Switching to reusable plastics, such as Nalgenes and Tupperware, could one day help save the planet, writes the CUI’s Sam Schanfarber. (Kai Casey/CU Independent)
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Have you ever carried around a Nalgene, not for the hippy mystique but for the practicality of having a reusable water bottle? Have you ever had to commute and use the same travel coffee mug every morning, its lid as stained as the backs of your teeth? At the very least, have you ever used a piece of dishwasher-warped Tupperware to store yesterday’s lasagna? Then rejoice, for you are on a fast track to quitting the trash game for good.
I’m not referring to having “trash” game, like people who are bad at basketball or drug dealers who never answer their phones. I’m referring to waste, litter, garbage. I’m speaking of everything from the contents of a landfill, to the plastics-only recycling bins neatly lining the halls of your campus, to the scraps of vegetables you just dumped into the trashcan under your sink. Essentially anything you’ve ever run out of use for becomes garbage.
Consider a world in which we don’t waste, a world where worth comes from longevity, not instant gratification to be buried in your community’s backyard.
In 2012, Americans generated about 251 million tons of trash, recycling and composting a further 87 million tons of waste. If America’s garbage for a year was compiled into one large site, that landfill would have to be dug as deep as a 40-story building is tall, and would still span over 1,000 acres of land.
That’s before we even acknowledge the waste from recycling and compost. Although recycling and composting are hugely beneficial, as they allow us to reuse materials or produce potent soil, both processes are expensive and time consuming, and take up valuable space and resources.
Right now you’re probably thinking, “Is it really possible to live without throwing something in a trashcan every few hours?” But before you go clutch your trashcan and utter sensual words of wasteful appreciation, I’m here to tell you that it would be far easier than you could imagine to quit making trash. Producing zero consumer waste could be as simple as embracing the handful of scenarios at the beginning of this article, but on a larger scale.
Let’s take a walk through the ideal grocery store of tomorrow. Like all sane people, you hit the produce section on the right hand side first. But instead of bagging the apples you just tested for firmness, you drop them neatly into the back of your cart. Fascinatingly, just as they weren’t rotting while exposed in the store, they don’t immediately turn brown in your cart outside a plastic bag.
You walk on. Pasta and rice that once came in cardboard boxes you now scoop from a large, Whole Foods-style barrel, dumping your selections into plastic (or glass, depending on how gaudy you are) containers that you brought from home. Refrigerated and frozen goods are sold in a similar fashion. The glass jug you bring for your orange juice can even work as a table ornament. At the checkout line — admittedly parched from hauling dozens of glass and plastic containers full of food — you fill a sticky Nalgene with soda from a dispenser, feeling the planet’s appreciative love behind your clogging arteries.
The point is that most of the packaging we depend upon could be done away with if it weren’t for lazy consumers. There are few items in the world that truly qualify for packaging that can’t be provided by the consumer.
We may be decades, even centuries, from reaching a state where going to the grocery store requires your own reusable materials, chiefly because I’m going to sue anyone who steals my idea from this article. But there are ways to start reducing your waste now. Be the snarky hipster at Starbucks that gets 10 percent off every cup of coffee by bringing in a filthy Snoopy coffee mug and feel the egotistical appeal of looking down on others. Wear the sweatshirt you just bought right out of the store — you looked rough walking in, anyway. If you have less than half a dozen items at the grocery store, carry that shit out with the hands God gave you and stop asking for plastic bags. The landfill in your backyard isn’t going anywhere. Why keep adding to it?
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Sam Schanfarber at Samuel.schanfarber@colorado.edu.
