Trash Talk

What's in your bag?

So, our activity is in full swing (read yesterday's post for details)...the clients have their garbage bags and are already beginning to add items, consider them, take them out and find better homes for them, etc. Which means it's working!

And not to brag - but I have nothing in my bag yet! I haven't thrown one thing away today. Everything I used was either reusable or recyclable. Cool.

And in the spirit of Earth Week...sit back and enjoy this stream-of-consciousness smattering of "trashy" facts.

Did you know:

**The garbage in a landfill stays for a for about 30 years.
**In 1995 over 200 of the world landfills were full.
**Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day.
**Most families throw away about 88 pounds of plastic every year.
**The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a traditional light bulb for four hours
**For every 2000 pounds of paper (1 ton) recycled, we save 7,000 gallons of water free from chemicals.
**Recycled paper requires 64% less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp, and can save many trees
**Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees
**The amount of wood and paper we throw away is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years
**14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year
**It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones
**5 billion aluminum cans are used each year
**84 percent of all household waste can be recycled.
**Computers pose an environmental threat because much of the material that makes them up is hazardous. A typical monitor contains 4-5 pounds of lead.
**Each year billions of used batteries are thrown away in the United States. This constitutes 88% of the mercury and 54% of the cadmium deposited into our landfills
**Approximately only 10 percent of every landfill can be cleaned up.
**One gallon of motor oil can contaminate up to 2 million gallons of water. so dispose of properly!

How Long Does Trash Last?

Have you ever thought about how long a piece of garbage will last after you throw it away? It doesn’t just disappear. It may remain in the ground for a long, long time.

Here’s how long scientists think it may take certain items in our garbage to decompose in a landfill:

(These times will vary depending on soil
and moisture conditions.)

* banana – 3 to 4 weeks
* paper bag – 1 month
* cotton rag – 5 months
* wool sock – 1 year
* cigarette butt – 2 to 5 years
* leather boot – 40 to 50 years
* rubber sole (of a boot) – 50 to 80 years
* tin can (soup or vegetable can) – 80 to 100 years
* aluminum can (soda pop can) – 200 to 500 years
* plastic 6-pack rings – 450 years
* plastic jug – 1 million years
* Styrofoam cup – unknown? forever?
* glass bottle – unknown? forever?

Interesting article on the subject: Break it down...and the comments on this one are actually quite entertaining.

Why we should care?

Well, we all know trash is a big problem: from finding a safe place to put it to finding ways to reuse, reduce, or recycle it; from keeping it from destroying the air we breath and the water we drink and the soil we grow our food in to keeping to from killing the wildlife in our skies, on our beaches, and in our oceans.

Want to see just how horrible it can be?



And it hits closer to home than some of us might realize; read this recent article: Dead Whale Found Filled with Trash on Seattle Beach

North of Home - April, Melissa

We take a back road near our house
upward to the north
hoping to reach water.

Dormant machines,
excavators, tractors, levelers
doze in grassed-over hideaways.
Silent weekend workers,
drummed up to rumble dirt
only when time allows,
they leave crusted trails
dried from last Sunday.

There is an muddy quality to the air,
dank, moldy, and musty.
Our son begins to cry in his stroller,
but we press on.

As we reach the crest of the hill,
the incline plateaus and reveals
a wide expanse of trodden ground,
a large, well-used fire pit,
cigarette wrappers, beer cans,
shotgun shells, faded targets,
miscellaneous bits of evidence.

I almost forget what I have come for.
I pull my gaze away from the open wood
and walk another 20 feet toward the trees.
Through them, I see the ocean,
frothy waves and black for miles
under a dark, falling sky.,

It is a heart-expanding view
in a heart-breaking frame;
The perfect place for a porch-swing.

We turn away and begin the quiet walk
back down to the main trail.

This poem is based on a walk I took several months ago with my husband and my son. We walk/run the Discovery Trail often, and since there are many residential back roads that branch off of the trail, it's easy to become curious about what's on them. This particular walk was meant to cure our curiosity. It did just that. And it kind of pissed us off, as well. All along that road we saw bottles, cans, chip bags, candy wrappers. It was shameful.

Funny how those who live closest to the land, people in rural areas, can sometimes be more thick-headed about the environment that those of more metropolitan or urban roots.

Hmmm...