Earth Day = Garbage Day

This past Thursday was Earth Day

Woooo! A day dedicated to mother earth. The planet that created us, houses us, feeds us and keeps us ALIVE!

As we all know, the world is coming to an end, the planet is beyond salvageable etc etc.

Rather than give up and continue on the road to destruction, I like to try to think positive. One one hand, I do understand that it is most likely too late to reverse the damage we have caused to the planet. So ... to hell with it. We may as well do whatever we want and enjoy the fish and glaciers while they're here right?

Nah.

Giving up is too easy. I believe that with enough education and awareness and pressure we might be able to make our existence on this planet last just a little bit longer.

I am in no way an advocate of complete green living. It is near impossible not to create garbage, to use energy, to burn fuel. But I like to think of it as 'every kilowatt counts' and that small change is good change.

So, on earth day, I decided I would carry around a bag with me all day and put every piece of garbage i created into it.

This was hard for me to stick to at first. I did throw away my apple at 9am, not yet fully awake. But I figure this counted as organic waste and wasn't too big of a loss in my experiment.

I went to starbucks, in went my cup.

I went to chinatown and bought some porkbuns, in went a paper bag and three tinfoil wrappers

I went to a coffeeshop ( second one in 2 hours zooing), had my coffee there but put in my paper muffin wrapper

Went to work and put in ALOT of trash.

By the end of the day I had collected:

4 milk bags (not recyclable)

1 coffee beans bag (not recyclable)

1 plastic rotisserie chicken container (says recyclable but unless you clean all the chicken grease off it isnt)

1 plastic grocery bag

1 plastic cellophane bag (not recyclable)

2 napkins (used, therefore not recyclable)

1 wetnap + foil package (not recyclable)

1 starbucks cup + lid + sleeve

2 brown paper bags

8 plastic food service gloves (not recyclable)

3 post-it notes

3 plastic spoons (not recyclable)

5 pieces of raffia (not recyclable)

2 sticker sheets (not recyclable)

1 sheet parchment paper (not recyclable)

17 receipts (not recyclable)

32 truffle cups ( not recyclable)

I was a little disappointed - I was hoping for MORE!

( which seems kinda counter intuitive) *editor boo is this the right use of that expression?

But... It was interesting to see how much trash I created. Just me! In ONE DAY!

This list also doesn't include all the take-out coffees and gelatos I served, toilet paper, paper towel, and all other 'behind the scenes' garbage that was created by my actions or purchases that day.

In the end I sortof want to keep doing it... It's fascinating.

I will also try harder to create less garbage.

So, mission successful. For me atleast.