Originally I intended to make fun of the environmental movement, but I ended up becoming one of “them.” I’m not really into turning people into hemp-wearing vegans living in yurts; my goal and the goal of Wa$ted is to take each household and reduce the amount of its waste. We’re trying to save people money and, in the process, we’re being very kind to the planet…saving some green by going a little green.

Garbage Tourism

Every day a landfill closes in this country. I had this real watershed moment when I got permission from my local waste management company to ride along with my garbage collector and take my garbage to its final resting place, which is the Sunshine Canyon Landfill in Los Angeles.

That landfill receives 8,000 tonnes of garbage a day, some of which is mine. I deposit my body weight in garbage every 20-something days. We all have to lose a lot of weight, or we have a real problem.

Throwing things away is a really unconscious act for most of us. When you actually see it for yourself, it makes a huge impact. The average American in our disposable society creates 4.5 pounds of garbage a day without even realizing it. We need to think about that.

Frat House Gone Green

Wa$ted went into 10 households. One of them was a fraternity house in Newark, New Jersey. The guys there really needed to save some money, and they were living in total eco-squalor.

These guys didn’t even realize their neighbourhood had recycling. They had 2,000 empty cans of beer in their backyard! It was absolutely nuts. So, we got them recycling. I actually disrobed and got in the shower with the head of the fraternity to teach him how to take a navy shower so they could conserve water. I spanked the boys who were leaving their appliances plugged in when they weren’t being used…I went to any lengths I had to go to, to get this message across.

We were looking for a variety of households so that if you watched the show, you could say, “That’s like my house.”

All of the homes had two things in common; one was wanting to get their bills down. The other was wanting to live a greener lifestyle.

People just really didn’t know where to start. They all shared that sense of being overwhelmed. It’s like when you haven’t worked out for a long time and you go to the gym and say, “What first, my abs or my butt?”

Start With The Butt

We make an initial visit to the home and dump people’s garbage onto their front yard. We go through all their eco-crimes and then give them a month to follow an eco-plan. We come back in a month and see how they’ve done.

We also issue them a cash challenge. We tell them that we will match, dollar-for-dollar, the amount of money that they will save on their bills by living a less wasteful life. We were able to save every family an average of $2,200 a year, which we then gave them as a cash incentive.

The mom in the Zeller family, Mary Lou, had a PTA – a paper towel addiction. She was spending upwards of $800 a year using one roll of paper towels a day, which is terrible for the planet and terrible for her wallet. Now she’s doing great. She’s gone cold turkey, she stuck with it, and I’m so proud of her!

That same family had four people and five cars. They were spending over $15,000 a year in gas. Now we’ve got them carpooling to work, and when they go to a restaurant at night, they go all together instead of taking separate cars. That’s fantastic because they actually get to spend more time with each other!

All these initiatives leave a smaller footprint on the planet. That’s exciting.

The Miraculous Conversions

When we dump people’s garbage on their lawns, I put on my latex gloves and actually sort through it with them. It’s revolting. When people see their garbage, they have a physical reaction.

We did have one puker. We cut away from that, since people don’t want to see that on the show, but I saw it! We have a lot of screaming. Then we have some shock and stunned silence. It’s a real visceral experience.

The average American family of four throws away 122 pounds of perfectly usable food per month. When we opened up people's garbage, we’d see packages of chicken and cookies and bread and all kinds of things that were usable. It’s sad.

We visited three roommates living in a loft in Brooklyn who did a lot of entertaining. They had thrown away quite a bit of vodka, so I had to drink it for them to show them it was still usable. I have to say, that’s not advisable at 7 a.m. I’m not a vodka drinker, so I had no idea what that would be like. It was a hard show to concentrate on, but I did my work.

It’s really satisfying to return to people’s homes and see the changes. The Zellers not only stuck to the plan, but they told all their friends about it. Nick, one of the sons, actually got the restaurant where he works to go off of Styrofoam cups. It’s just really exciting to see them doing what I hoped they would do: spreading the message by example.

Throwaway Culture

We live a faster, better, cheaper lifestyle, or so we think. We’ve developed all these fantastic aids to make our lives easier, but it’s really wreaking havoc on the planet. Consider that at the turn of the century we were ¼ as many of us. There are just too many of us now. We can’t keep using those resources.

We had two households that liked to cook at home, which is a great thing, but they’d gotten into the habit of not using their dishes, and eating off of paper plates, because it was easier to just throw them away instead of washing dishes. That’s completely unsustainable, but when you don’t SEE your garbage, you just throw it in the can and it gets whisked away, you don’t think about it.

The truth is, we are running out of space. In New York alone, there is no more landfill space; everything has to be shipped to another state. New Jersey can’t be the Garden State much longer. The amount of paper waste the United States creates could circle the equator 300 times. It’s outrageous.

At one point it might have seemed like a good idea – it might have seemed like it was a faster, better, cheaper solution - but now that there are so many of us, the earth just can’t sustain it. The solution is recycle, reduce and reuse…and take an extra moment to think and plan.

Plans To Action

There was a climate report issued by our government last week, which tells us that there’s really no going backwards at this point. There are climate changes happening around us and adaptability is a necessity.

Maybe 40 years ago there would be a pregnant woman smoking a cigarette at a restaurant. Today that woman would be shunned because we all know it’s not good! It’s the same thing with the environment. We know better now to reuse something that can still be used.

You just have to start right now, today, to adapt your lifestyle. What I am doing is a very small piece of bigger changes that have to take place in legislation and the way companies operate. What I’m interested in is these small actions and reaching ordinary people.

It’s what I call voting with your dollars. We send the message to our government and the companies we do business with, that we are holding them to a higher standard. Government and big business can learn a lot from ordinary folks. They can learn that real people - not crunchy, yurt-dwelling, lentil-eating, moccasin-wearing people – are really interested in greener practices.

We have a hunger for knowledge, and we want our voices heard.

*****

Visit Wa$ted [2]on Discovery Channel's Planet Green.

If you enjoyed this story, you may also enjoy Living With Ed: Hollywood Dreams And A Recycled Milk Carton Fence [3].