{"id":7881,"date":"2018-02-15T19:32:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T00:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?p=7881"},"modified":"2018-02-15T19:32:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-16T00:32:30","slug":"neighbor-spotlight-the-trash-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2018\/02\/neighbor-spotlight-the-trash-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Neighbor Spotlight: The Trash Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the years, but particularly in the past year, I have met a lot of people who are making changes in their lives to be a better neighbor to planet Earth.\u00a0 They are pretty ordinary people doing extraordinary things.\u00a0 They are inspiring, and we all need inspiration, so, I’d like to shine a spotlight some of them.\u00a0 I’ll call these “Neighbor Spotlights.”\u00a0 This one is about a trash game.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
12 weeks of trash in a small (15 gal.) Needham trash bag<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The current record is 14 weeks.\u00a0 That is how long it took for Maureen and Bob to fill up one\u00a0small<\/em> <\/strong>Needham trash bag (15 gallons).\u00a0 \u00a0That is not a lot of trash.\u00a0 I feel like in our house, we are super-duper re-users and recyclers, but we put out at least twice as much.\u00a0 How do they do it?\u00a0 It’s a competitive game, Maureen said.\u00a0 How low can we go?\u00a0 What else can we reduce, re-use, repair, or recycle?<\/p>\n

Growing up, for Maureen, frugality was a necessity.\u00a0 Her father taught her to fix things and nothing was thrown away.\u00a0 \u00a0As young adults, when Maureen and her sister owned a triple-decker, they found that fixing and re-using things made economic sense.\u00a0 Over time, recycling and reducing became second-nature.\u00a0 And at some point, with Bob, it started to become fun.\u00a0 Together, they go step-by-step, so that everything they do becomes a habit – and that way it is never overwhelming.<\/p>\n

They fix things.\u00a0 There was the time the microwave started to sparkle and buzz.\u00a0 So Bob googled “microwave sparkling”.\u00a0 Sure enough, there is a you-tube video on how to fix this problem (it’s very simple).\u00a0 \u00a0Then there were the holes in the antique rug that Maureen repaired; the ice-cream maker that went to the Repair Caf\u00e9<\/a>; and the speaker that is waiting for the next Caf\u00e9.\u00a0 \u00a0Besides reducing trash, a cool side-effect of these efforts is a sense of greater independence, and personal empowerment.<\/p>\n

They recycle and re-use things.\u00a0 Unneeded household items that still have some life left can be dropped off at the Goodwill trailer at the RTS, or at Savers.\u00a0 Even worn out and\/or ripped fabric,\u00a0 clothing and shoes can be dropped off at these locations \u2013 they are sold to a textile recycler<\/a>.\u00a0 Food waste goes onto the compost pile, and\u00a0Maureen takes this effort one step further, by composting the dog waste in a dedicated hole in the yard.\u00a0 Rather than buying new books, they borrow them from the library, or buy used ones.\u00a0 They try not to acquire stuff unless they need it.\u00a0 They have reduced the in-flow of paper 70-80% by getting all bills online, and setting them up on autopay,\u00a0cancelling all retail catalogs, and opting out of mailing lists via the Direct Marketing Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Overall, this may seem like a lot of effort, but it is not, Maureen says.\u00a0 It becomes a habit, you make it into a game, and you feel good about\u00a0helping the planet, even if only in a small way.\u00a0 And reducing the amount of time spent shopping frees up time for other things: \u00a0\u00a0“It’s not that hard to be green.”<\/p>\n

Babette Wils<\/b> is a Needham resident and active Green Needham volunteer. Babette is stepping down from a career in international education consulting and stepping into a career as a food forest farmer. This article is adapted from a post on Babette’s BigFoot Gardens<\/a> blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the years, but particularly in the past year, I have met a lot of people who are making changes in their lives to be a better neighbor to planet Earth.\u00a0 They are pretty ordinary people doing extraordinary things.\u00a0 They<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":7958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,139,226],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-7881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy-at-home","category-lg","category-neighbor-spotlight","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}