Based on my findings throughout one day of my typical school weekday, I am not overally concerned about my waste production in the course of one day....this may change after looking at the numbers after they've been crunched in a course of a year.
On Tuesday, April 22, I threw away...
One empty toothpaste dispenser
2 plastic containers for One-A-Day contacts
One Water Bottle
About 10 paper towels
A Styrofoam container for to-go food
2 plastic forks
5 cans from various drinks
Wasted about 5 gallons of gas going to and from school and little activities
Over a course of a year those numbers would change into
About 12 toothpaste dispensers (not going through a whole one of those every day!)
730 plastic containers of contacts
About 365 plastic water bottles
3,650 paper towels
52 Styrofoam containers (don't get to-go food more than once a week)
730 plastic forks
1,095 plastic cans (Usually don't have more than 3 a day)
1,825 gallons of gas
These numbers are a little more startling...Which makes me think I may not be doing as well as I could. I could easily recycle the cans and plastic water bottles. Let's see how these numbers compare to the National average.
An average person waste about 4.3 lbs a day or about 1,569.5 lbs per year! This is 1.6 lbs more than back in 1960. About 2/3 of this waste can be composted. This means most of us, including myself are not doing their part. By just spending a little more time each day trying to recycle or not using certain wasting materials, we can all help out the environment a little more and try to reduce the waste impact we currently have on the environment.
