Trash Talk: Day One

I had what could be considered my ‘last meal’ as a creator of garbage. It started as an innocent Saturday evening at El Chilito, my favorite taco shack here in Austin. I had a pollo asado taco plate and a soda, which upon completion, looked like a small landfill of take-out packaging. I only felt better knowing that tomorrow I would start clean. No more garbage. But no more taco plates either (tear).

I've been secretly prepping for this project for about a week now- mostly to see if it was do-able. Honestly, I have no intentions of being that woman dragging around a hefty size, double-ply garbage bag to client meetings.

Last week I began making mental notes of packaging pitfalls & things to avoid. For example I noticed, oddly for the first time, that my waffles- innocently packaged in paperboard- had a decieving cellophane interior wrapping that is clearly unrecycleable. So this morning as I grocery shopped on Day One of the project, I sadly walked past my waffles, and their inner workings.

Blindsided by a thermostat
I thought I was going to be a hot shot at this (how difficult can it be?). But I’m pretty embarrassed. OK, not totally embarrassed. I’m a victim of garbification on this one. After I moved my garbage can out of my apartment and into the tool shed, I returned to do the usual Sunday cleanup of my place (a 600 square ft garage apartment that somehow internally explodes every week). It was there that I discovered an old thermostat that my landlord had left on the floor below the new one just installed on Friday. Why didn’t he throw that out? I guess I will then. Ohhhhhh No. I have no garbage can. My first piece of garbage is a thermostat. Nice.

BioPak paperboard boxes
My second hurdle was buying lunch for my boyfriend and his crew of workers who are painting a house today. Normally, I would make sandwiches & pack a cooler, but I was running late and knew they were hungry, so I braved getting take-out. My grocery store serves up beans and rice (with cheese sour cream & salsa- so good) in paperboard boxes. I also bought a watermelon (no packaging there!) and stopped at home to pick up some real forks instead of plastic ones.

Tonight I checked out the website listed on the bottom of the paperboard box, gsdpackaging.com I was expecting to find information on whether their BioPak is recyclable as paperboard (does the coating prevent this?), or some glorious positioning as a renewable product- but I found nothing to that effect. The product is marketed to food distributors as such: “The most important feature is that it's beautiful, restaurant patrons love it, and it's affordable. Bio-Pak is pure image”. Ha. It does state that BioPak was created “as an alternative paperboard product that could be substituted for [banned] foam clamshells”. I currently have the BioPaks in my paperboard recycle bin, but am contacting the site to see if they can even be recycled as such.

Duh
I got my lesson in plastic caps today- of which I am the proud new owner of 2. I almost bought the guys aluminum canned sodas for lunch, but at the last second, decided Gatorade would be better with the high heat today. Didn’t even THINK about the plastic caps & the weird, non-identifiable kind of plastic they are. Just walked right into that one. Thankfully, one of the guys re-used his bottle for water, so it was off my garbage ticket. Maybe I can make the 2 caps into earrings. This plastic cap situation is going to get ugly. I can already tell.

Odd outbursts
I also purchased a smoothie at lunch. It was overflowing and leaking everywhere. I was rifling through my purse when I heard the fellow at the checkout counter rip a paper towel off a roll. Without even looking up, I was already saying “Nooooo!-” sensing the garbage about to be created. Perhaps with a little too much urgency. He clearly thought I was odd. In an attempt to save my rep with the checkout guy, I explained the project. As I drove home, the smoothie continued to drip all over my white shirt. Note to self, start carrying own cloth napkin.

Coolness
My smoothie came served in a cup made of corn. It is #7 PLA recyclable, which means you can chuck it in your compost pile. I put it in the compost tonight, and will watch to see how quickly it degrades over the next 2 weeks (more exciting news on this later!). Unfortunately I used a straw for my smoothie. I am not counting it as garbage yet as it will be my straw for the next 2 weeks.

Vegetables are my friends
I made mushroom & spinach quesadillas tonight. I purchased the vegetables in the bulk food aisle. Unfortunately I had to bag the mushrooms in a #2 plastic bag- which is recyclable, but I will come up with a cloth alternative. The corn tortillas were wrapped in paper.

Plastic film
The sour cream was a recyclable #2; However, when I opened the container discovered a plastic film sealing the contents. I have no idea what grade plastic this film is. I have another from the yogurt container as well. They are my latest acquisitions in the garbage game.

Total count for Day One:
1 thermostat, 2 plastic bottle caps, 2 plastic films