Ari Derfel of Berkeley has saved all of his trash and recycling for one year in an effort to see how much waste one person generates in 12 months. He would like to donate the trash pile to an artist. (Chronicle photo by Kim Komenich)
Posted on 12/30/2007 6:16:23 AM PST by JACKRUSSELL
When Ari Derfel gets a glass of water at a restaurant, the first thing he thinks about is carrying the plastic straw home.
Likewise with every tissue, cash register receipt and burrito wrapper that wafts into his life.
Derfel, a 35-year-old Berkeley catering company owner, is in the 12th month of saving all his trash.
The project started out as an experiment - to see just how much waste one person generates in a year (in Derfel's case, about 96 cubic feet). But as the months rolled by and Derfel's refuse overflowed from his kitchen pantry and into bins in the living room, the project grew from novelty into an environmental statement, a source of much discussion and debate, and a three-dimensional diary of Derfel's consumption habits (not to mention a source of many, many jokes).
Sometime soon, Derfel hopes to transfer custody of the detritus to an artist who will use it to create a piece about the way Americans deal with their castoffs.
"When we throw something away, what does 'away' mean?" said Derfel. "There's no such thing as 'away.' "
Rather, the trash bin is simply one stop in the life cycle of each item, Derfel says. Each thing we throw away has been produced somewhere, shipped to a store, entered the home, and then is sent somewhere else - using up water, oil and land.
Though recycling and composting are on the rise nationwide, our growing economy and population base mean the United States is still generating hundreds of millions of tons of waste each year - the majority of which ends up in landfills. And those items we do recycle are often sent across the globe before ending back on store shelves here, according to experts......
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Ari Derfel of Berkeley has saved all of his trash and recycling for one year in an effort to see how much waste one person generates in 12 months. He would like to donate the trash pile to an artist. (Chronicle photo by Kim Komenich)
So use incinerators to burn it and generate electricity.
Does he flush his toilet?
I’ll pretend I didn’t see that I was just about to have breakfast. lol
Ari, go move out on the plains, build and live in a sod house, dig a well, burn buffalo chips, hunt and eat what you kill ... and save all your “waste” ... it’s a fact of life, you friggin’ turkey.
I think it’s already full of garbage.
Maybe Berkley can start composting the trash that lives there.
Oh my college roommate and her husband have been doing that for thirty years. They say they are RECYCLING but they never throw out a bottle, box, can, newspaper...
I will toss a plastic bottle into the trash, like when we went to JAY LENO show and you weren’t supposed to take food or drinks in. So I tossed by empty water bottle into the trash. She dug it out and put it in the car trunk.
They are now packrats. They never throw ANYTHING out. But they never go to recycling center. They would have to rent a truck. It is their house, and all of their cars, FULL of trash now.
And it is a big huge expensive two story California home.
BTW .. nice touch Ari ... get some eco-@$$hole "artist" to take over the friggin' dump you created, and you walk away, still lazy after all these years.
I bet his house smells good. He should bottle the air and sell it for roach repellant.
Leni
Bet it smells good in that freak’s house.
I just love his smug smile.
Newsflash: the smell of garbage doesn’t repel roaches, it attracts them.
The next point is what would he have to replace the "trash". Reusuable straws? Having you ever seen a third world fast food place? They do not have nearly the "trash" we have in this country but they do have more of something.
That is my third point, the spread of desease is diminished by using disposable items rather then risk ineffective washing.
One of the things environmentalist allways complain about is that we are going to end up with a mountain of trash and no place to put it. Have they never flown across this country? There are some vast empty spaces out there. I live in central california, to the west of me is a small mountain range with perhaps three or four roads across for several hundred miles. I am willing to bet that there are hundred of miles that land that man, including native Americans, have never walked. Roads could be built into the hills and landfills created that would take a century to fill up. But environmentalist are not interested in solutions, only problems.
http://saveyourtrash.typepad.com/save_your_trash/about-the-project.html
From his blog....
In October 2006 I had dinner with three friends, Vince, Carolyn and Britt. While sitting in my living room eating a delicious, local, organic meal (we are all foodies with remarkable culinary talents) the topic of trash came up in conversation. To be honest, I don’t remember how it came up or how it meandered its way to the concept of me attempting to save my trash for a year. Needless to say, it did. Two months later, on December 4, 2006, I started saving it in the closet of my kitchen.
My original goal was to get two 96 gallon bins from the local waste management company. They quickly informed me that it was illegal to keep trash in bins and not have it removed regularly. Gotta love the law!! I decided to simply keep it in my closet, and instead of stuffing it into two bins, organizing it by type, so it could be seen, felt and understood more clearly.
I have accomplished the goal with 99.9% accuracy. I have kept all of my trash, per the rules I set for myself, for 1 year.
Next I hope to find an artist who is far more visually creative than I am. I am very creative in other ways. You know, ways like, “maybe I should keep all of my trash for a year.” I’m must less visually acute and inventive. If you’re that artist, let me know. I want to turn it into a fascinating, unique, beautiful, revealing, biographical piece that people will want to see. This has some serious potential.
Then I plan to start a second year to see if I can make less trash then I made the first year. I also hope to attract some other people to do it with me, perhaps make it a national competition for fun to see who can make the least amount of trash in a year. I plan to film the second year and to make a fun, interesting, funny, informative documentary about it. If you want to help out, now is the time. Get in touch!!!
My mom was a depression baby and she, along with many in that generation, became a hoarder. It was more clothes, magazines, newspapers, newspaper clippings, toiletries, etc., but, she would have been appalled at this guy and his rubbish.
somehow, i get the feeling he thinks HE gets to dictate what is 'trash' not only for himself, but for others.
“There’s no such thing as ‘away.’ “
Really?? And all along I thought the law of conservation of mass had been repealed!
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