What I Learned Watching My Waste

The following post is written by NC State’s Waste Reduction and Recycling Office intern Cari Farrell, who took a three-day challenge to take a critical look at what she threw away and whether she was missing any opportunity to reduce, reuse or recycle.  

Being tasked with tracking my food, what it comes in, and how I dispose of it for three days really made me start to consider what parts of my life that affect others and the world around me.

For three days, I looked at what I ate and what I did with it. Despite having an apartment, I mostly eat on campus, indulging in Port City Java, food vendors at Talley Student Union and more diet soda than my dentist would like. Never before did I bother to think about what I disposed of related to those meals.

When I began recording for this challenge, I realized all the missed opportunities I had to do something better. I hadn’t noticed until then that Port City Java brown bags were recyclable (despite working there for my entire sophomore year!). There are probably hundreds of those bags sitting in a landfill somewhere because of me. I also noticed that when I’m in a rush to get a slice of pizza from the C-Store, not once have I put those single slice pizza boxes into a pizza box compost bin on campus. It really made me wonder: just how many resources am I wasting?

I always thought I did well at recycling, and maybe I do compared to others, but there’s so much more I could do. Thankfully I’ve noticed things like the new compost bins in Talley (and I’ve started making an effort to use them), but there are things I could still do better. For instance, my roommates and I ordered pizza last week but we need to remember to compost the box. My choice to wash dishes over buying Styrofoam plates certainly is good, but am I recycling the plastic bottle that my dish soap comes in? Am I making sure to use a washable dish rag instead of countless paper towels? Am I making every sustainable decision I possibly could?

Keeping track of my habits for three days really made me pay attention to how simple and easy it is to dispose of unwanted and unneeded items correctly. So, the next time I order pizza I’ll make sure to put the box in the pizza box compost bin and I’ll be sure to compost my plate at Talley. Hopefully you will, too.

 

Image credit: Flickr

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