Get er done dumpsters8/13/2023 But I would consume almost fifty percent of grocery store waste. I wouldn't consider personally consuming ninety percent of residential food waste. Still, there are plenty of times when the grocery store dumpster is full of discarded sheetrock, or the bookstore dumpster contains the discarded remains of an employee potluck dinner. A restaurant is a mix of "paper" and "organic," in widely-varying ratios, while an appliance repair shop could be almost fifty percent miscellaneous. A bookstore is almost ninety percent paper, in the form of discarded books and cardboard boxes. A grocery store dumpster, for example, is about twenty percent organic and about eighty percent plastic and paper. ![]() Of course, that is a very broad overview of a complex and beautiful mountain of stuff. For example, framed pictures, still-working Christmas lights, boxes of telephone equipment. METAL makes up roughly ten percent, and another ten percent could be considered MISCELLANEOUS. But we choose to bury and burn the stuff like it's mutant ooze. Good to eat, good to feed animals, or good for fertilizer. food waste, Christmas trees, lawn trimmings, dead parakeets, etc. Of the remaining fifty percent, thirty percent is "organic" in nature, i.e.So, by basically ignoring this crap, half your work is done right there. Half the waste is packaging, mostly plastic and paper.Now, do you suppose that over the course of a year the average person throws out one or two things you could use? Well, every day one or two useful items are sitting out there is those dumpsters. So if two dumpsters sit outside an apartment complex containing three hundred and sixty five, every day each of those dumpsters will "represent" the yearly waste of your average apartment resident. Ten to fifteen pounds a day for every man, woman and child.But here's my best summary of TOTAL WASTE. The government is more concerned with counting other things. I've searched for statistics on American garbage and found most to be confused, cloudy, and contradictory. And I've chosen the word "waste" deliberately. Is the wealth really out there? Yes, yes, YES! Americans represent only six percent of the world's population, yet we produce almost half the world's waste. Everything you salvage - whether for personal use or sale - adds to your stockpile of wealth, compounds little advantages to your personal economy. That's where YOU, the extraordinarily clearheaded dumpster diver, enter the picture. ![]() He gets all confused sometimes and discards some of his good stuff, believing it to be crap. Your average American can distinguish between good stuff and crap - but just barely. The average American's head - I'm convinced - is a lot like his dumpster. Mostly, I learn people are dissatisfied, confused, and waste a great deal of energy. Just as I rarely go diving without finding something, I rarely return without learning something. Amazingly, they discard their goods and tenaciously accumulate debts.ĭumpster diving clears your head of a lot of bullshit. So even "non-essential" property contributes to your overall well-being.īut many Americans don't have a "safety net" of property. For example, I could hock my television to buy my wife medicine. Even for the well-to-do, property represents safety, health, well-being. I saw little kids develop pneumonia for lack of a warm winter jacket. I grew up elbow to elbow with people who experienced stark poverty. Material possessions are easy to take for granted until you don't have something you need and can't acquire it.
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