The average American family of 4 sends 154 pounds of trash a week to their local landfill. Of that, at least 40% or 77 pounds is recyclable. If a bag is usually about 20 pounds then the average family tosses 3-4 bags of trash a week! I’ll bet that if you take a look in your trash can you would see that almost all of it could be recycled. I invite you to take the One-Bag-A-Week Challenge™.
The One-Bag-A-Week Challenge™ looks to reduce solid waste destined for the landfill by:
- Consciously purchasing products that have recyclable packaging and that can be recycled.
- Consciously purchasing products that are made of recycled materials
- Deconstructing all items destined for the landfill and identifying ways to recycle each
- Recycling and repurposing as much as possible.
Take the Challenge and invite a friend or neighbor to join too. Write in about your challenges and your successes. If you find some great way to recycle something write that in too. We will keep track of how many bags have been saved.
In the Measure It section, we have been keeping track of our trash. Sometimes we meet the Challenge and sometimes we don’t but we are making conscious decisions and working toward a goal of zero trash.
To help in meeting the Challenge goal we have created a recycling guide that shows you 16 ways to recycle common items found in the American trash can.
Think of the impact we as a community can make with just one bag.
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