Questions

1. Looking around the room on the final day of our lab when everyone brought their bags of waste to sort, I noticed that plastic was by far the most abundant municipal solid waste category in the room. A lot of food and drinks that we consume are packaged in plastic, and a lot of us had plastic packing from online shopping in our trash bags. This was not surprising to me because most of my trashbag consisted of plastics as well.

2. Plastic has several major impacts on the environment. Since plastic is made of fossil fuels such as oil and natural gasses, the process of making plastic causes a great amount of pollution. Secondly, the disposal of plastic through the incineration process burns toxic chemicals into the air, causing more pollution. Third, when plastics are dumped in landfills, it can take several hundred years for them to fully decompose. These three major impacts are very bad for the environment, which is why we need to cut down on the use of plastic products when possible.

3. I think that my parents' solid waste inventories for a week would be very similar to mine. One of the major differences that I think we would see is food packaging waste. I go to school every day where at least 1 meal that I eat a day is prepared by the dining hall, my parents prepare their own meals 3 times a day; meaning that they would definitely have more waste than I do. When I discussed this with my mom, she agreed with this speculation. She also added that she would have a more diverse mix of solid waste materials than just the plastic and paper that I had.

4. I definitely altered my choices about foods eaten during this week. I tried to avoid individually packaged food and drinks, mostly because I didn't want too big of a trash bag at the end of the week. This surprisingly was not difficult for me and since the project, I have found myself continuing the same habits regarding the food and drinks that I consume. When it came to the packaging of other things like online orders, I stayed the same in my choices about what I purchase. It would be hard to change this because when purchasing something online it comes in plastic packaging the majority of the time.

5. I think that this was a very worthwhile project for the APES classes to participate in. It is always important to be mindful of the amount of waste we create, and this project forced us to make more deliberate decisions when purchasing various items throughout the day. One of the most memorable parts of the week for me was seeing my peers carrying trash bags around campus. I would go to meals and see people sitting with trash bags next to them. It was interesting to see what other people's waste inventories were like compared to my own.

6. One thing that I would change about the project would be having us collect food scraps and other items that we were told not to throw away during the project. I think that it would be very interesting to compare how much waste we made throughout the week with food waste and hygiene products included. Personally, most of my waste is either from food scraps or items like tissues and makeup wipes. I think that if everyone were to also collect these things, our waste amounts would be significantly higher.