Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Final Post

So the two weeks are up. The camping trip screwed up my no trash goal a bit. My friends brought all disposable plates and such. I could understand, we had to be really careful about not creating any food remnants that would draw bears. All our food and trash had to go in a bear proof box, which my friend could hear being jostled both nights. So it didn't really matter that we were careful not to spill any food remnants on the ground, and walked 20 feet from camp to spit out toothpaste. But the 2 weeks up to this point worked out well. If I had kept the trash in my tent, legend has it I'd have a big bear ransacking my tent and sleepy body for anything smelling tasty in it.

Unfortunately, my trash was thrown away at the end of the weekend. The majority was emergen-c packets, some plastic wrap from to-go sandwiches, a tea bag envelope and a straw.

I will be passing along the exercise to my girlfriend Kris, who wants to try again. I've already been pretty trash conscious for years, this forced me to put in a little more effort by bringing compostables home with me. Hopefully this exercise will be widespread sometime soon.

Thanks Frogdesign!

Thursday, August 9, 2007

2nd entry

Not exactly day 2, I guess we're on day 6. So the intent is to carry around all your trash for two weeks, and minimize what's created. I've just put my trash (plastic bag) in my backpack which I carry with me to work, along with my tupperware for compost scraps and cloth napkin. I had such a hectic day yesterday at work, after a morning at the docs. I wanted to get a simple sandwich to take back to the office and get working, I forgot they wrap it in saran wrap, so I'll be carrying that around, at least it's compact. I gave back the plastic bag and napkins he gave me, which I've done many times anyway. I normally collect plastic bags I can't avoid and use them as little trashliners at home. Kris has been washing bags for reuse, come in handy when we go food shopping, we can just reuse the clear plastic bags for produce and bulk items. We made some potatoes and "sausage" last night for dinner, "sausage" made by tofurkey so it's mostly soy. It comes in a vacuum sealed plastic with cardboard wrapper. So I'll carry around more plastic, seems to be the primary source of trash for us. Kris bought a bunch of yogurt yesterday and I pointed out waste created, then realized you can recycle it, but she plans on using the containers to hold paint later for her projects.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

No trash for 2 weeks, first post

So I'm carrying on this project from my sister, who took it from a friend in NY who carried it from a friend in Cali. Seems the project spidered out in several directions from the originator, it would nice for an easy way to tally how many have been doing it.
First some links, the project originated from this woman: http://www.frogdesign.com/frogblog/
My sister again, was my connection to this project, this is her blog: http://gaillimjoco.blogspot.com/

So I picked it up from her on Saturday August 4th 2007, the intent is to minimize the amount of trash being created during two weeks as much as you can. The goal is no trash, and to make one aware of how much trash they actually create on a daily basis. We're supposed to carry around our trash for the 2 weeks period, and compost and recycle whatever can be.

My lovely girlfriend Kris is doing it as well. We met up with Gail (sister) on Saturday at a restaurant for breakfast. We ended up collecting teabags, doilies, and lots of leftovers which we put in a tupperware container to bring home and compost.

can't say I've collected anything yet over the past couple days. I didn't take a bag at Subway yesterday for lunch, so I just took home the sandwich paper and composted it. Luckily San Francisco collects compost, a great help.