Blog 4: Keep Your Trash

 Our group met from 3:00-3:20 on 2/1/23. The group meeting consisted of Abigail Richardson, Veda Reeves and Carly Regan. 

This week, we were assigned to keep all trash that we cumulated for 7 days. Keeping the trash was not an easy task, as it got in the way, started to pile up, and was even starting to smell. When our group met, we determined that this was not an easy assignment. All of us agreed that the hardest part was not taking the trash out to the dumpster or trash chute and instead, letting it pile up for the full 7 days. The common denominator in our trash was plastic. For Abigail and me, we had most of the plastic items while Veda had very little articles of plastic. Many items in my trash were able to be recycled, yet they weren't. Many items in Abigail's trash included plastic bags, and most items in Veda's trash were environment friendly. Keeping my trash made me feel as if I was dirty, for example: usually when my trash starts to overflow, I throw it in the trash chute in my apartment and it is never to be seen again by me, so I continue about my day. Keeping my trash made me realize that it is dirty and lots of my trash was unnecessary. The changes to our trash were something we could all agree on; To cut down on the amount of plastic in the trash. One thing that did surprise me was the amount of trash accumulated in just 7 days. This was surprising to me, as I don't spend that much time at home between work, classes and other activities I was surprised by the amount of trash I still accumulated. The items in my trash that were necessary were the food items. This was a topic of discussion for our group, as after I said this, Veda followed up with that she had mostly compost items since they came from food markets and didn't have many wrappers. This put it into perspective for me, as although I felt the food items were necessary, Veda had an alternative solution. Abigail felt that cosmetic items were necessary such as soap and shampoo, but Veda actually explained to us that there are other, environment-friendly options such as bars of soap and shampoo bars instead of the plastic bottles. 

This exercise relates to Ishmael because it shows the difference between the leaves and takers. In our group, Abigail and I definitely exhibited taker behaviors since we had more plastic and environment damaging items, while Veda had much less trash in general, but more importantly had lots of compost items which exhibits leaver behavior. This exercise also relates to Ishmael because it showed the amount of plastic that can be accumulated in just 7 days by 1 person and how that can have such a negative impact on the environment. That, if this continues and humanity continues down this path, there won't be much of an environment left. Another important topic of discussion that arose during our group discussion was the act of throwing trash out. This was important because most people throw their trash out into the dumpster or chute and the trash is never to be seen again, but the problem is although it isn't causing a problem for that singular person any longer, it is making a much bigger problem for the environment and humanity as a whole. This was explained in Ishmael when he explained taker behavior and how they don't see the problems they cause. Also noted was that when people throw their trash out, they do not take into account the people who live near landfills and how it poorly affects their health. 

At the bottom is a picture of my trash accumulated.