while cleaning up one day and putting water bottles, etc. in the trash. I got to wondering just how many plastic bottles do we go through in a weeks time and how many are we putting into the landfill. So I thought I would do a little experiment of my own.
Take one week and see just how many bottles, containers we throw away.
So for one week I put all our empty water bottles into a large garbage bag and I included any milk jugs, juice, coke bottles and containers we used. Well in a weeks time and this is a modest figure we had about 50 containers.
What does this look like in a years time in our landfill just from our house. Well let's do the math.
one week X 50 containers = 50
One month X 50 = 200
12 months X 200 = 2,400
now this may not seem like much to some, but you do that for your city alone and see what you come up with. I live in a town of about 100 homes. (yes, very small town) and on an average we'll do just 30 bottles... some may use more, some less.. so 30 seems pretty good.
100 homes in a week = 3,000
100 homes in a month = 12,000
100 homes in one year = 144,000
Can you imagine that many bottles in your landfill each year just from one small town?!! Now take that to bigger cities where there are many offices, public buildings, people carrying around water bottles all the time, pop bottles, homes using milk jugs, juice bottles, ketchup bottles, and so many other containers.. and just think what all we put into our landfill each DAY!!
We all often wonder how can I be affecting the environment... I don't dump toxic waste, chemicals and such. But in reality we do! We put more into our landfill than we think. Some of these things takes years to break down. and once we throw them away we never think about it again. Out of site, out of mind so to speak.
What can we do, well recycle for one... If you live in a place that does that. I know many of us don't and that can be a problem. But we can filter our own tap water and use reusable water bottles for one. Change the cleaning products you use to more concentrated products so you use less bottles.. and use products that if anything is left in them, it will break down and not harm our soil and water.
Will anything I post her today change the world.... well just one house may not, but many, many homes can make a difference if we all work together. Think about your home and what you use..what little things can you change. And in time to come, we'll begin to see changes in places we never thougth we would.
Just my thoughts for the day.
Patty Dooley
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