TRASH TRUTH
What’s the truth about Trash Trash Trash everywhere? Like: “Where does all the plastic and trash in the ocean come from?” Well, half of the plastic in mid-ocean plastic patches has been found to come from fishing trawlers. Old nets and broken parts, ripped clothes, and daily trash … just DUMPED into the ocean.
Nearly 1,400 shipping containers are lost at sea every year. You want that special gizmo made in China or India? 85 million pounds of shipped items are lost at sea every year. If we halved the number of imports we would halve the number of containers lost at sea.
Speaking of shipping, did you know that fishing trawlers are not the only ships that dump daily trash at sea? Almost all do. They don’t store it until they reach shore. The more you ship from India, Africa, the Mid-East, and Asia, the more trash is dumped into the oceans. Buy American.
The USA, per capita, is one of the lowest “mismanaged waste” polluters of the oceans. Asia is the worst “mismanaged waste” polluter. Their rivers flow with trash and chemicals. Don’t throw your used straw on the ground, but your straw is far from the worst thing out there. You can find lots of places which BLAME America due to the fact that the US “produces” an amazing amount of plastic. However, we are also very good at managing our plastics and other trash compared to Africa, Asia and South America.
Almost all trash in the ocean is near the shores. It flows down rivers and ends up in coastal waters. Then it gets washed back onshore by wave action. If you want to clean up the ocean the best thing you can do is clean your local beach at least once a week so that stuff won’t get pushed back out next storm.
We shouldn’t have to pay for the pollution others create. They should clean up their own. If EVERYONE managed their trash as well as the USA we would have much less trash in the ocean.
Same is true for air pollution. We adopted smokestack scrubbers decades ago. Some countries have none. We have reduced using coal by ~85% while some countries still have not changed how they produce electrical power. (China brags they have more e-cars than anyone, but they are charged via coal.) Cars here have catalytic converters. There are areas of the world where they still have none. Diesel engines here have to scrub their exhaust, but South America and Asia don’t. International shipping still uses the dirtiest grade of oil to power their engines, many without smokestack scrubbers. Meanwhile, your car gets 30 miles per gallon from the cleanest fuel and your car has a catalytic converter which makes it even cleaner.
The USA is NOT the key problem maker. Even if we radically improved it wouldn’t make any noticeable difference globally. Sure, keep your trash contained, cause less trash, … it won’t matter because the rest of the world isn’t slowing its trash or pollution. Does it matter that WE have left the climate treaty? Not a bit. We dropped out because WE aren’t the problem, but the rest of the world wants US to pay for it. Yet, even if we pay for it they still won’t live up to the treaty. There is nothing in the treaty to allow enforcement.
So, let’s set a neighborhood scenario. There are two neighbors. Neighbor A uses no electricity. Neighbor B uses 100 units of electricity. 1. What is the average electrical usage in that neighborhood? 2. How can neighbor A reduce the electricity usage in that neighborhood? Answers: 1. The “average” usage is 50 units per neighbor. 2. Neighbor A can’t do anything to lower average usage.
That illustrates some of the problems with cleaning up ocean trash. The world is calling on US to end the problem, but we aren’t the major contributor. Then the world is calling on US to pay for the problems caused by other nations, but we are not given authority to regulate or enforce.
TRASH REDUCTION
What is the benefit TO YOU of reducing the amount of trash you produce? A number of years ago we realized that we weren’t filling our dumpster every week. We ordered a smaller dumpster (for a lower cost). Savings were small. Moving to our new home we found the previous owners were using 2 dumpsters, we asked the sanitation company to remove one dumpster (for a lower cost to us). We wish we could “co-op” our trash because we only need to put our dumpster out twice a month. That would save us half our current cost. Money saved is money we use for other things.
So, if YOU can figure out what creates the greatest trash bulk at your home you could eliminate some cost to a worthless service. Worthless because its TRASH, after all. Our trash is so small because…
1. No small children or pets. (We wouldn’t put them in the trash anyway).
2. Hardly any package delivery. Stores work, so we use them.
3. No food delivery. No pizza boxes, styro, or plastic forks.
4. Buy the food we need, no more. We eat everything we cook (leftovers). If we buy 2# of apples we eat 2# of apples.
5. Use cloth napkins and real plates (no paper plates or napkins).
6. Buy clothes and shoes we will wear. I tend to wear my clothes until the bitter end. A dress shirt becomes a casual shirt, becomes a yard work shirt, becomes cleaning cloths. I use my 20 year old tennis shoes for yard work and walks in the park.
7. We buy QUALITY furniture which LASTS. We still have a rocking chair purchased the a year after we married.
8. We recycle metal (100% will be made into new things).
9. We buy large size refills for spray bottles and soap dispensers.
10. We reuse containers. My wife goes to work with a “I Can’t Believe Its Not Butter” container which holds cut up fruit, or a small salad. (Don’t know where we got that, we use real butter.)
Copyright 2025 Donald Whelpley
[PLEASE NOTE that Don is always open to discussing the thoughts and opinions he shares here and welcomes comments as shared in the comment section. He doesn’t use other social media platforms and won’t see whatever you’d like to share with him if you post it elsewhere.
ALSO, Don is always open to offer his thoughts on various topics. If you have a specific request, you can let him know in a comment; he reads – and replies to – them all. ~ Sherry]
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Mismanagement of plastic waste … more than 20% of plastic waste is mismanaged worldwide.
America, by contrast, mismanages less than 5%. Don’t blame the producers of plastic, because the worldwide mismanagement of ALL trash components is also much higher than the US.