I recently discovered the hard-to-hear message of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Edward Humes, author of Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash (2012) and Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation (2016).  It was his 2016 NPR interview on Door to Door that led me to his equally fascinating and disturbing 2012 NPR interview on Garbology. 

In the eternal quest for a home full of only things I find useful and beautiful I had decided months ago that I no longer (and never really) needed 22 square decorative pillowcases that I had made in Bali in 2001.  I had posted them in vain on both eBay and Craigslist; apparently no one else needed 22 Balinese pillowcases, until Freecycle! 

A few weeks ago when I wrote about the Darshan Karat, the man who generated only two trash bags in one year, I committed to bringing my own containers to restaurants to reduce the trash generated by bringing leftovers home.  It breaks my heart when we carry home stacks of styrofoam clamshells that are only a fifth full.

I don’t think I could either, but I’m incredibly humbled that any American can. Last week my client sent me home with the print edition of the Washington Post’s All My Trash For a Year Fit Into Two Plastic Bags: Here’s How I Did It. Author, and ultimate walker of the walk, Darshan Karwat, went to great social and consumer extremes to only fill two plastic bags of trash...