In the previous post I was talking about the Indy 500 and the amount of trash that is generated in that kind of events; these days I’ve had the same situation of huge amounts of trash being generated, but now while in my own house!
A brothers and sisters reunion that turned into a whole family reunion, Italian style, has been occurring at my house for the past several days. We are not Italians, but this reunion did congregate three generations of our family, all at my house for a couple of times. Although we are a small family (15 total for 3 generations), for the same reason we are used to live in a sort of isolation as a family. It’s been just three of us for the past 20 years and suddenly we became a lot of people in the same room, including grandmas to grand kids; the first talking and eating and drinking, while the last running and screaming and creating a mess with toys spread all over.
While we normally generate about half trash can a week, every single day it’s been a whole trash can! That’s times 14! (X 14). But we are normally 3, and now we can be a total of 15, so that’s only X 5, and about 5 of them are staying at a hotel and only show up during the day, so that reduces the number to about X 3, so how comes so much trash is generated?
At one hand, in order to simplify things, we’ve been using only disposable plates, so that’s a reason for some of the extra trash. Another thing is the amount of food that is dumped every day. Plates served and consumed only half way go to the trash with the remaining food in them. We never did that before, but in this reunion we had the chance to see how it happens in other families (my family!). That could account for X 3 or maybe X 4, but still it is a mystery to me how it does come to X 14!
It seems a good amount of trash is composed also by toys that get disposed of without noticing by the young parents in this family. New toys arrive every day, and it seems some parts of the old (one or two days old) go to the trash by accident, keeping automatically a sort of “balance” in the amount of toys owned by the very young kinds (2 to 4 years old). And these accidental disposal of toys occurs because of the complete mess that exist in a room where very young kids play, without parents teaching any organization skills.
Not surprisingly, parents show also this complete lack of organizational skills, among others, the apparent syndrome of not being able to stand a piece of empty surface. As soon as a small surface like a table or shelf shows empty, they have to place something there! It can be a purse; the car keys; a small blanket; kids shoes; kids toys; kids food, etc.
Then the amount of electronic devices like tablets; phones; game players, and their corresponding wall chargers. It is kind of unbelievable to me the amount of electronic devices per person my family carry.
So it seems a combination of owning too much stuff; acquiring more every day; not being able to keep things organized, and the chronic lack of planning, all together lead to the continual disposal of toys; food; disposable plates and tons of wrapping paper every day into the trash cans. No wonder why the generation of trash has been the most remarkable part in this family reunion. Oh, and empty bottles of wine and beer too!
It is so strange to look down and see the floor permanently dirty; look around and see so much stuff occupying every possible surface, and a huge number of people (for us) talking and laughing while my son and I are seating somewhere observing this truly alien landscape for us. We are Aspies, remember?
And that is the whole thing. What is normal and desirable by most people, like meeting in big numbers and talk; drink; eat; make noise and take the place as their own, for us Aspies (my son and me), quietness and organization are elements we are accustomed to. So I guess what I can see in my house these days is what happens in those public events, only in bigger numbers like from 15 to 100,000, which obviously has to imply a huge amount of consumption and trash being generated.
Funny though, I have now the opportunity to observe like a small cell of a giant creature, in order to better discover the origins and reasons for its characteristic behavior.
Raul
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