Day Ten - Trash picking

If you pick through your trash, what will you find? Chances are, it’s filled with a lot of things you only used once.

In an article for Vegetarian Times (Jan. ’06, by Alan Pell Crawford), the author interviews Joel Makower, editor of The Green Business Letter, a publication that advises corporations how to be “greener.”

Makower says, “The problem with landfills is the energy and resources used to make the stuff that goes into them. Over 95 percent of the things we buy--disposable razors, single-use water bottles-have a useful life of less than six weeks, and sometimes less than a day. Almost every environmental problem we face is a result of our own wastefulness. We pay a high price for being a consumer society, and not just at the checkout counter.”

When we shop, convenience is foremost in most of our minds.

Reducing your family’s post-consumer waste doesn’t have to be a huge project. Start with the little things. Buy a razor with replaceable blades, instead of the disposable kind. Buy family size instead of individual “fun” packs, use washable, re-useable plastic containers in lunch boxes instead of plastic bags. Change the way you think, just a little.

Tip for Day Ten – Consider the amount of use you’ll get from a product before you buy it.