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The GOOD 30-Day Challenge: Waste Less

In July, we're getting less trashy by trying to reduce our garbage to one grocery bag per week. Waste not? We'll certainly try.


Things are easier said than done, or so the old adage goes, and we couldn't agree more. That's why we do The GOOD 30-Day Challenge (#30DaysofGOOD), a monthly attempt to live better. Our challenge for July? Waste less.

Every year the residents and businesses of Phoenix alone send one million tons of solid waste to Buckeye, Arizona's, SR85 landfill. That's about one ton per resident, and it's enough garbage to fill the city's pro football stadium from top to bottom seven times over. Outside of Arizona, the average American produces about 4.4 pounds of garbage per day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and in Mexico, households create 30 percent more trash than Americans. It all seems insignificant at first—a Starbucks cup here, a sandwich box there—but pretty soon you're sweating while hauling giant Hefty bags to the curb yet another week in a row. Let's stop being so trashy, and let's start this month.


Our GOOD Challenge for July is to waste less. How you go about that is up to you. Perhaps you could start bringing your own cup to coffee shops or stop eating takeout so much. Regardless of what you choose, you should do so with the goal of producing just one paper grocery bag of trash per week. Yes, that's going to be difficult, but as GOOD filmmaker Alex Gorosh notes in the video below, if it was easy we wouldn't call it a challenge.

[vimeo][/vimeo]

As usual, consider this post an open invitation to join in the challenge. On Twitter and Facebook, we'll be using the hashtag #30DaysofGOOD to keep you abreast of our progress, and we hope you'll use it to let us know how you're faring as well.

Good luck cleaning up your act.




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