Unpopular opinion: I tracked my family's trash for 30 days in Bellingham and the recycling bin was the biggest lie in my house

Mason Fisher · 2026-10-16T14:35:05.532899+00:00

My city rolled out a new compost program in January and I figured we were already doing fine, so I dumped every bag from the kitchen on the garage floor for a month and sorted it with a kitchen scale. Out of 62 pounds total, 41 pounds was food scraps that should have gone in the green bin, and only 9 pounds was actual recycling. The recycling part shocked me because I always felt good about that blue bin, but after rinsing out 14 yogurt cups I stopped counting and just weighed them, and the food was the real weight the whole time. What made me mad is the city sent a mailer saying the average house wastes 30 pounds of food a month, and I laughed at that number until I hit 41. I called the public works line and the guy there, Marcus, said the same thing happens in almost every house and the food is what drives the landfill methane. So now we do one small bucket on the counter and I empty it every night, and our garbage can only goes to the curb every other week. That is a real tonnage drop for basically zero effort. Anyone else actually weigh their trash, or am I the only one who had it this wrong?

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Unpopular opinion: I tracked my family's trash for 30 days in Bellingham and the recycling bin was the biggest lie in my house | Climate Action - Hub Chatter