As sustainability coordinator, I'm trying to help make our tour more sustainable.
But it's hard to be of the Captain-Planet-holiness-level when you're on the road full-time.
Take our trash, for example:
That's our trash from one breakfast + one lunch from one day on the road (between Louisiana to Oklahoma, for those who are following us on the map).
Ok, maybe that much trash from 13 people does not seem like a lot.
Let's look at the trash, though:
See those juices spill out. Yum.
Look at that Styrofoam!
And check out those soggy fries!
(Also, you can't tell from those pictures, but there were a few plastic containers in that bag as well. They were all #5's.)
Let's get serious now.
According to the EPA, 245 million tons of trash –about 4.5 pounds per person per day – was generated in the States in 2005. Why is so much trash a problem? Here are two important reasons: 1.) The number of landfills we have is decreasing. 2.) By generating so much trash that decomposes in landfills, and by buying more, newer stuff, we generate more greenhouse gas emissions.
Therefore, waste diversion, recycling, reducing, and reusing are great ideas for the environment. As the EPA states, "recycling, including composting, diverted 79 million tons of material away from disposal in 2005" –that's almost a third of the waste!
However, as I mentioned, recycling and composting is hard while on the road. Food comes in styrofoam containers, composting is a rarity on sidewalks of cities (although I will do a shout out for San Francisco here!), many numbers of plastic are not taken for recycling (here, though, we'll have a shout out for Boston, which takes #1-#7!), etc, etc. Other than for the few spots here and there, easily finding waste diversion options in our country has been quite the task….
To be somewhat more sustainable, we've been carrying around our plastic #1's and #2's, all of our cans, glass, paper, and cardboard (yes, on the bus), until we've been finding places that we can recycle these. (Yesterday, we recycled about 2 garbage bags full of plastic, glass, and aluminum!)
If anyone has anymore tips on how we can reduce our waste footprint (or how to be more sustainable in general, while on this tour), let us know…..
By: Sapna Thottathil
2 comments:
You guys need to avoid plastic bags.
Those things are not bio degradable otherwise nice going people. I told a few people here in Kenya and we are thinking of doing the same thing you guys are doing.
We are looking at the possibility of going all the way to south africa.
You guys are doing great work. Keep it up. It really doesn't take that much effort if you put your mind to it.
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