Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Expensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.

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Visit your trash

 Visit your trash
  (+5, -4)
(+5, -4) 		  [vote for,
against]

An idea I have for convincing people to generate less trash is to periodically force them to visit their entire trash contributions accumulated since birth. As someone in my 20s, I am certain that I would be terrified at the massive scale of trash I have generated during my lifetime.

Perhaps the first visit should be scheduled somewhere around the 18th birthday, which for many Americans at least is the peak of irresponsibility in life.

Of course, some of the trash, such as food trash, might be decimated by other factors. This is OK since the idea of this plan is to force people to regret generating that trash which either never goes away or will take a long time to decompose.

The obvious problems with this plan to me are, keeping the trash properly partitioned, transporting it to the correct place, and locating and transporting the individual for the purpose of the visit.

—gd, Mar 21 2001

Circle of the Gluttons http://www.ccel.org...inferno/infer08.htm
Huge hail, and water sombre-hued, and snow, Athwart the tenebrous air pour down amain; Noisome the earth is, that receiveth this. [hello_c, Mar 21 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004]

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       I'd like to see this concept extended to producers of goods as well as consumers.   

       Periodically all employees of a company should be scheduled to visit the sum trash that has accumulated from its products.
—k8to, Mar 21 2001
   

       Wouldn't a Graphic Suffice?
:-(
((((((((((((
((((((((((((
((((((((((((
((((((((((((
((((((((((((
((((((((((((
etc. ad nauseum
—thumbwax, Mar 21 2001
   

       Just looking at it would be pretty meaningless without some sort of scale or comparison with others.
—centauri, Mar 21 2001
   

       On a smaller scale, if you were forced to carry all of the trash you generate in a day around with you it will make you more consious of the amount.
—blahginger, Mar 22 2001
   

       That seems more likely to be effective, blahginger.
—PotatoStew, Mar 22 2001
   

       This idea presupposes that all trash is being put in its proper place by those generating it. For now, I'd settle for a way to get more people to put their trash where it belongs.
—iuvare, Mar 22 2001
   

       Hear hear, iuvare! curbsides and forgotten corners are not where trash belongs. blahginger, the trash that I generate is mostly from fast food or retail purchases, the vast majority of which (the trash) ends up staying in my car. Ok, that's kinda not nice to look at, so the next time I go through a drive-through I make sure that there is a trash can directly beyond the window into which I can make a deposit of the previous batch. The point is, keeping trash around just to look at doesn't make me any more conscious of the mass that I'm generating.
—absterge, Mar 22 2001
   

       I think that Tote Your Trash day/week would be highly entertaining, but it seems to punish those who deal with a lot of junk mail or cardboard packages.
—centauri, Mar 22 2001
   

       At least one could put other trash in the cardboard packages. I think Tote Your Trash would be hardest on those using disposable diapers.   

       I'd be most cowed and conserving if I knew my trash was going to come visit *me*.   

       On the other hand, Visit Your Trash is also Baked in the third circle of Dante's Inferno.
—hello_c, Mar 22 2001
   

       This would make it much easier for me to recover all of the things I accidentally throw away in the trash, thus I will be less hesitant about throwing things away.
—Rusty, Mar 22 2001
   

       Let's make this Virtual Visit Your Trash in some environmental conservation museum. It's a small Imax-style theater with a console in the middle. You answer some questions-- How old are you? Where do you live? etc. etc.-- and a computer totals up your probable lifetime trash output. It then displays a very convincing vista of all that trash on the screen. Then a Native American appears with a single tear rolling down his cheek.
—ejs, May 22 2001
   

       Don't worry, gd, most of the ideas here are flawed. Just come up with the principle and let someone else do the logistics. Don't worry yourself.
—NickTheGreat, Jul 03 2002
   

       Give me a gun and I'll solve your litter problems - summary death scentences to be given out by litter wardens. Or put people who drop rubbish in the stocks and let people hurl rubbish and rotten food at them.
—The(n)iceman, Mar 24 2004
   
      
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