What I’m doing here

The City of Berkeley has had weekly pick-up of recyclables like paper, glass, metal cans, and certain plastics for years. Also, for some time now it has had weekly garden waste pick-up. More recently the city delivered to all residents covered plastic pails that can easily fit under the kitchen sink. These pails are intended to be used to collect food-related waste. Allowable materials include not only vegetable and fruit scraps but meat scraps (including bones) and paper products that have been used for food–like butcher paper, paper cups and milk cartons. This kitchen waste is added to the garden waste for pick-up.

This last addition has really cut down on the amount of stuff that I throw away. It has also had the effect of making me very aware of what I still do throw away, not only at home but also when I’m out and about. I’m no crusader and I’m sure my habits aren’t any greener than average, but seeing how much stuff I throw away is pissing me off. I don’t have any great notions about how to change things but it occurred to me that some ideas might come to mind if I could make more concrete just how much stuff an average, somewhat ecologically conscious person throws away on a daily basis.

What I post on this blog is a chronological photographic record of everything I get that comes with packaging that I will later throw away, along with photographs of the packaging itself at the point of its disposal. I don’t photograph things I recycle. I’m going to try this for a month, beginning June 1, 2008. We’ll see where it goes.

To best view any progress, view the posts beginning with the earliest.

Nacio Jan Brown, Berkeley, CA May 31, 2008