A Function of Consumption

Thanks to a healthy rain about a week ago, our rain water bucket still has plenty of water in it to wash out our recycling without using water from the tap. We have been significantly reducing the volume of trash our townhome creates. The weight of our trash is now more a function of the material, and is not an accurate reflection of the amount of things we throw away.

Before this week we weren't as concerned with conserving. One of the things that has been talked about extensively in our townhouse is the ways we can begin to consume less. By doing this, not only has our trash weighed less but, reduced in volume overall. In the greater sense, our footprint has become smaller. To be using and collecting recyclables to offset the trash to recycling ratio would be losing sight of the goal of this competition, which is to begin to reduce our overall impact on the environment. We have been using a PUR Water filter pitcher more than we had before the competition in an effort to reduce our dependence on bottled water and bottled drinks. We have also taken to reusing our trash and recyclables as furniture or assigning them a respective function such as turning some cardboard boxes into trash and recycling bins. In this way our townhouse has begun to capture the essence of sustainability much more concretely than I thought we would have two weeks ago.