It appears my predictions yesterday were right.

The last day of my Week Without has finally come, and my turkey sandwich-making ways have caught up to me. The cheese ran out, leaving me with a useless sealable bag. The turkey was gobbled up, and now I have a plastic container. The milk did run out, just as I thought it would. And now instead of my mini trash pile I had earlier this week, I have this (disregard the pole-dancer coasters).

This week I attempted to live without garbage. As I explained on Day 1, I thought I was being good to the earth by recycling and not being too wasteful. But the fact is I still produce garbage as a result of the things I consume. And I can’t deny the fact that throwing my trash in the Dumpster makes me feel as if a weight is lifted off of my shoulders. How gross would you feel if you kept all of your trash?

I thought I was good to the earth. And this week I learned I was good to the earth only when it was convenient for me. Or, at least, when I was really aware of my actions and their consequences for the planet. I’ve been conditioned to be aware that certain actions have negative consequences for the earth, and I can alleviate these consequences by altering my actions. (We can have the whole can-one-person-make-a-difference-debate at this point, but I think that’s the worst excuse ever to not be a better person.) My mom taught me not to litter. Captain Planet told me to recycle. Living in Australia during a drought made me aware of my shower time. Magazine articles and news segments have frightened me to the point where I hiss at the sight of plastic water bottles.

But no one ever told me not to throw away garbage.

My experiment to change my actions in order to avoid trash has made me more aware of what I put in my garbage can, and how my every action could possibly produce waste. I recognized on the first day that creating trash was almost innate—I waved my hand to receive paper towels on campus and went for my after-shower Q-Tip like a garbage-chucking drone. Even my infamous coffee spill on Day 3 led me to quickly grab a paper towel without even considering a reusable rag or sponge instead. The salad-making technique I had before this week (where I rinsed spinach and let it dry on a few paper towels) now seems completely ridiculous.

I thought I was good to the earth. But I was wasteful, like so many other Americans are.

I don’t think it’s possible to live without garbage. During my landfill tour yesterday, my tour guide, Amy Hock, and I discussed this. Remember the Metro Waste Authority’s semi plastered with an advertisement encouraging people to recycle more? It’s practically an advertisement for the company’s competition. But of course the company isn’t threatened by recycling—people will always throw away their garbage.

Instead of attempting to live without garbage, we should be aware of our wastefulness and try to reduce it, even if it is inconvenient. And this isn’t just about the paper towels or the Q-Tips. As Hock said to me yesterday, “Reducing waste… It starts at the grocery store.” Although I didn’t shop this week, I know in the future I’ll do so with an entirely different framework—one that labels “trash” as a synonym for “packaging.”

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