Guest Column: Re-think Your Personal Relationship — to Garbage

By Helen Venada, San Juan County Waste Reduction and Hazardous Waste Coordinator

These days a lot more of us are thinking about garbage that’s generated on the islands. It’s a good thing we are. This may be the time for each of us to seriously Re-think our personal relationship to our garbage!

Several islanders have been saying that they don’t want to send so much garbage to the landfill.  Anything we can each personally do to reduce our trash reduces the amount of stuff in the landfill, reduces our own disposal costs and can reduce government waste management costs. We can benefit from shifting our culture back to earlier times when our consumerism and waste management habits had less negative impact on the global environment and our health.

More of us are realizing that much of what we throw away has value!  Let’s work together as a community, island-by-island and as a county of islands, to find new ways to prevent waste from happening, to reuse/repair materials locally, and to recycle more of what’s left.  I hope you’ll attend community meetings on solid waste happening on your island and offer your ideas!

Please also send those ideas to me, along with options you know about to reduce and recycle more on your island (or at regional mainland locations).  We’ll add this vetted information to the REcyclopedia, a new feature on the County’s solid waste website, which lists items alphabetically along with ways to best manage them when you no longer want them. Please check this community resource out regularly and make it a “favorite.”   https://sanjuanco.com/publicworks/solid-waste.aspx

We’re fortunate to be living in such a progressive state as Washington whose solid waste management plan, the “Beyond Waste” plan, emphasizes as its first priority that we stop throwing things away without thinking. Our choices affect the quality of our air, water, and food, as well as environmental and human health, for generations to come.

Preventing waste is a “lofty” goal but the state’s recent report card indicates that Beyond Waste’s strategies are succeeding!  The one area of waste generation that has actually increased is the per person pounds.  Yes, we Americans are creating MORE garbage than ever.  Industry is doing better but households are not.

To prevent waste, remember that impulse buying can easily create waste. Here are some questions to ask ourselves before buying anything:

• Do I really need this item?  Is it built to last…or will it soon become garbage?
• Could I use a smaller quantity?  Could someone else use up my excess?
• Can I buy locally? That can reduce transportation costs and pollution…while supporting our local economy.
• Could I bring home less packaging?   Is the packaging recyclable?
• Are there ways for me to use less plastic?
• Could I buy a product that’s toxic-free or is less toxic?

“Paper or plastic?”

“No thank you…I brought my own.”

Thank you and keep on talking trash! I think it’ll make us a more vibrant community.