Week 2: The Trash Continues For two weeks, I didn't throw away a single piece of trash. Instead, I kept it and took it with me to work, bars, the gym, everywhere. Last week, it was a cinch; this week, not so much...

Trash Withdrawal

My first morning after the two-week Age of Trash began with a plastic bag in my hand on the way to the dumpster. It ended outside a locked door in the foyer of my apartment building. There I was, key-less, with only a stack of phone books ironically sealed in plastic wrap and a row of unanswered door-buzzers to keep me company.

Maybe I accidentally threw out my brain with my trash, or...wait a second.

Headache, irritability, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, right eye is twitching. Am I? No, it couldn’t be…I’m going through trash withdrawal!

My moment of parting with the bag of refuse that had been my constant companion for the past fourteen days came and went without much ceremony or gravity. I didn’t hesitate, or look back, or feel much of anything as I dropped my recyclables and trash in their proper receptacles.

Bidding goodbye to the last piece of trash I acquired seemed trivial…but was it really?

So what am I feeling now, in the first hours of the post-trash aftermath? Is some undetectable compound seeping from my trash reacting with my nervous system, rendering me addicted to my garbage?

Ok, maybe that’s a little bit unrealistic (although some people may not think so…). Let’s look back at the past week to get to the bottom of this.

Deliciousness = Trashiness

On day eight of the great trashperiment, I stayed true to my word and cooked dinner from scratch. I made ale and cheddar bread and salmon chowder. Both were delectable.

In a shocking result, more cooking meant more trash.

Deliciousness and trashiness, it turns out, are directly proportional. Chopping leeks, onions, and potatoes trebled last week’s food waste in a single blow. Add a can of vegetable broth (bouillon cubes would have been less trashy), a bottle of beer (Peak Organic Nut Brown Ale…because you can’t have ale bread without ale), and a can of tomato paste. I baked the bread in “single use” aluminum bread pans which I planned to reuse. But, while slicing the bread I accidentally went Edward Scissorhands on one of the pans, inadvertently trashing it.

While the leftover salmon chowder lasted three days, the smoked salmon packaging—a flat sandwich of cardboard and plastic—stayed with me much longer. The smell of fish was potent even after rinsing. This wasn't so easy anymore...

The Trashiest Day in History

I rounded out days nine and ten with a few ATM receipts and a movie ticket stub, but day eleven, Saturday, was a dark dark day in the garbage world as I came full circle in some kind of strange binge/purge trash cycle.

I woke at 4:40 am to go on a ski trip and didn’t have time for the day’s most important meal or beverage. By the time I took lunch at nearly noon, I was so desperate for calories and caffeine that I loaded up on disposables, including a large polystyrene coffee cup (coupled with my first—and only—sugar and cream packets of the week), a coffee cake muffin (with muffin tin and plastic wrap), a yogurt cup, and a spoon.

A beautiful but trash-filled day at Loon Mountain in New Hampshire.

On the way home I continued my trash disaster with another coffee cup, a shrink-wrapped cookie, and take out from Sushi Express. If the mercury-in-tuna scare didn’t deter me, the polystyrene container, plastic grass garnish, wooden chopsticks, or soy sauce packets should have. But hey, sometimes you just crave some fast, cheap, sushi to go.

Plastic grass garnish getting you down? Me too.

The Un-Heavy Home Stretch

The last three days—although not particularly trash heavy—were the hardest. My garbage finally got big enough to require its own handbag and had a subtle yet growing stench. I was getting trash fatigue. But a few broken eggs, a pasta dinner, a piece of dental floss, a take-out sandwich, two insta-gourmet sauce packets, a scratching post tag and a swimsuit label later, I was finished.

The Trash Bag: I refer to it as either my new child or my new tumor, depending on my mood.

The Final Inventory

Last week, my dad said that it looks like I drink a lot but don’t eat very much, and must be hiding my junk mail. My mom said that I ended up with hardly any trash at all. I'm a good daughter, so with week two’s trash I aimed to prove them both wrong:

From chaos...	...to order.

Trashy trash

Smoked salmon packaging (cardboard and plastic)

Sushi takeout polystyrene container

+ green plastic grass (2 pieces)

+ plastic bag

+ several soy sauce packets

1 piece dental floss

2 bottle caps

1 plastic cheese wrapper (sharp cheddar)

1 plastic Fudge Shoppe Deluxe Grahams wrapper

1 paper/foil seasoning packet

1 plastic risotto packet

1 sauce packet (for dumplings)

1 foil granola bar wrapper

1 foil Hershey’s kiss wrapper

1 plastic milk top

1 paper sugar packet

4 small pieces of masking tape

1 pair wooden chopsticks

2 plastic spoons

1 piece of plastic cling wrap

1 plastic muffin wrapper + 1 paper muffin wrapper

1 foil hummus top

plastic wrap from cookie

2 coffee cups (1 polystyrene, 1 paper)

1 paper and wax bakery bag

1 plastic swimsuit liner

Food Waste

3 tops of leeks

4 ends of celery sticks

several cups of coffee grounds

4 egg shells

wasabi and ginger

outer skin from red onion

lots of smelly brown liquid

 

I generated a lot more food waste this week…and it was a lot juicier, too.

Recyclable Containers

2 glass beer bottles

1 can of vegetable stock

1 can of tomato paste

1 plastic yogurt container (small)

1 plastic hummus container (free sample size)

1 plastic half and half container (single serving)

1 plastic Deluxe Grahams tray

1 plastic egg container

1 foil bread baking pan

Recyclable Paper

cardboard cover from cat scratcher

5 pieces of junk mail (see!)

1 pay stub

cardboard/paper tags from new swimsuit

cardboard tag from cat scratching post

paper bag from bakery

cardboard risotto box

cardboard carrier for 6-pack of beer bottles

cardboard top from box of dumplings

paper chopstick holder

more receipts

movie ticket stub and receipt

The Age of Trash: left, week 2; right, week 1

Week 1 and Week 2 were worlds apart when it comes to trash, so neither one could possible provide an accurate portrait of my life of trash. This is an unfinished experiment. J. Alfred Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons; perhaps I’ll measure mine with garbage bags.

My cat has done little more than sniff at the meaty, delicious, nutritious food I’ve served him ever since he came home two weeks ago, but as soon as I spread my trash out on the floor, he was all over it like a post-race cross-country team at the Old Country Buffet. I’ve finally figured out why my cat has been rejecting his cat food: my cat is a freegan.

My cat is a freegan.

My trash is now in the dumpster behind my apartment, where it will stay until pick-up on Friday. From there it will travel through a winding path of trucks and reclamation facilities until it reaches its final resting place in a “sanitary landfill”. Bon voyage.

My recyclables join the waste stream. What’s their next stop?

I invite you all to try this experiment for yourselves. Let me know how it goes! See you next trash day...

Previously on Trash Day:

Getting to Know You(r Trash) Week 1 of my trash collecting experiment