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| The Butterfly, the Beetle, and the Bee. | | Made from found objects, by Jami Joelle Nielsen |
At this week's Sustainable YOU conference, participants tried hard to follow Tim Center's
detailed instructions: There is a container for recycling, there's a container for composting (thanks to FAMU) and there's a container for trash. Here's what goes in each. . .
Meals and refreshments were served using biodegradable cutlery and plates, no meat could go into the compost, some things could only go into trash. Despite our best efforts, some rolls got into the recycling instead of compost and paper napkins caused a dilemma--clean and recycled or used and trash? Many people brought their own thermal coffee mugs from home, with not a bottle of water in sight anywhere.
Discussions around reduce, reuse and recycle were everywhere those two days. One question was: What if nothing were disposable? What if we, as consumers, questioned whether anything should be acquired that did not have some kind of life beyond its original purpose? Most us have learned the statistic that each American generates four and a half pounds of waste per day, (
Story of Stuff) but what does that really mean in terms of making purchasing decisions? Is it enough to recycle
most of the stuff and throw the rest into the landfill?
[Leon County outsources its landfill to Jackson County, so Leon residents can now add additional transportation to the cost of throwing something away.]
Check out the Beyond Disposable article
here and
There is no such thing as garbage—only wasted resources.
