Trash Month
Even with our recycling program a lot of our garbage ends up, well, in the trash. Just how much? Alex Tee, our Green Initiative point man, got curious. He saved all of Altitude’s recycling and garbage for the month of July. To his surprise, our recycling made up a relatively small percentage of the pile. In Alex’s words, “It’s not that we’re bad recyclers. We’re actually pretty diligent. But it really showed that we can’t recycle our way out of the problem. Ultimately we just have to be using less.”
To make this point hit home, Alex initiated “Trash Month.” For one month, participating Altitude staffers saved their trash and recycling. All communal trash cans and recycling bins were removed, even in the restrooms. As Alex puts it, “people would be confronted by their consumption on a daily basis.”
The results? The experiment certainly got us to think. Most of us were stymied about what to do with damp paper towels in the bathroom. A few of us secretly threw away trash in others’ receptacles. Some were astonished at how much trash we accumulated, while others thought the amount of trash was small. Even more telling, after the month was over and trash pickup resumed, we went back to our old habits. Trash Month really showed us the challenges of affecting long-term behavior change.
Brainstorming session.