This article was posted in PlanetThoughts.

A San Francisco man has saved over a year of trash because he ran an experiment in consumption. For one year, 35-year old professional caterer Ari Derfel kept every tissue, receipt, food wrapper and plastic bottle inside bins located in his kitchen and living room apartment. Ari even organized the trash by type, so it could be “seen, felt and understood more clearly.”

What started out as dinner with three friends ended up with him collecting his trash in his kitchen closet. His original intention to get two 96-gallon bins from the local waste management company did not get through because “it was illegal to keep trash in bins and not have it removed regularly.”

So what has he learned from his project? In his own words:

1. The vast vast vast majority of trash comes from food packaging.
2. When I ask people to put prepared food in my own containers it disrupts their flow and makes them think.
3. Saving trash leads to increased consciousness of what I consume.
4. Recycling sucks.
5. It doesn’t take much to make a big difference.
6. Trash sucks.
7. Changing is fun, much more fun than it is stressful.
8. Cleaning out food packaging takes time and is necessary to get rid of odors and to ensure bugs and rodents are not attracted to it.

Ari is planning to start a second year to see if he could make less trash then he did the first year. He also hopes to attract some other people to do it with him, “perhaps make it a national competition for fun to see who can make the least amount of trash in a year”. On top of that, he also plans to film the second year and to make a fun, interesting, funny, informative documentary about it. So if you want to help out, now is the time.

And here’s a poll: How much do you reduce, reuse and recycle?
(polling closes on Jan 25th)