The joy of taking out the trash

You might not know this
just from looking at me,

but you might guess it from smelling me.

One of my favorite things
to do is take out the trash.

It's the laziest way

to technically pare down your possessions,

because the one thing you
can never do enough of

in a small New York City
apartment like mine,

is get rid of stuff,

the stuff that our modern consumers,

carbon-powered culture
makes us buy endlessly

and often for no reason.

Getting rid of people never hurts either.

Roommates, family members,

that old lady who's been in
your living room for weeks,

who is she anyway?

No squatters allowed.

I don't care if you're a ghost.

Also, not to brag,

but I've been micro-decluttering

since before Marie Kondo got big.

In fact, I've cut out her
step of picking things up

and figuring out whether
they spark joy in me

because I already know
what sparks join me,

throwing out trash.

What kind of trash?

Well, I'll give you a clue.

It starts with H and it ends with air.

That's right, it's a lot of hair.

Doesn't try and picture how much.

You'll feel sick.

And if you don't feel sick,
you haven't pictured enough.

I shed like an Instagram
influencer sheep dog

who's decided fur is the only
thing holding her career back.

We're all trying to reduce
our carbon footprints

and consumption.

So by throwing out trash,

I also naturally mean
recycling and composting.

I try to do both.

In fact, I once carried
a takeout container

across half the city

just to put it in the right bin.

Where's my inspiring biopic?

But then I learned recycling
frequently isn't working.

Even if we all separate out
glass, cans and cardboard,

a lot of stuff doesn't neatly
fit into those categories.

Paper envelopes lined with
bubble wrap can't be recycled.

Pizza boxes with grease
stains can't be recycled.

That memory from seventh grade when I...

Oh, who am I kidding?

All of seventh grade can't be recycled.

There's even a term for
it, aspirational recycling.

At first, I thought that

if you went to spin class last week,

so it should count for this week too.

China used to import a
lot of US's recyclables

but they stopped accepting
foreign garbage in 2018

as part of a pollution ban.

Whatever happened to one country's trash

is another country's treasure?

Now a lot of U.S. recycling
goes straight to landfills.

The EPA says that only 10% of plastic

has ever been recycled.

Not that this is about me,
but this balloons my anxiety,

the size of the giant
Pacific garbage patch

way out in the ocean where
we'll all eventually go

for our next destination wedding.

So, if you're American,

hound your political representatives

to work on this recycling issue

and try to create less waste
overall by reusing materials.

Here's stuff I've been reusing in my life.

Plastic bags, salsa jars and
old fights with my boyfriend.

Now, the next time I have
to throw out the trash,

I can confidently ask

hey, can I reuse this
loose ball of hair again?

And you know what? I probably can.

In fact, I'm going to give
it to that old ghost lady

as a going away present.

Thank you.