TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Reduce Your Landfill Footprint

ADVERTISEMENT

By NICOLA M. WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 29, 2007

WESLEY CHAPEL - Rose Kalajian reuses Ziploc baggies, takes canvas sacks to the grocery store and turns leftover fruit and vegetable peels into fertile soil for her back yard.

Such eco-friendly steps save money as well as reduce the amount of trash she hauls to the end of her driveway.

Disposing of residential waste is a hot topic these days, as a private company vies to build a 90-acre landfill in east Pasco County.

Landfill proponents say the facility would help alleviate the county's growing trash problem, though many nearby Pasco residents are lobbying against the project. Right now, most Pasco garbage ends up in the waste-to-energy plant in Shady Hills, with excess trash shipped to a landfill in Osceola County. Pasco County officials are considering expanding the incinerator.

For people such as Kalajian, though, the best way to deal with household trash is to produce less of it.

'There's very little that I buy packaged,' said Kalajian, who runs Wesley Chapel's Natural Health Hut, a 7-acre farm where she grows organic vegetables and herbs.

Buying fewer things and throwing less away seems simple enough, but most Americans don't do it. During the past 35 years, the amount of waste each person creates has almost doubled from 2.7 to 4.4 pounds a day, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Fifteen percent of all Pasco County residents recycle, a figure that has remained stagnant for the past few years. Underscoring the growing importance of recycling here, Pasco County commissioners this week discussed making the practice mandatory.

In the meantime, here are some tips to help you reduce the trash you produce:

•At the supermarket: Use a canvas bag. Americans every year throw away billions of plastic grocery bags, which take a long time to decompose, according to the EPA. Assuming you go grocery shopping once a week and fill four bags each time, you could save 260 shopping bags a year by using canvas bags.

•While shopping: Choose products with little or no packaging. For example, buy loose tomatoes instead of the prepackaged ones, or buy wrenches, screwdrivers, nails and other items from the loose bins at the hardware store.

•In the kitchen: Save fruit and vegetable waste for composting, and give meat scraps to the dog.

•In the yard: Compost. Kalajian tosses discarded fruit and vegetables onto the compost heap in her garden to decompose into highly fertile soil. You don't need a lot of space for a compost heap; Kalajian's is about 4-by-4 feet and boxed in with plywood. The heap does not smell or attract rodents because the food waste is essentially buried in the soil, but don't toss meat in there, Kalajian said. To learn more, check out www.epa .gov/epaoswer/non-hw/ composting/index.htm.

Leaves and grass clippings make good fodder for composting, too. Kalajian rakes leaves and lets them sit at the base of tree trunks or wets them down and scatters them in her flower beds.

•At the dinner table: Use cloth napkins instead of paper.

•In the office: Reuse file folders; use scratch paper to take notes; proof documents on the computer before printing; return toner cartridges for refilling; route or post memos instead of making multiple copies; and make double-sided photocopies. Learn more at www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/recycling/pag....

•Cleaning out your closet: Donate clothes and furniture instead of throwing them away.

•In general: Recycle. All trash haulers in Pasco County are required to provide customers with a calendar indicating recycling pickup days. There is no extra charge for recycling, but customers must purchase their own plastic blue bags, which are available at most major stores. Residents don't even have to separate plastic bottles or aluminum cans into different bags.

The county also offers several drop-off sites for recycling, and several area charities and nonprofit organizations accept aluminum cans and newspapers.

For information, call Pasco County Recycling Services at (727) 847-8041, (813) 996-7341, (352) 521-4274, Ext. 8041

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT