Here in Chestertown, every Monday and Thursday are trash days. This usually means that around 4:30 in the afternoon I hear the grumbling of the garbage truck outside, and then have to run around the house collecting trash from all the trash cans, hoping I don’t miss the garbage men. It always amazes me how much trash we generate in 4 days, and I am always happy to get rid of it.

But I don’t often wonder where it goes after I’m done with it. So

This week our theme of the week is GARBAGE! #bobbledygarbage

First off, we make A LOT of garbage! By “we” I specifically mean me and my family (after doing the research on this, there are definitely going to have to be some changes around here!) but also “we” as Americans (for those of you who aren’t American, you can feel good that we make waaaaaayyyyy more trash than you do).

The average American throws out 4.4 pounds of trash a day:

(that’s about 15 quarter pounders – counting the buns)

which adds up to about 30 pounds of trash a week:

(that’s about what 240 eggs weighs – counting the cartons)

(or what one Kato weighs – counting the snowsuit)

which adds up to about 900 pounds of trash a month:

about how much a cow weighs

which adds up to 328,500 pounds of trash a year:

(about how much ten empty garbage trucks weigh)

(you can print this drawing out and color it in! Here’s a link. And post it in the comments! Or on instagram #bobbledygarbage! )

Which is to say, we make a LOT of garbage.

The whole United States makes enough, apparently, to cover the entire state of Texas, TWICE. This would actually make most of the other states in the union quite happy.

Once the garbage truck picks up the garbage, it usually goes to a dump, a landfill, or an incinerator. A dump is basically just a big hole in the ground. A landfill is a big hole in the ground with a giant plastic-bag-type lining, to keep all the ick from seeping into the ground.

And an incinerator is basically a gigantic fireplace that burns up all the trash.

None of these are great places for garbage to go. The problem with garbage is that we’re running out of places to put it, and even when we put it in the right places, it is still dirty and bad for the planet. So the best thing to do is to stop making so much garbage.

1. To use things we already have…
About 80% of products in the US are used ONCE and then thrown away!

2. To recycle all of the paper and cans and bottles we can…
We throw as much aluminum away every year as car manufacturers use every year – meaning if we could just get our aluminum out of the trash and over to the car industry, we could basically keep them supplied with our recyclables!

3. To stop using disposable drink bottles…
TWENTY FIVE MILLION plastic drink bottles are thrown away EVERY HOUR

4. And to compost.
Almost 1/3 of all of our trash is compostable!

Okay. So, let’s all work on that. This garbage thing is totally out of hand!

One cool thing I found in my research was that the city of Copenhagen has started building a giant incinerator that will burn garbage and produce electricity for 140,000 homes. That’s pretty cool, but the coolest thing about it is that the outside has a ski run on it – so you can ski down your mountain of garbage!

Slowly, we are (hopefully) figuring out better ways to deal with our garbage.

So there you are! Garbage! It’s awful! Hopefully all of us can be a little more thoughtful about how much garbage we make, and help keep our poor planet from drowning in dirty diapers and water bottles. This week we’ll be thinking about garbage, telling stories about garbage, and drawing pictures of garbage. If you find anything interesting out about garbage, let us know in the comments.

And next week, we promise to pick something less gross and depressing to talk about.

Finally, here’s a cool infographic about garbage. Have a look and learn some more: