St. Anthony’s Green Team Goal: Zero “0” Waste

Getting to (or as close to) “0” Waste is the Green Team’s goal. What does that mean?  All of our waste/garbage will be composted, recycled, reused, e-wasted; nothing will go into landfill. St. Francis, patron saint of ecology, would be proud that we are doing our share in being good stewards of our mother Earth. This also means that we save on our garbage bills – increasing our compost and recycling volume lowers our garbage bills.

The average American generates about 5 pounds of solid trash a day!   In a year’s time, that equals 1,825 pounds of trash per person.  The population of the United States gets rid of about 210 million tons of junk every year!  Schools, hospitals, businesses and government agencies also produce a lot of garbage.

All of this garbage has to go somewhere, usually a landfill.  Garbage is dumped into a landfill and is then covered with dirt.  The United States and the rest of the world is quickly running out of landfill space. The answer to this landfill shortage is simply for people to compost, recycle and reuse. 

Landfills also cause another problem.  When rain or snow falls on the landfills and then seeps into the garbage, they turn into a poisonous, soupy liquid called leachate.  This leachate sinks into the ground and pollutes the groundwater under the landfill.  It also can leak into streams, lakes and natural wells. If this poisonous liquid gets into our drinking water it is very expensive and difficult to purify the water to get rid of this contaminated substance.

Over the past months St. Anthony’s has composted and recycled on average about 65% of its’ garbage.  With our focused goal  of “0” Waste   in mind we are doing our best to get to over 80%; then hopefully soon after 100 % of our waste/ garbage will be composted, recycled, reused or e-wasted.  The Green Team’s goal of “0” Waste will be challenging but we are determined to get there.