The Adventures And Misadventures of a Month of Storing Trash: The Story of LA YOGA and the Green Yoga Association’s Mindfulness Challenge Winner
IT’S SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2009, and today is a good day because it is the last day I will be keeping my trash. I’ve managed to stuff thirty days and thirty nights of trash into two brown paper bags: one Trader Joe’s paper bag for recyclables and one for trash. You might ask yourself, “Why did someone save four weeks of smelly trash!? And furthermore, why would they keep it hidden away in their closet?!” These are wise questions I didn’t seriously consider before proclaiming to myself that I was now an official crap collector. I was so inspired by Adi Carter’s Mindfulness Challenge in LA YOGA I decided to jump on the bandwagon (or the dump truck). I had no idea how complicated tracking trash would be. As Americans, most of us mindlessly create pounds and pounds of waste every week.
The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) estimates that the average American creates 4.62 pounds of waste every day. When my parents were young, one of their neighbors was likely to create about 2.68 pounds of garbage daily. One person’s daily poundage of trash is almost twice what it was in 1960 and since then, our population has also been increasing. Imagine the long term equation resulting from these two factors: continuous increase of population and continuous increase of individual waste. Unless we pause to consider the real weight of our decisions and everything we toss aside, the outcome may not attractive. Our country, as a whole, could be described as having excess baggage. Even though we throw out the most we also have the most.
In order to examine my own innate obsession with throwing things away, I accepted the spring challenge of hanging on to (pretty much) everything I wished to get rid of.
Trash Journal: Week One
So far, so good. I carried a plastic cup in my purse all day today. I used it, without thinking of course, at work today. I immediately regretted this because anything I “personally toss” into the trash, I have to bring home, which means I carry it with me for the remainder of the day. What made the experience even more enlightening is the fact that I work at a retail job where purses and bags are checked upon exit. As I left today, I hoped my manager wouldn’t notice the cup next to my lip gloss or the used Ziploc bag I was bringing home to wash.
The amount of trash I accumulate is overwhelming. I’m constantly shoving things in my purse so I can bring them home. Garbage is coming at me from all directions and I feel like I’m under attack! I noticed that everything at the grocery store involves garbage! Was this really a good idea? I wondered. I brought my own bags for produce, but most of what was on the shelves was overly packaged, even the tomatoes and avocados. I felt good about purchasing apples and bananas since they have biodegradable wrappers. After the supermarket trauma, I walked toward the coffee shop before remembering that I had lost my favorite thermos. No coffee shop for me today; I wasn’t going to use a paper cup for a beverage I could make for a much lower cost at home. Next stop: the bank where they tried to give me my money in an envelope. I said, panicked, “I’ve got my own reusable envelope. It’s called a wallet! Please, look at me, I’ve got a bag of trash in my closet, I can’t handle your trash, too!” I ran out screaming Well, I really didn’t run out screaming. But I did refuse the envelope and the teller gave me a very strange look.
Week Two
This garbage endeavor is proving to be a fun and exciting experiment. I’ve been much more aware of what I buy, because shopping seems to always involve some sort of waste. I did a little thrift store shopping this week, and I’ve been trying to buy food with no or minimal packaging. Taking food with me to fuel my day provides a certain set of challenges. I’m a college student, but I live too far away from campus to go home for meals. Instead of eating out, which generates a lot of packaging waste, I’ve been fixing myself “old school lunches.” I feel like I’m in fourth grade again, cutting my peanut butter and jelly sandwich into triangles and filling a bag with baby carrots. By bringing my own lunch to campus, I avoid the trash that eating out brings. I also choose to eat delicious, healthy, and exciting food (like PB and J).
I went out last night. I had three beers. I did not save the bottles and I lost my cell phone. So now I’ve created unaccounted for trash and I lost my phone at a bar when I wasn’t even drunk (I’m originally from Wisconsin, where our tolerance for cold can only be matched by our tolerance for beer). I’ve been avoiding “going out” of any kind this month, and it’s a good thing, because I don’t think I could handle another night of un-tallied beer bottles. Plus I am now without a cell phone.
The most amazing thing happened today: Somebody found my cell phone in a cul-de-sac. A landscaper said he found it in front of a house. It was a little beat up, but I was so glad to have it back. I’m not sure I fully understand why someone took my phone from the bar and then ditched it. I’m just thankful that it was found and returned. I was already contemplating all the unnecessary packaging that accompanies cell phones, so I’m relieved I don’t have to collect that too.
Tune in to find out what happened on the rest of Keira’s challenge in the upcoming issue of LA YOGA magazine and hear about her experience going deeper into Green Yoga.
Keira Belisle Lamoureux is a student at Ventura College where she picked up LA YOGA in Constance McClean’s Spirituality and Health class and became inspired by Adi Carter to taken on the Mindfulness Challenge. She received a tuition scholarship to the Green Yoga Association and Loyola Marymount University’s Green Yoga Conference in May. For more information about the Green Yoga Association, visit: greenyoga.org.
JUNK
Dr. Marcus Eriksen
In July/August, 2008, LA YOGA reported on Dr. Marcus Eriksen of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation’s trip from Long Beach to Hawaii on a vessel made from plastic bottles (appropriately christened JUNK) to bring attention to the vast amounts of plastic that have collected in the North Pacific Gyre. On a ollow-up to that trip, Dr. Eriksen and Anna Cummins have just completed a 2,000 mile bike ride down the Pacific Coast (from April 4 through June 19, 2009), to continue o bring attention to the plague of disposable plastic, which makes up a large part of our trash. According to Cummins, recyclable plastic is a myth and finding out exactly what happens to the plastic we dutifully place n recycling bins is a current area of esearch. What’s the solution? The adventurous duo who rides their talk says, Think reusable. For more information on the JUNK crusade, visit: algalita.org. –– Felicia M. Tomasko
By Keira Belisle Lamoureux
