What a waste!

     Evaluating what I actually throw away in a day was both eye-opening and not surprising all at the same time. I was aware that I dispose of quite a bit and that I can do a better job at wasting less. The part that was not surprising is that I really do not have the time that would be required to make a significant change. I am the mother of five, a full time student and a part time worker. With all of this going on I would need recycling to be less of a hassle. Unfortunately, here in Macon, recycling is not simple. Based on my disposal habits of yesterday, both at work, school and at home, I estimate that I threw away approximately 3.5 pounds of waste. From the packaging of the food I prepared, to the food that was not eaten, which in my home, is actually very little (i have 4 boys). I was able to do this evaluation by actually saving all of my trash until the end of the day and then bagging it separately. After the day was over I weighed the bag and it weighed 3 pounds 7 ounces. I would say that this was a fair estimate of a normal day for our family. Over the course of the year that would equate to 1,277 pounds of trash for just myself. If you multiply that times 5, for my five children, that's almost 6500 pounds of trash. In comparison to the rest of the population, I found that our waste production is very much in line with the typical waste of the average American. Since we lead the world in waste production, I can say that my family probably produces more than most families in the world.

• Totals 
• Per Capita

#	COUNTRY	AMOUNT	DATE	GRAPH
1	United States	760 kgs per person per year	2000
2	Australia	690 kgs per person per year	2000
3	Denmark	660 kgs per person per year	2000
4	Switzerland	650 kgs per person per year	2000
5	Canada	640 kgs per person per year	2000
6	Norway	620 kgs per person per year	2000
7	Netherlands	610 kgs per person per year	2000
8	Austria	560 kgs per person per year	2000
9	United Kingdom	560 kgs per person per year	2000
10	Ireland	560 kgs per person per year	2000
	Group of 7 countries (G7) average	560 kgs per person per year	2000
11	Belgium	550 kgs per person per year	2000
12	Germany	540 kgs per person per year	2000
13	France	510 kgs per person per year	2000
14	Italy	500 kgs per person per year	2000
15	Finland	460 kgs per person per year	2000
16	Sweden	450 kgs per person per year	2000
17	Japan	410 kgs per person per year	2000

     Trying to figure out how much water my family uses every day is more difficult. My youngest children take a shower every other day and my wife and I and our oldest son shower each day. Water is used in brushing of teeth, and the preparation of food as well. That's not counting the number of times the toilet gets flushed. All of our toilets are low-flow as well as having low-flow shower heads. So, since I cannot do the estimate myself, I turned to the internet and researched that average water use. In this I found a graphic that I believe reflects the typical use by my family.

Typical water use at home

Bath	A full tub is about 36 gallons.
Shower	2 gallons per minute. Old shower heads use as much as 5 gallons per minute.
Teeth brushing	<1 gallon, especially if water is turned off while brushing. Newer bath faucets use about 1 gallon per minute, whereas older models use over 2 gallons.
Hands/face washing	1 gallon
Face/leg shaving	1 gallon
Dishwasher	4 to 10 gallons/load, depending of efficiency of dishwasher
Dishwashing by hand:	20 gallons. Newer kitchen faucets use about 2.2 gallons per minutes, whereas older faucets use more.
Clothes washer	25 gallons/load for newer washers. Older models use about 40 gallons per load.
Toilet flush	3 gallons. Most all new toilets use 1.6 gallons per flush, but many older toilets used about 4 gallons.
Glasses of water drunk	8 oz. per glass (did you remember to drink your 8 glasses of water today?)
Outdoor watering	5 to 10 gallons per minute

All in all, this is a significant amount of water. I have always believed that my family can do a better job at consuming less and being more eco-friendly. I have learned in this class to be more focused on that and making my choices more in line with sustainability. I can't promise that I will make the significant changes that might be necessary, but something should be better than nothing. I hope that I will be able to have a small impact.