We all care about the environment, but would you go through 87 pounds of trash to show it? The seventh graders at Rye Junior High did. We went through two days of trash from our lunch, to see what we throw away that can be recycled or composted. While some students suited in gloves and aprons dumped the trash at their feet, the rest of us waited in the side lines, wrinkling our noses and shrieking. Rice from lunch poured onto the plastic that protected the ground, and milk cartons flooded the area. Then the really gross stuff happened. The students started wading in ankle deep trash and picking through the scraps. This really got a squeal out of everyone. The people from Zero Waste Now instructed them to put the food in three buckets if the were recyclable, compost, or just trash. Fruits and veggies went into the Compost bucket as well as milk cartons. They only went in because the people from Zero Waste Now said that they were able to compost them at their facility. At the end they weighed the trash. We ended up with 25 pounds of trash, 51 pounds of compost, and 9 pounds of recyclables. The remaining weight came from bits and pieces of this and that that were too small to pick up.

But if you though digging through trash was gross how about eating from it? Freegans eat from the trash bags that people leave on the streets in big cities. But they do it to get a big message through. They can stay perfectly heathly by eating from trash. And they're normal people. One we learned about was a second grade teacher. But the trash we throw away isn't necessarily trash. In fact freegans are perfectly healthy people. In the video we watched, they showed us trash bags out side of a grocery store. They got pre-prepared salads from bags, bread and even some meats. They told us that they  take food off the line if they're close to expiring even though they might good up to two weeks later.

So remember to be more concious about what you throw away because it might be able to go to better use.