Challenge: Reduce


During the past 35 years, the amount of waste each person creates has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.4 pounds per day. California sends 40 million tons annually to landfills. Right now, Americans recycle about 30% of their garbage. Experts say that this country can do better–that, in fact, most garbage can be recycled.

What You Should Know

Most garbage is buried, and the rest, about 15%, is burned. Garbage is buried in landfills, giant holes lined with plastic or clay. After garbage trucks dump trash into the landfill, the garbage is smashed flat with a bulldozer and covered with soil.

Landfills take up lots of space–space that could be used for parks, homes, businesses…or left as wilderness for people and animal to enjoy. Many landfills are already full, soon there will be a need for even more space to fill with garbage.

Landfills can leak. Decomposing waste creates a toxic liquid called "leachate." Special linings are required under landfills to block leachate from contaminating groundwater, but even the best-built landfill has the potential for leaks.

Easy Things You Can Do

Shrink your garbage: Make it a goal to throw less away and see what happens. You’ll begin to notice how much of your garbage is packaging, or food that could be put to better use in a compost bin, or paper or other items that can be recycled. Pay attention to how large and how many bags of trash you throw out each week, and you might become inspired to find new ways to reduce what you use.

Precycle. Always think about how much packaging you’ll have to throw away before you select what you’re going to buy. It takes energy to make that packaging, and it takes more energy to cart it away as extra garbage. Also, most of that plastic packaging is made from one of the most important energy sources–oil. By buying food and other products with less packaging or recyclable packaging, you can reduce needless carbon dioxide production by up to 230 pounds per year. Watch out for companies that purposefully add packaging to catch your eye. When faced with two equal products, always choose the one with less packaging.

Buy in bulk. Buy large quantities of things–especially nonperishable goods such as shampoo, toilet paper, or peanut butter–whenever possible. Bulk items use less packaging, which means less energy is needed to manufacture them. Buying in bulk is also much cheaper. For example, individually wrapped servings of oatmeal cost more than three times as much as the same amount of oatmeal from a large container. To make things less cumbersome, save the smaller shampoo bottle (or other container) you have now, buy a bulk size to store in the cupboard, and keep refilling your smaller bottle.

Use rechargeable batteries. Substitute them for batteries you use in everything from toothbrushes to flashlights, cell-phones to children’s toys.

Stop the junk mail you receive and then throw away.

  • To eliminate unsolicited catalogs from your life visit the popular free web service at CatalogChoice , or call the 800 number of specific catalog companies and ask to be taken off their mailing list.

  • Return junk mail stamped "Address correction requested" by writing "Refused. Return to sender." on the envelope.

  • To be taken off of national mailing lists, contact the Mail Preference Service. Or check out web sites such aswww.DirectMail.com/Junk_Mail or StoptheJunkMail.com. Both the GreenDimes and 41pounds web sites charge a small fee to remove you from mailing lists but will also then monitor and keep you from being added back onto them.

  • Sign up to have your monthly bills e-mailed to you so you can pay them on-line. You’ll save paper and stamp money.


Use less paper. Saving paper is the best thing you can do to conserve energy in your home office, since it takes so much energy to manufacture paper and transport it to stores, and then to your house. Some specific things to do:

  • Use recycled paper.

  • Print out only final copies (not drafts)

  • Print and copy on both sides of the paper when possible, and print on the back sides of scrap paper when you can.

  • Use voice mail, email and electronic faxes instead of paper letters and faxes whenever possible. Don’t use fax cover sheets.

  • Direct companies to bill you and/or allow you to pay your bills via e-mail and direct deposit.


Carry your next purchase in your hands or your own bag instead of using the shopping bags the store offers.

Source: 30 Simple Energy Things You Can Do To Save The Earth (PG&E)