4.+Method


 * 1.** Get your whole family involved! For the first week, place two garbage bags in the kitchen. Use the permanent marker to label one bag "food items" and the ;other one "dry garbage." Your family will put all their garbage into these bags for the first week of the experiment.


 * 2.** Give each member of your family two gallon-sized (3.8 l) self-sealing plastic bags: one is for food, the other is for dry garbage, It's very important that your family members place ALL the garbage they would normally throw away outside the home (at work, school, etc.) in the bags. (This includes leftover lunch and soda bottles, but doesn't include tissues and toilet paper.) When you get home, collect their garbage and put it in the bigger bags. Wash out the smaller bags every night for them, and have them reuse the bags the next day. (Hey, it's the least you can do.)


 * 3.** After the week of garbage collecting, weigh yourself and record your weight. Then weigh yourself holding the dry garbage bag. Subtract the weight from this number. And that's how many kilograms of dry garbage your family produced. Do the same thing for the food garbage bag. Add the weight of the two garbage bags together to find the total amount of garbage your family produces in one week.


 * 4.** Put on the latex gloves and go through the garbage with your family. Can you recycle or compose most of your garbage? Devise a plan and implement it. (See the Take Action section for ideas.)


 * 5.** Continue to collect your family's garbage and weigh it at the end of every week for three weeks.