Today is day two of our low impact week and it focuses on trash. The manual said to divide up the waste that we collected in our bag yesterday into piles of things we used more that ten minutes and things we used less than ten minutes. Mine was mostly things that I had used for less than ten minutes because it was for the most part and apple core and a banana peel, so I really didn't bother taking them out and dividing them up. This unit on minimizing out garbage output will definitely be a challenge. Most snacks I eat, if not fruit, are packaged in some sort of wrapper and the manual says to stay away from these things. I guess I'll just have to stick to fruit-only for the rest of the week, which isn't a bad thing.
The manual also talks about carrying reusable drinking containers around with us, which I already do with my Nalgene bottle on most days. The one way this week will be altered is that our public dining services at Burwell already offer reusable cups, plates and silver ware, so we won't even really have to try very hard to minimize trash output in those areas unless we do something else for meals. One thing I do in the mornings is drink juice, and once the bottle runs out I will have a large recyclable jug to do something with, so I will have to do something about that also. Right now, I think I can manage this garbage output pretty well.
The problem with Americans is that we are extremely wasteful people. We see this in Burwell every day. People trashing plates full perfectly edible food. That is the huge problem with having a place that is all-you-can-eat. I usually don't commit this offense because I'm on a healthy kick right now where I get a sandwich and a salad every day and definitely eat it all. Right now I think I have this garbage output situation on lock, but only time will tell how this will go. Maybe I just don't recognize my own wastefulness.
I had the same sort of trash in my bag with the apples and fruit. The main component in my bag though was the plastic bottles from water that i drink in the room. This was easy to cut back on by drinking out of my reusable cup that i got months back. I agree about the Burwell, it wont be to hard to cut back on what we eat for the main eating times. The snacks are what consume a college students trash.
ReplyDeleteI did not have much food in my trash bag because I tried to eat mostly at Burwell. Burwell washes and reuses all of their utensils which is something so obvious but I still did not think about it. I'm sure that saves a lot of money and wasted trash, but it also uses a lot of water to wash the dishes. I also agree with Matts statement saying that people waste a lot of food at Burwell. I am also guilty of this because my eyes are a lot bigger than my stomach, so I am going to try to not get as much on my plate anymore.
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