People ask what’s in my garbage. Here’s what they could ask instead.
When I tell people I haven’t filled a load of trash since 2019, before the pandemic, they often ask what’s in my trash.
Instead of looking in my trash, I think it would help them more to look at their own and ask what they could not have bought. Just cutting out doof would lower their garbage by a lot. Also not buying things they don’t need or that are disposable. Just cut those things and you improve your life and save money.
However much people think they need from Amazon or Walmart, they could probably improve their lives by not buying ninety percent of what comes from those stores Dollar stores, bodegas, and their peers.
However much people like to lecture on things everyone knows, like that poor people can’t afford many things that rich people can, they get cause and effect wrong: shopping at those stores impoverishes them.
Look in your trash and seriously ask yourself, what garbage did I not have to produce? I bet when you avoid it, you’ll consider your life improved from its absence. It may be hard since our relationships with a lot of wasteful things is one of addiction.
Here’s an old picture I found of my trash bag with a couple years of trash.
Read my weekly newsletter
On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees