What will it take?
Last summer I coordinated and ran a Horticultural and Environmental Leadership Program for eighth-graders. It ran for a month. At the end of that month, we were lucky if a single one of them remembered to place recyclables into the recycling bin adjacent to the garbage bin at the end of lunchtime.
A year ago I started composting at home. I expected some resistance. What I didn't expect was that, even after the initial resistance, people would find it so hard to remember what to do. I made it as simple as possible -- I maintain the compost situation 100%. All that I asked of my family members was that they put any food waste into a little compost caddy conveniently located behind the sink rather than into the garbage disposal or trash can. They try. But still, a year later, I am frequently picking fruit peels, nutshells, corn cobs, bread crusts and other food items out of the garbage.
In the room in which we eat lunch at work, the recycling bin, the compost dumpster and the garbage can are all adjacent to each other along the wall. All are open. The compost bin is the largest of the three, and centrally located. In one of my very first conversations with one of my coworkers, she emphatically let me know that she hates waste. And yet her cardboard, aluminum cans, grape vines, apple cores and banana peels routinely find their way into the garbage can along with the plastic bags and other nonrecyclables.
Why do people find it so difficult, even when, on some level, they care, even when it's made as easy as possible for them -- why do people find it so difficult to break out of the mindset of simply throwing everything into the garbage?
A year ago I started composting at home. I expected some resistance. What I didn't expect was that, even after the initial resistance, people would find it so hard to remember what to do. I made it as simple as possible -- I maintain the compost situation 100%. All that I asked of my family members was that they put any food waste into a little compost caddy conveniently located behind the sink rather than into the garbage disposal or trash can. They try. But still, a year later, I am frequently picking fruit peels, nutshells, corn cobs, bread crusts and other food items out of the garbage.
In the room in which we eat lunch at work, the recycling bin, the compost dumpster and the garbage can are all adjacent to each other along the wall. All are open. The compost bin is the largest of the three, and centrally located. In one of my very first conversations with one of my coworkers, she emphatically let me know that she hates waste. And yet her cardboard, aluminum cans, grape vines, apple cores and banana peels routinely find their way into the garbage can along with the plastic bags and other nonrecyclables.
Why do people find it so difficult, even when, on some level, they care, even when it's made as easy as possible for them -- why do people find it so difficult to break out of the mindset of simply throwing everything into the garbage?