Getting to Zero Waste: Q4 Results and Year 1 Summary

Getting to Zero Waste: Q4 Results and Year 1 Summary

For the past year, I’ve been trying to minimize the amount of garbage, paper, plastic and glass leaving my home and heading for the landfill or recycling center.  While I’ve long been a re-user and recycler further down the waste stream, this has been my attempt at reducing my footprint from the point of consumption.

In the first quarter of the year (January-March), I realized I was a long way from zero waste. Although, at an average of 0.79 lbs of trash per day, I was also a long way off from the average American household, which disposes of 4.4 lbs of trash per day!

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Getting to Zero Waste: Q3 Results

Getting to Zero Waste: Q3 Results

I rushed home from work today to weigh my trash. I know, I’m weird like that: driven by results, a bit of environmentalism, and in love with personal experiments. It’s the end of the third quarter and the weigh-in must be done, as I attempt to get myself closer and closer to zero waste.

Without further ado, in the third quarter of 2013 (July-September), I tossed out:

  • 20 lbs of paper
  • 21 lbs of trash
  • 12.5 lbs of plastic & glass
  • 53.5 total lbs of trash = 0.48 lbs / day

To compare the quarters, it looks like this:

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