can be done? I think people would generate less volum of trash if there was something with rigid sides that the garbage could be compressed into. Something like a paper feed sack could serve the same purpose. A lot of trash is stuff such as empty gallon jugs(that could be flattened), tin cans(that could be reused, burned, or packed with trash)and voluminous matierial that could be compressed into something and take up a fraction of the space (plastic bags, plastic wrapping and packaging). My husband was generating only one frozen juice can of garbage a week when I met him. He had a special stumpy wooden tool that he'd made for the purpose of packing the plastic trash firmly into the can. When it got full, he'd put it in his pocket and throw it away when he rode his bicycle to town (this is a grown man in his forties, not a teenager!).

I think the problem is our mindset and wrong values. Most care more about convenience and having everything they want whether they need it or not than even stopping to consider where all that garbage is going. A lot of people throw out perfectly usable stuff simply because they can't be bothered to take it to the thrift store on their way through town. Maybe a solution would be a public education campaign on recycling, composting food scraps and vegetative matter, donating usable stuff to the needy, etc, coupled with a stiff fee for each and every bag of garbage, and jail terms for roadside garbage dumping. Idealize awareness and environment conscious living, and lampoon crass commercialism in the media. A lot of folks get most of their opinions and mindset from the boob tube, so it should be easy to change!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), March 12, 2001.


I swear my kids generate trash just by being around..lol. Hubby generates a great deal of trash...usually 3 newspapers a day! I keep trying to tell him that no human needs that many but he doesn't listen. We use a good bit of our trash to start fires and that sort of thing and we burn the rest of the paper type stuff. Living on a farm and doing your own canning, milking your own cow(storage bottles are glass) and butchering your own animals greatly reduces the amount of trash. Our biggest trash item(other than newspapers) is soda bottles....gotta figure out a way to make Dr Pepper on the farm and my problems will be solved :o). Never figured out how many trash bags we fill in a given time but I'm sure it isn't nearly as many as most folks.

-- Amanda in MO (aseley@townsqr.com), March 12, 2001.

Hey Amanda- Lehman's sells kits for making homemade soda- not sure if they offer a Dr. Pepper version, but they do have several flavors to choose from. I was going to try one but decided to just quit drinking the stuff altogether. Making iced tea instead, and the used teabags go into the worm bin.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), March 12, 2001.

Can't you folks who throw away newspapers find a group that will accept them? Around here I donate them to the vets who have a trailer parked on their lot full time. Some schools, churches, scouts, etc. have paper drives regularly. Don't your even small towns have a recycling drop-off site where you can bring your CORRECTLY SORTED recyclables to? I notice them all over the state. Pay attention when you're driving and you might see a place you pass by regularly. :~)

-- Sandy Davis (smd2@netzero.net), March 13, 2001.


Another subject that can really get me fired up!...Our society is so wastefull it is pathetic. I got a smile out of the post on free stuff day when everyone puts out their garbage. It's amazing what gets thrown away. I have a Panasonic microwave oven that I've used the past 3 years that I found next to a dumpster in town. All it needed was a fuse replaced. We are a throw away society and I don't see much changing. I fish some lakes in E.Wash and everytime I go there I pick up piles of broken glass and garbage. I went out with my snorkle gear last summer and you could not believe how the bottom looked. Thousands of beer and pop cans! Everywhere I go areas are being closed because of the thoughtless slobs. Makes you wonder if anything will be left for our children.

-- Kent in WA (kent@premier1.net), March 14, 2001.

Here's a good one. There was one recycling place in the town north of us. The city closed him down because of the mess. He couldn't help it, everyone would drop off washers and ranges and stuff after he was closed and on the weekends. He said he didn't have enough help. He said when he gets it cleaned up, people drop off more stuff. So now he has to close, and those appliances will go down some gully somewhere. Why didn't the city help? And all the people who just dumped the stuff in his parking lot didn't help either. Around here, all one has to do is make a call, and someone who sells scrap metal will come get it. People are lazy.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), March 14, 2001.

Here is a thought: How about having the people who make the item we buy have a program set up on taking it back when it no longer is functioning. Like a stove. I'm sure they can recycle the metal and reuse it. Mandatory recycling? Maybe, if the company makes the item then they should be responsible for recycling it also? If it is not an item that an ordinary person can recycle IE: a newspaper can be burned in a wood stove. If it is something that the person who bought the item can not reuse their self than send it back to the manufacturer and let them deal with reusing the parts they can. Just a thought. I take canvas bags to the grocery store and the grocery store I usually shop at does not give you bags. You have to purchase them.

-- Heaven's Half Acre (FreeTrialSchoen@aol.com), March 14, 2001.

I have a reputation in my town as being a recycling fanatic which doesn't bother me at all. I was involved with our town's recycling committee for 12 years and have tried all kinds of ways to "educate" the masses but little luck. For years, I wrote a weekly article in our paper with info, tips, updates, suggestions, pleas, etc. It seems I was singing to the choir. Those who read were already doing; those who weren't doing didn't bother to read. I sometimes dreamed I was going door to door preaching recycling. I instigated environmental clean-ups of some of the really bad dumping places in town recovering thousands of discarded tires, appliances, car parts and other debris. I was lucky to have the cooperation of the owner of our local junk yard to recycle much of the junk recovered. I would also visit schools, clubs, and our local access tv station to spread the word.

Now, our town has gone to weekly curbside trash and recycling pickup. Glass, all 7 plastics, tin, aluminum, and all kinds of paper is accepted and yet I'm still amazed at how few people participate. How much easier can it be?

I am no longer on our recycling committee. Even fanatics get burned out after so long. But, I'm still an active recycler at home. I wash and reuse plastic bags and aluminum foil, roll newspapers into logs for our spring & fall "firewood". I carry my own canvas bags to the store. We have the bottle bill in Mass. so I return all bottes & cans to a recycling center. I use laundry tops for seedling starters, and egg cartons & dryer lint for firestarters. I remove and open up liners from cereal boxes and use them the same as I would waxed paper. I have found that if I think about it a few minutes, I can find some other use for things before just automatically tossing it out. I also watch what I buy and avoid over-packaged products. I also contact manufacturers if their product is something I'd like to buy but won't because of over packaging. And we compost just about everything except meat fat, bones, dairy products and grease. Those things I store in an empty icecream box in the freezer until it's full, then put out in the trash.

We feed birds and have chickens so I save the feed bags for trash and put out one about once a month.

I would love to hear if others have had success in turning the public tide towards active recycling in their community. We all need to do more.

Thanks for reading.

-- Dianne in Mass (dianne.bone@usa.net), April 09, 2001.


My beef is with our local recycling center. Recycling my foot. Half the stuff we bring they won't take. Why does the city gov't encourage recycling if the recycling centers won't take it?

jennifer

-- jennifer (schwabauer@aol.com), April 09, 2001.


everywhere

-- dani (none@nowhere.com), May 08, 2001.

Dianne, why don't you feed your meat fat and dairy products to your chickens? It's good for them, and will reduce the amount of stuff going into your ice cream carton in the freezer.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), May 09, 2001.

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