Mother's like their daughters Trashy...

...at least mine does!

It's Mother's Day! In celebration of my undying adoration and appreciation for my amazing Mother, I'm going to share this news article that she sent me earlier this week. Thanks for feeding my Trash addiction Ma...

Keurig reverses course on refillable K-Cup coffee pods after a fierce backlash

Now the "fierce backlash" is really more about hipsters inability to brew their own organic, single origin, limited reserve, Ethiopian, medium roast coffee beans in the newest generation of Keurig machines than it is about the waste that disposable k-cups generate but I'll take what I can get.

Unlike past models of the Keurig machines the Keurig 2.0 cannot accept any reusable K-Cups (also known as My K-Cup) not like loads of people were using the refillable ones to begin with. The CEO of Keurig stated that they will create a reusable K-Cup that is suitable for the newer machines to use. Older versions of the My K-Cup still will not work in Keurig 2.0. 

Now I'd love to stand on my soap box and shout that this is due to the unwavering strong arm of environmentalists, but I can't. Like any solid business in our capitalist society this change is about money, not Trash but I'm beginning to think there's something to this Trash/Money equation.... A steady decline in sales lead Keurig to bring back the reusable cup after a "very small percent" of customers made a fuss on social media... 

But the fuss must have been big enough to cause the CEO to change his tune. Not even giving people the choice of using reusable cups in theory was better for the bottom line, but turns out money talks in mysterious ways. At least now caffeine addicts have a choice on how they do a brew. I'll take this as a win! 

No matter the reason behind the decision, the change will satisfy coffee connoisseur's, environmentalists and business folk alike. A rare but achievable feat. 

Stay Trashy friends & Happy Mother's Day! 

"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship"

People come to Hollywood to "make it". Not me. The thought of me ugly crying on screen evokes a loud cackle more than a heart-string pull. I'm here to "make it" green, not make it big. They can't handle the truth! However, being in the city whose streets are paved with thousands of souls who come here for just that, I owe Hollywood at least one post on the "biz". 

Last night I attended a mini panel discussion on sustainability in Los Angeles. One of the panelists was the Sustainability Specialist for Sony Pictures Entertainment. I was in love with her. While she was earning her Masters in Urban Sustainability, she did her field work at Sony (where she worked) and drafted & implemented a sustainability plan for their productions. Nobody puts sustainability in the corner!  After she graduated, she got hired to be their sustainability guru. Making her an offer she couldn't refuse. Production based sustainability initiatives involve anything in the making of the movie/show: set design, costumes, filming, lighting, everything. Even implementing sustainable practices on screen: recycling cans, reusable containers, "green" cleaning products, etc. This sounded like an incredible job, I'll have what she's having. 

While in complete adoration mode over her projects and seemingly glamorous life, she had me at hello, she showed us a promotional video about how Spiderman 2 was the greenest film Sony has ever produced: 

That sure went ahead, made my day. Sustainability initiatives are unique to each industry just like they're unique to each person & city. Sony's initiatives (which have become common place among most major studios in Los Angeles) are not only turning a high consumption industry into a more environmental one, but are directly impacting the bottom line. Show me the money! Less water bottles on set, re-purposing materials for set design and costumes means that all of those materials saves them money and keeps that stuff out of landfills. Those scenes of giant warehouses full of old props that are just waiting for their next close up? Definitely real. Certainly cost efficient. Hugely sustainable. 

Movies and TV reflect a lot about our current culture, but also influence it in a big way. Huston, I know that statement is a problem. Let's just acknowledge it for how big and generalized it is and move on... The Sustainability Specialist told us that the she spends a lot of time reading scripts so that on screen characters can normalize everyday sustainable practices. For instance, seeing a character recycle on screen, drinking out of their refillable water bottle, going to a big bulk store make it second nature in real life. The more we see them, the more we internalize and integrate them into our daily routine. If you build it, they will come. So here's to you film industry! You still have a ways to go, well, nobody's perfect, but you sure have "made it big" in my book! Here's looking at you, kid. 

Stay Trashy! 

TerraCycle Part II: Expansion & Obsession

A successful program isn't only about a strong idea, or plan to "scale up" but recognizing where you fall flat and creating a plan to overcome it. For me, most of the time the answer is a "who": Who do I know that will do this better? Who has the skills or network? Who is willing to touch other people's trash?

Starting with Hillel, while being a great place to jump start the program, came with a few constraints that prevented TerraCycle from realizing it's fullest potential. Working with such a specific group of students on campus made it difficult to branch out and gain traction with other groups on campus, especially environmental ones. Trash just wasn't on their radar, they were busy with transportation, energy and hooping on the quad haha. We were ready to grow, but how? Or rather...who?

We wanted to grow big and grow fast. Our first approach for a partner was the campus  Office of Sustainability. They were super into the idea and loved the initiative at a student level. But, could not condone the activity on campus- period. Sustaina-office say wha? Because the contract they had with the waste collection company was based on tonnage picked up, they were not allowed to diverge waste, at all. Meaning, any diversion of waste from normal garbage/recycling was a breech of the contract. They explained they were having the same problem with the Game Day recycling program they were trying to implement during football games. And in one email, my dreams of the first college campus to have a fully integrated TerraCycle program blew up in smoke... This was actually a blessing in disguise, because I don't think we would have had the capacity as students to deal with that much trash. 

Then came Anna who glowed with "what if possibilities": Partner small to gain big. Anna, who was a part of the Equestrian club on campus, got them to partner with us. In an instant, our reach doubled. Then, as a member of the Marching Virginians don't laugh, I got to go to all the games and Bowl games for free...it was awesome... I started collecting pop tart wrappers and chip bags from our game day breakfast & lunches. We're talking 300+ chip bags every home game. And finally, we partnered with the local one screen movie house downtown for candy wrappers. With our three major partners, we tripled our intake, extended our network and educated more students on TerraCycle and waste streams. Now partnerships can be difficult, and delicate, but these worked because we got them all on board with the mission and stuck to the script. Does celebratory dance for strong community partnerships! With a small trash collecting army behind me, we had grown the program to noteworthy size. It's all about the 'who'. 

All this talking and partnering meant I was thinking, talking or doing TerraCycle pretty much constantly, man, did I ever go to class? Trash Obsession checklist: You've recruited a small dedicated group to be elbow deep in trash the day before finals start every semester because you've convinced them it's cathartic, Check. You're walking around campus and strangers are handing you TerraCycle'able trash, Check. You're in a meeting completely unrelated to TerraCycle yet you bring it up when you notice the snacks are in wrappers you're collecting, Check. You fill half your suitcase with TC trash during your service trip to New Orleans, Check. You're introduced to new people as, "Oh yea, this is Rachel, the Trash Girl," Check. Hashtag no shame. 

One day, one of my friends asked, "Couldn't we collect something that didn't encourage us to eat so much junk?" And, as on cue as a "Let's Go" being answered with a "Hokies" meaning, right on cue for those non Hokie Nation-ers, TerraCycle announced its partnership with Solo...

Check in next week for a post about our most successful (and dirtiest) brigade. 

Things we were collecting: cookie, candy, chip, energy bar wrappers

Superfluous: extra

I went to a swanky networking event last week empowering women to be more financially literate. It was hosted by Personal Capital at a very nice event space on the East River. So nice, that the paper towels in the ladies room became a topic of discussion for a hot minute among the women at the event.

These were by far the nicest hand towels I had ever seen. I almost didn't want to throw it away! They were thick, plush, personalized and definitely pricey. And, they were all in the trash. What else are you supposed to do with a paper towel, even the overtly fancy kind?

Maybe if I hadn't gotten bombarded in the ladies room by one of the tipsy event hosts, or a glass or two into the night myself, I would have stashed a few in my bag to test how long I could have used one paper towel before it finally gave way. But alas, living and learning.

Swanky. Can you feel it's thickness?

Swanky or not, paper towel waste is of real concern for us Trashers. Not only does it consume a tremendous amount of trees but it also plays into the larger water pollution problems associated with paper mills and takes up an immense amount of landfill space.

Now I'm sure everyone has seen these stickers at least once on a paper towel dispenser:

The blog claims to have reduced 29% of paper consumption since 2007. That's HUGE when you look at his other stats about how many fast food restaurants, coffee shops and restaurants there are in America. I mean, how many paper towels do YOU take when you dry your hands? What I like about the stickers is that it reminds us that our use is not the beginning of where the paper towels came from. Our consumption is such a habit that we don't think twice about the impact that habit is having.

An even better solution to paper towel waste can be found at one of the Brooklyn Starbucks:

"High speed energy efficient hand dryers are now being used instead of paper towels. 

One tone of paper consumes 17 trees, three cubic yards of landfill space and pollutes 20,000 gallons of water. 

I know it's blurry. There was a super long line for the bathroom and I didn't want to be "that girl" who stayed in forever even though everyone already heard me use the hand dryer. I really love and appreciate 2 things about this sticker over the "These Come from Trees" stickers. First, this approach is a much friendlier consumer side solution. While the "These come from Trees" stickers do a great job about serving as a personal reminder about where the paper towels come from... and guilt you momentarily into grabbing one instead of two towels ...you're still using paper towels. You're still cutting down trees for a single use item that will end up in landfill. However, the hand dryers remove the entire life cycle of a paper towel*. In the long run hand dryers are better for our environment and better for Starbucks bottom line.

Second, kudos to Starbucks for really making an effort to 'green up' their operation. They get a lot of slack for a lot of reasons, but they've recently been working on improving their massive ecological footprint and they deserve recognition for it.

*Now we can argue the LCA (life cycle analysis) of paper towels vs. high efficiency hand dryers till we are waist deep in sea level rise-- but this blog is about straight trash. So for the sake of a simplicity, I'm in the hand dryer's corner.

I think my biggest issue with the event spaces fancy paper towels is that I didn't even have an option for a hand dryer. It was either use the paper towel or go back to my networking event with soggy hands Oh, don't mind my hands- no they aren't sweaty, I just didn't want to use the unnecessarily fancy towels in the bathroom.

Morally Ambiguous Trash

In High School, my friend Jenn (with 2 n's) got me a coffee table book simply titled "TRASH" (a product of Alphabet City) for my birthday. In it is an assortment of trash art projects and articles written on our moral and inherent connection with trash. In the introduction, John Knechtel, the books editor, writes, "We are embedded in our own trash- there is no easy way to leap beyond it and build a utopia without garbage, to address the contradiction between the worlds resources and our seemingly unlimited ability to manufacture trash." Whoa. We are connected to our stuff for its value to us at any given moment.

In the book there is a essay titled, "The Ethical Artifact: On Trash" by Barry Allen. Not only are Allen's elegant descriptions of trash mesmerizing, Now performing Off-Broadway, The 'Incidental Utility & Enduring Trash' and next month, 'Quotidian Refuse' but he shows how interconnected we are to our own trash and how trash is dependent on its connectivity to other trash. In other words, anything you own is one burnt out light bulb or crack or missing piece away from becoming trash.

That's true for most items, especially electronic ones, which is Allen's main thesis. Our Trash is becoming more technological and therefore more interconnected to each other. For example, your computers ability to function is dependent on not only the hard drive working, but the screen, keys and battery. Once one of those breaks, the entire computer becomes essentially...Garbage. He calls Trash our "limit of knowledge." When we don't know what to do with something once it has served its single purpose- we throw it away.

In regards to technology, where things can more likely be repaired than not, he has this to say, "The gesture of repair is a refusal to admit that are technology and knowledge have reached their limit, that no more can be made, no more done, with a thing. It's like refusing to let a person die." Double whoa. Is calling the Geek squad to fix my computer the same as keeping a loved one on life support? 

Allen likens trash to human mortality several times in his essay. He goes on to talk about how trash has a level of care associated with it- that even when something is no longer useful to us, we still care enough to dispose of it in some way. If we didn't, we would have houses full of unusable items. I don't know how I feel about likening the disposal of my Chinese take out containers to burying my Grandfather. Does this mean we should liken littering to murder and recycling to reincarnation? Deep. 

My biggest question after reading Allen's article is if we care so deeply about our Trash, why do people not have a more vested interest in what happens to it? We don't "throw away" our loved ones- even though we bury them just like we bury our trash. What if instead of landfill, we called it a Garbage graveyard? Do we have a moral obligation to care more for the trash we do produce? Or, like some countries are producing less children, an obligation to produce less trash?


Allen thinks it is impossible to become trashless, but to, "make trash for which we can care. What matters is not trash per se but its cost. The best trash is trash we are prepared to care for." It's not just about waste management but being conscientious of what we are using and being sensitive to the objects that mean so much to us for such a short period of time.

So how will you treat your Trash?