Monday, February 27th, 8:36 pm
I used to have a theory that if I put food in the garbage alongside the plastic wrappers and stuff the food would help the plastic decompose.
I imagined rotting banana peels attracting bacteria that would eventually adapt to eat plastic, and somehow that would help fight climate change.
This theory has no basis in science.
This is what actually happens when ordinarily biodegradable things, like food waste, paper, wood, nail clippings,etc. go into a landfill. First, they get crammed into a deep hole that is essentially a giant storage unit for garbage. Those carrot peels can’t break down in the normal way because there is no oxygen. Organic material attempting to decompose in an anaerobic environment starts to produce methane gas. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and several other random websites on the internet, food is the largest category of stuff going into landfills, and landfills produce about 14 percent of methane emissions in the U.S. Methane is worse than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. About 80 times worse. It warms things up 80 times faster than carbon dioxide, although it doesn’t stick around as long.
This means that if every person right now, today, stopped putting food and other biodegradable stuff in their garbage we could reduce methane emissions by 14 percent, and methane would dissipate in the atmosphere. And that would help cool things down.
I realize it’s not that simple.
Or is it?
It might be as simple as a compost bucket in the kitchen and a compost pile in the yard.
If you have a yard.
But, I digress. I’m supposed to be working my way through the Introduction in Zero Waste Home by Bea Johnson. And posting before photos of my not yet zero wasted house. But, I thought, what about a before picture of our planet? Or just the US?
Apparently the US throws away more food than anyone else, about 219 pounds per person each year.
Why?
I just think it’s the culture. Bea Johnson grew up in France, but when she began a family in the US she went down the whole ‘disposable’ plastic baggy, plastic water bottles, bleached hair, botox, and full oversized garbage can American highway.
Here’s a quote,
“We were using the car extensively, packing lunches in disposable plastic bags, drinking bottled water, dispensing paper towels and tissues (liberally), and using countless toxic products to clean the house and care for our bodies….
I realized that as we enjoyed all the trappings of the American dream, what thoughtless citizens and consumers we had become. How did we get disconnected from the impact of our actions?” -Bea Johnson, Zero Waste Home
One of the things I wanted to get across to our growing kids was the concept of good citizenship. I wanted them to understand that a community works when everyone participates to make it work.
Kant says, “Act only on the maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. In other words, what if everyone did that?
Our little county of Cortland, New York, USA is full of people who want to make this a better community.
What if Cortland County became a leader in keeping food waste out of landfills? Like, what if everyone in Cortland County just started composting tomorrow? What if everyone did that? That would be good citizenship.
I’m just imagining reporters coming up from New York City with briefcases on wheels, and power suits, walking into Hyde’s Diner and asking them about their food waste disposal practices, and all the old guys having coffee chime in and start explaining about methane gas emissions. Or going to Homer Junior High and the kids know all about composting.
That’s the after picture that hasn’t happened.
Yet.
Tomorrow: A before picture of plastic.