Living Simple to Me Means.....Reducing Waste

 Have you ever heard about this family? The family of four only throws away a couple handfuls of trash in the entire year! With the average person's trash totaling to about 1,600 pounds of trash a year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, this family has really made a conscious effort to reduce their waste to literally hardly anything. Bea, the mother of the family, explained their reasoning by saying,  "We set out to simplify our lives, and it turned into something good for the environment." She's also expressed how freeing it has been to downsize their lives not just by reducing waste but moving from a 3,000 sq ft home to a 1,400 sq ft home and not having any clutter in their home, only owning the minimal things that they actually need. They've reduced waste by bringing their own class jars, containers, and reusable canvas bags to the grocery store. They also use handkerchief, bamboo toothbrushes, and compost in the backyard.

After reading about their inspiring story and fully aware of how much our society consumes and throws away a lot of waste in the trash, I decided to document my trash from the last week of our apartment. I wanted to see how much trash we throw away with it only being the two of us.

Our trash in one week:

 This families trash in a year:

Obviously there is a big difference! Although I don't think I'm quite ready to be that savvy about my waste, I'm going to try this next week to recycle everything that can be recycled, and compost what I can. I think we can all do a better job at using the "3 R's" of reusing, reducing, and recycling. I hope to get some mental clarity like this family has in doing things that are good for the environment.












Green waste icon: http://www.mossenvy.com/Articles.asp?ID=142
Photos/Quotes/Articles: http://www.mossenvy.com/Articles.asp?ID=142
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20559312,00.html
Statistic: http://www.wisegeek.org/how-much-garbage-does-a-person-create-in-one-year.htm