How much trash do the Sammons generate during a typical week?

Beginning Saturday, the Sammons family started keeping track of their garbage. Good times!!! We are keeping track of all the trash we generate. Each family member decorated a trash bag and is responsible for putting their own trash in their bag. We weigh each bag at the end of each day. After we weigh it, we sort the trash, the recycling, the compost, and any other reusable/repurpose-able/donate-able items. (And in order to keep our trash from getting on our donatable items, they are placed in other bags before being placed in the "trash" bags. Not exactly green, but I'm sure appreciated by anyone coming in future contact with the non trash items pulled from the trash!) We then weigh it again to get a difference in weight between total "trash" and real trash that is headed for a landfill.

Alternative motive alert: my children often forget to throw their garbage away anywhere. I often find gum wrappers on the table, food wrappers on the counter, papers all over their rooms-so I am hoping to teach a habit here as well! (Yet, heaven forbid anyone try to put a recyclable item in the trash, then they show up out of nowhere and turn into the crazy recycling police!)

I recently read that each person in America produces about 4.4 pounds of garbage each day which translates to 29 pounds a week or 1600 pounds a year! GROSS! I also heard a story of a woman who responded "Richmond doesn't have a problem with garbage" when my friend was telling her how she recycles and composts! Ick! I realize most people turn a deaf ear to the sage advice "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" sometimes-but really? How hard is it to throw paper, cardboard, cans and glass bottles and jars in a bin? The city of Richmond, Virginia (and surrounding 'burbs) picks up recycling for free every other week and you don't even have to sort the recycling! I just don't get the thought (or lack of thought) behind that! I have friends (and family members-eh hum) that don't recycle for other reasons (or no reason at all). But to think that your city doesn't have a problem, so why bother seems really myopic to me!

Anyway, I wanted to know where our family falls in the trash generating scheme of things and to see how big of an impact our attempts at saving the earth have! I also wanted to see what kind of impact small, easy, green steps can make. I definitely feel like there is a guilt that comes with trying to do the environmentally right thing and coming up short. Or feeling that one person's garbage cannot make that big of an impact, after all, even if you removed 100% of one person's trash-what a drop in the bucket that seems compared to the garbage of 285 million Americans and all of the industrial waste. Or the overwhelming feeling that you must live a completely green life with all the effort that takes or what's the point?

So, I am the first to admit I am usually an "all or nothing" kind of gal. I lose weight or gain it. My books are arranged alphabetically by subject, but my laundry seldom gets put away.  I just can't seem to do most things in moderation. The one exception is saving the Earth! I do what I can, but don't beat myself up for what I can't (or don't). I bring my own re-usable bags when I go shopping and we try to recycle what we can. We compost all compost-able items and try to make sure we turn off any electricity that we are not using. But there are things that just don't make sense for my family and I'm okay with that. I have yet to find a bike that fits 6 children and a week's worth of groceries from Costco, so I drive a (gasp) SUV. I enjoy taking a bath (and locking the door so I actually can hear my own brain every once in a while) and can't get the same relief from a 47 second cold shower. I don't relish the thought of not flushing the toilet after each use (and especially after someone else's use!) We use mostly environmentally friendly products, but we have lots of stains and a desire to (at least) appear clean-so it's Tide with Bleach for me! (But I must admit to loving Ecos organic lavender laundry detergent too). And as much as using Tom's of Maine makes me feel like a really cool, hippy chick,  my teeth don't feel clean and my pits don't feel sweat-proof when I use that stuff (I'm sure it's just my peculiar biological make-up, but-whatever). The point being, I really believe that doing small stuff can make a positive impact on our earth (or at least prevent a negative impact form being made!)

One small, easy change that lots of people can make is to stop accepting receipts from the places that offer them, but only print them if you want one (ATMs, Starbucks, Gas Pumps). Obviously, if there is a problem with your purchase, or you need to keep your receipts for any reason, you need to get them, but many of us don't need paper receipts for these things. I read in The Green Book by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen that ATM receipts are one of the leading sources of litter on the Earth! Wowza!

Anyway, we are going to give this measuring our garbage a go! I can't wait to see what we learn!

Of course I decided that our garbage receptacles should be fabulous! So I had each of my moppets decorate a grocery bag. When they were halfway through, and I saw how hard they were working, I thought to tell them that these bags would not become a permenant part of our decor. (Okay, I thought this was a given, but they acted genuinely surprised-huh?! That explains a lot!)

In the couple of days we've been doing this,we've already learned so much. I can't wait to see what is revealed by the end of the week!