What if the looming calamities like climate change, plastic pollution, the energy crisis and all our environmental doom were symptoms of a single disease and it is something that actually can arrange?
That's right, the planet is fighting a single archvillain: Waste.
Americans live in the most wasteful civilization in history. This goes far beyond what we put out on the streets each week. It has its roots in what we eat and drink and how we cook. It's the main thing you pay for on your utility bills and at the gas pump. Waste is so deeply embedded in our economy, products and daily lives that it is difficult to see it clearly or at all.
Thinking about the seemingly unsolvable crises destroying the Earth as byproducts of waste is powerful and hopeful. There is no partisan divide when one side says, “Yes, waste!” Instead, right now there are regular people from blue and red states working in our neighborhoods, showing us how to address waste and the catastrophes it causes, and how to save, and even make money while doing it.
The best opportunity to heal our economy, our quality of life, and the planet begins with reframing the entire fatalistic parchment as waste. What we choose to wear is important, but it's what we waste that's killing us.
Do not you believe it? How is it “normal” that 40% of what our factory farm and food system produces ends up as garbage? Where is the outrage over a fossil fuel-dominated energy system that wastes two-thirds of the $1.3 trillion we spend each year on fuel and electricity? Why aren't there protests about miles per gallon fuel economy ratings that ignore how each gasoline car waste $4 of $5 do we spend on the pump?
The average American throws away three times more trash today than in 1960. Much of that trash growth is due to plastic waste, so ubiquitous now that small fragments are found in food, water, beer and even hearts. the lungs and stools of newborn babies. . The World Wildlife Fund estimates that we swallow up to plastic equivalent to a credit card weekly! Yet we continue to buy it and discard it, because that's “normal.”
But waste at this level is neither normal nor inevitable. We can make different decisions. Start with some (or all) of these five waste-fighting moves that aren't about giving up the things you love, but upgrading to things you'll love more:
Kill your grass and plant a vegetable garden.. It's one of the best things you can do for the health of the planet and your own, and you'll get tastier, more nutritious vegetables without having to go to the grocery store. You could also support the fight against what Jamiah Hargins calls “food apartheid.” His South Los Angeles nonprofit organization Crop ExchangeLA, builds urban microfarms in food deserts that can turn 1,000 square feet of grass into enough vegetables and fruits for 25 to 40 families per week. “Why cut the garden,” asks Hargins, “when you can eat it?”
Turn off your gas stove. The main thing we cook with gas is the planet and our children's lungs. So that's enough. Gas stoves waste 70% of their fuel and create a 42% increased risk of childhood asthma. Not ready for a major upgrade to your appliances? Try an inexpensive countertop induction cooktop (as little as $65) for everyday use and reserve gas stoves for banquets (open windows, please). Chef Raquel Boucherwho was once George Lucas's private chef and now belongs to the Bay Area Construction Decarbonization Coalition, became an induction cooktop superfan (Cook with magnets, not flames.) after turning off the gas practically ended her husband's asthma attacks.
Just say no to disposable plastics. Plastics are waste incarnate, says Bay Area-based Anne-Marie Bonneau Zero Waste Chef. Most plastics are rarely recycled and bags and wrappers are never recycled. (Yes, we've been lied to for decades.) Plastic containers can release toxins into food, he says, especially when heated, so don't do it. ever plastic microwave! Bet on glass or metal containers, whether reusable or single-use. Save money on bags and wrappers by reusing peanut butter, pickle and jelly jars for food storage. Bring your own shopping bags.
Support “polluter pays” laws. Officially known as producer responsibility laws, these laws shift the cost of recycling (or lack thereof) from taxpayers to producers of things like plastic soda bottles. Maine took the first step and other states followed. California's “polluters pay” law doesn't go into effect until 2028, and you can bet all sorts of industries will spend that time trying to water it down. It is up to us to keep the pressure on officials to stand firm. This is not regulation, says environmentalist Sarah Nichols, architect of Maine's groundbreaking law. It is pay-for-what-you-break capitalism: an incentive to manufacture less polluting and more reusable products.
Drive the real vehicle of the future: Take advantage of the fact that the average driver travels alone 37 miles per day, and most of our trips are 10 miles or less. Which means EV “range anxiety” is a marketing and media creation. Why not try parking your gas-wasting car for short trips and ride sharing, borrowing, or buying a street-legal electric bike, electric scooter, or electric golf cart? Just ask Mayor Kim Learnard of Peachtree City, Georgia, where 39,000 residents have made mini-EVs their mainstay to save money and avoid traffic: “It's made driving fun again.”
Once you start seeing waste clearly, you won't be able to stop. And once you experience the benefits, you won't want to do it. This is how change spreads and how we change course. Rethinking waste as our archvillain isn't just a play on words: it's the secret sauce that turns anxiety and inertia into hope and action, because waste is the one big problem that anyone can do something about.
And collectively, our decisions do matter: they can advance the policies we need and repeal the ones we don't, they can move markets, they can cause harmful products to lose ground to beneficial ones, and they can make, break, or remake economies. And yes, they can also help save the planet. Simply being less trash.
Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. His latest book, “Total Garbage: How We Can Fix Our Waste and Heal Our World,” will be published in April.
