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10 - B - Home Trash Audit (Attachment A) Attachment A HOME TRASH AUDIT HOW TO REDUCE YOUR HOUSEHOLD WASTE October 1 6 , 2012 COSTA MESA SANITARY DISTRICT 628 W. 19th Street COSTA MESA, CA 92627 Dear CMSD resident, Did you know that you can save lots of money by reducing the amount of trash you throw away every month? It’s true. R educing your trash can save you $96.00 per year if you a re using more than two (2) cans. As you know, additional co ntainers cost $8.00 per additional container per month. So if you are currently using four (4) containers, by reducing your waste and eliminating two (2) containers, you could save about $2,000 every ten years! True Fact: The U nited States of America is the number one trash -producing country in the world at approximately 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste . Let’s change that. Here’s how you can reduce your household w aste : 1. Understanding Your Household Waste 2. Do an Audit 3. Review Your findings 4. Reduce Trash Waste 5. Measure Your Progress 1. Understanding Your Household Waste Here’s a quick breakdown to reducing the waste you produce at home: Solid Waste There is only so much room available for solid waste disposal, and because landfills are so tightly packed, it takes a great deal of time for material to decompose. The easiest way to reduce solid waste is to reduce your consumption of daily products. Be cautious of what you bu y, and whether anything you are going to put in a trash can really belongs there. 2. Do a n Audit These home trash audits can apply to every aspect of waste self -management. For an example, here we have covered a “trash audit.” Here’s how to do a trash audit: a) Pick a time period – A week is a good place to start. b) Get everyone involved – If they live in your house - they make trash. Have a “house meeting” and tell them the plan. c) Throw stuff away – Go about your normal routine, and throw away what yo u usually do. It is important that you be honest with yourself and not try to be on your “best behavior.” Remember, you are trying to get an accurate measurement of your waste output. d) Weigh in or Count – If you can, weigh your trash. Each time you take a trash bag out of the house, place it on a regular home scale. If you can’t weight it, then count the numbers of trash bag s . This way you can have a baseline for comparison (sort of like “before” and “after” photos when you’re starting a new workout progr am). Though you will visually be able to see your trash dwindle, the satisfaction of cold, hard facts is the icing on the cake. e) Put on some gloves – Check daily to see what you threw away that could have been recycled, composted, reused or avoided. This p art is the “eeewwww” moment – we are talking about trash here. But, by doing it daily, it won ’t be as bad. Don’t be deterred by what you find. Remember your mission; you can do it! This will also tell you a lot about yourself, your eating habits and wha t products or items you buy or use the most. f) Get graphical – Make a list, chart, pie graph, PowerPoint …whatever you want. Just write down your findings, and use those findings to make a plan. What can you recycle that you are currently tossing in the tr ash? What can be composted? What can be reused and, in turn, what didn’t need to be there in the first place? 3. Review your Findings Once you have some data on what you ’re wasting, it is necessary to take a seat and review it. Just by going over what you found, some easy fixes will pop up. For this reason, it is essential to make a plan. Break this plan into t wo sections: “Right Now,” and “Just Around the Corner .” Ri ght Now: These items are the flashy neon signs that say “Duh!” The criteria for this section should include things that don’t take any money and very little time. They often focus more on breaking bad habits than learning something new or making major cha nges. These things might include: • Purchase less -packaged, or non -packaged items • Reduce your plastic and paper waste • Recycling basic items in your curbside program • Reuse more items such as glass jars in order to get more uses out of them Just Around the C orner: These items are the things that make sense as a natural next step. It may cost a little money, or be more time consuming, but it is well worth it. You want these goals to be challenging but realistic. They might include: • Starting a compost pile (affordable compost bins are available at CMSD headquarters!) • Taking your reusable bags to the store • Buying and using rechargeable batteries • Buying in bulk 4. Reduce Your Trash Now that you have goals, it is time to get moving. Reducing the trash your house puts out is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. However, there are some major themes to follow: Compost Your Scraps According to the U.S. EPA, every American throws away an average of 1.3 pounds of food scraps daily. In addition to this, yard trimmings and food waste combined make up 24 percent of our nation’s municipal solid waste (MSW) stream. Starting a compost pile can happen anywhere, at any time. From your kitchen to your backyard to a worm bin, composting can make a huge dent in your waste and produce a rich product you can use to help maintain your yard, give to friends or even sell at the local farmer’s market or garden center. Buy your compost bin today and start composting. Compost bins are available 628 W. 19 th Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92627. Call us at (949) 645 -8400 for more information. Buy Better Trash When at the store, check out a product’s trash profile before you purchase it. If you can choose between a few options, pick the one that has the least amount of waste associated with it, such as a product using less packaging or packaging made from recyclable materials. Also, buy in bulk and bring your own reusable containers to the store to hold these items. Make sure to know the weight of the container when it’s empty, so they can subtract that from the price when you’re checking out. If you need help with this, just ask the customer service desk at your local store. Once you know the weight, write in on the container and it will be easier to reference in the future. Buying in bulk not only saves waste, but money. Even better, keep an eye out for these guys: • Recycled -content products are made from materials that would otherwise have been discarded. That means these products are made totally or partially from recycled material, like aluminum cans or newspaper. Also, if a product is labeled “recycled content,” the material might have come from excess or damaged items generated during normal manufacturing processes – not collected through a local recycling p rogram. • Post -consumer content is a material that has served its intended use and is being reused in a different product. “Post -consumer” also indicates that the material is not from the manufacturing process, but from a finished product that has already be en used. • Recyclable products can be collected and remanufactured into new products after they’ve been used. These products do not necessarily contain recycled materials and only benefit the environment if people recycle them after use. You can also take th is one step further and think about what products recycle better than others. For example, glass is an easy material to recycle that doesn’t downgrade. If you can, choose glass over plastic (which downgrades once recycled). Stop Buying! It can be as simple as this: if you don’t buy waste, you can’t make waste. For example, a group in San Francisco did exactly that. They set out to buy nothing new for an entire year. While that might not work for everyone, the essence of it is definitely applicable in differ ent -sized doses. Do you really need another (fill in the blank)? Do you already have something at home that will work? Do your friends or family have something you can use or borrow? Even if it ends up that you need to buy it anyway, just getting into the habit of thinking about alternatives is a step in the right direction. Be open -minded, and see where it leads you! 5 . Measure Your Progress This is the best part of any process. Taking a moment to look back at what you have accomplished has a few benefits: a) Everyone deserves a pat on the back – good job on your first home audit! b) In what areas have you excelled and why? c) In what areas are you slacking? What can you do to change? d) What is the next step? Fix what’s not working, move on to new goals or maintain what you have already built? Once you have measured your progress, just build on what you are doing now and continue educating yourself on the t h ree R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. If you need assistance performing your waste audit, contact the Costa Mesa Sanitary District at (949) 645 -8400. Remember: Reducing your trash can save you money! Start today!