The Green Smackdown: Talkin' Trash

Madame Trashheap got nothin' on me.

Boy, Nicole’s last post sure was a lulu, huh? Way to divert attention from the ol’ energy-sucking light bulbs by randomly pointing to some awesome new vertical farm. “Hey, look over there, guys. A giant skyscraper full of vegetables….” Come on, girl. Put your dukes up!

Anyhoo, enough about her, let’s talk about me. My meat-reduction plan has been going swimmingly. Over the past three weeks, I’ve consumed no animal flesh save yesterday’s helping of Easter brisket (legal under my meat-is-a-celebration clause), which was of the succulent, slow-braised with vinegar and onions variety, from a free-range, grass-fed, locally raised steer—i.e., totally worth it. Other than that, it’s been a very Asian diet of veggies, rice, and tofu for me, pretty much. But here’s a tip for anyone thinking of becoming a vegetarian: If someone offers you a banh mi made with “vegan chicken,” run away. Blech.

While I work on mastering such pratfalls of my new nutrition plan, I’m also moving on to the next step of my carbon diet: reducing the amount of trash I create in the world. Living in NYC, this is a pretty tricky thing to do. Every time you buy anything in New York, a well-meaning cashier tries to give it to you in a plastic bag. Since most people don’t have cars, it’s a pain in the butt to shop here, so everything under the sun (including beer, cigarettes, groceries, prescriptions, and random purchases from The Container Store) can be delivered—usually in several layers of cardboard boxes.  Lunch is generally a carryout affair, complete with individual Styrofoam trays, plastic containers, and wooden chopsticks. All in all, this amounts to a massive amount of unnecessary waste. And only a small portion of it gets reused, because NYC recycling is restricted to paper, aluminum, and numbers 1 and 2 plastic. (Also because PopSci’s cleaning team throws the contents of our recycling bins in the trash dumpster. Yeah. We’re working on this.)

I’m finding that the only real way to combat this tidal wave of waste is to do it on a very personal level: I try to remember to carry reusable tote bags with me to the grocery store, and when I’m there, I do my best to choose products with minimal packaging. Whenever I can, I refuse bodega bags (“No thanks! I can just put this, um, pint of ice cream in my purse…”) and when I get up early enough to prepare something, I bring my lunch to work in Tupperware (this one is tough for me because our office is located smack in the middle of the Korean/Indian/Japanese food corridor, and the takeout is oh-so-gratifying). And I skip the plastic bag for my wet workout clothes, and just put ‘em in a different compartment of my gym duffle.

I’m not giving up toilet paper like No-Impact Man or anything—although there’s a certain appeal to the Japanese washer-dryer toilets. I’m just trying to be less… trashy. How ‘bout you, Nicole? —Megan Miller

Comments

[Shaun]

So i was thinking about the plastic bags. And how you want to not use them. I think that is admirable and can make a difference in our society, but, For each person that says they dont want a plastic bag their is someone who asks to have all their good double bagged so your efforts have just been wasted on that one person. I think something that really needs to happen is the recycling of plastic bags, i know that their are SOME key word some grocery stores that have setups to recycle bags, i am thinking on a grander scale. I think all stores should have a location to recycle plastic bags, grocery stores and retails stores such as Giant, Safeway, Kmart, Walmart, Target, etc. Got to go back to the source and ask them to get involved in making a change. Also, have to prove to politicians the necessity of these issues so they can force changes.