Need a little inspiration?

Crazy Trash Stats!

Let's start off with just a sampler of trash data about Americans:

Every year, we throw away...

• 35 billion plastic bottles
• 40 billion plastic utensils
• 4.5 million tons of office paper

This is ridiculous, wasteful, irresponsible, and totally unnecessary. If every other country behaved like Americans in terms of our rates of consumption and waste, we would need five planets worth of resources to meet our demand!

 

But we've just got one...

Be Part of the Solution

We've got to start somewhere. Just to address the stats above, here are a few tips...

• Carry around a reusable water bottle - don't buy bottled water! 
• Keep a set of reusable utensils in your purse, man-purse, or car - a friend just gifted me these great bamboo ones!

I dont need yutensills, I need fud.

• Start a bin for reusing paper next to the printer at home and at work - fill it with papers that have only been used on one side and use them again.

Don't Give Up

Still feeling overwhelmed by those stats? Me too. It's hard to feel like my little bamboo utensils make a difference when most Americans don't do things like that. So watch this awesome 2-minute video and try this mantra: "I will be a hummingbird."

Do Your Best.

I'll do my best to knock these off the table. And I thought I told you no cameras. Now turn on the faucet for me.

Reference for crazy stats:

Humes, E. (2012). Garbology: Our dirty love affair with trash. New York: Avery, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.