What came first the rubbish or the rubbish bag?

I was almost too embarrassed to ask, but I certainly couldn’t keep walking around the house trying to figure it out. “Sorry, I know you are busy but where do I throw these?” I asked the maid, with a dozen sweet wrappers in my hand. She giggled, not to make me feel more uncomfortable for even asking a silly question I guess. She extended her hand and opened her palm, gesturing me to hand her the wrapper’s, which I did. But I followed her to see the elusive bin. And watched her put my wrapper’s, in the tiniest bin known to mankind (I’m sure it’s in the Guinness world book of records!) This tiny bin, sat on top of the kitchen counter, nestled behind the door, unmarked, not over flowing with rubbish, no smells emitting from it and all rather inconspicuous. Almost out of doubt that it was a real bin, I took a peek inside as the maid walked off to go about her day and surprisingly it was a bin after all. With my sweet wrappers and not much else in there. Had she not been around my ‘British’ eyes would have never noticed that this small, office size bin was where my household rubbish should be placed.

Surprising as this may seem, this was not my only rubbish revelation. The next surprise was, how often there was little to no rubbish in the rubbish bin. To those of us in the West, this is a huge shock. We have grown accustom to housing rubbish, no matter how small or large our living space, our bins are oversize and even to a complete foreigner are clearly visible, normally due to the audacious amount of rubbish contained, sometimes to the point of not being able to close. This is in complete contrast to Africa. Where rubbish had no home in the living space.

Where rubbish had no home in the living space.

Having spent a few years in Africa mostly Zambia it felt like a brand-new experience when I returned to England. I was seeing everything as brand new, the level of multiculturalism, the fast-paced life and probably something that I am sure not many people would notice, the housing of rubbish inside of the home.

Despite what is shown on TV, Africa and Africans do not all live in filthy conditions, with over flowing rubbish, tattered clothes and swollen bellies. In fact, one may be surprised to find it rather difficult in a typical Zambian home to know where to put your rubbish, as my earlier story foretold. It is almost like rubbish does not exist, especially not in the living space.

The concept I am now pondering is, if I removed the rubbish house aka the bin(s) in my home, would my level of rubbish decrease to little or no rubbish like I had experienced in Africa?

There is no hiding behind the fact we in the West are consuming machines, with consumption appetites so large that they are over-flowing right out of our bins. Don’t believe me? Take a moment and check your bin right now. It is probably the same size of a small child and perhaps your bin is accompanied by a family of other bins next to it. You know, for recycling and everything, so that you feel you are doing your part and helping the environment. But all in all, isn’t just too much rubbish?

Could the lifestyles of African lend a hand to this dilemma?

I think so.

In Africa, there is no organised government trucks hauling rubbish from one part of town to another. Some may argue this level of dependency on government led public services is required, to maintain a clean and organised standard of living and rather to the point, deal with household waste. However, in Africa where there is no reliance on the government, it has resulted whether positively or negatively in household’s predominately taking responsibility for their own waste. And that is what it really boils down to in my opinion.

In order to tackle any Sustainable Development Goal’s, accountability from individuals and households must there. And having a rubbish bin, in some way can symbolise the idea that your waste is someone’s, mostly the governments duty to deal with. Because once placed in that bin liner and subsequently thrown into your outside bin, the matter is out mind and is now awaiting the trusted bin men and from there the local waste service to handle. But what if, we were more circumspect about our household waste and took accountability for it? … What if we saw our rubbish bin’s and bin liner’s as the part of the problem for our abundance of waste?

Let’s say, one day that all government funds ran out and there was no more money in the coffers to pay for waste services. And you had to take care of your own rubbish, do you think that would provoke in you a similar lifestyle of that seen in Zambia? Where you would buy more products from markets, to avoid dealing with excess packaging often seen in supermarkets? Would it result in you finding local butchers and fish mongers so you again did not have to think through the processing of plastic waste that accompanies most processed meats?

Having long had this thought in mind, it has led me to give a no bin life a go!

I am going to be reverting to my experience in Africa and doing away with the oversize bin.

My belief is that if I have nowhere to house the rubbish, I may take alternative options when purchasing.

There are presently a host of options available for me to avoid or limit my purchase of rubbish, in-particular plastic waste.

1. Buy most of my fruit and vegetables from my local market. This is a practice I rather enjoy and I have as a habit. I love the smell from the array of fruits and I like that seeing, smelling and touching fruit gives me almost an expert eye as to what is good quality and what is bad.
2. I will also be buying mostly from a Zero waste stores — this would immediately decrease the amount of plastic I have to throw away. I can top-up my tea, coffee and other essentials with absolutely no silly plastic or unnecessary packaging.
3. I can stop buying refuse bags/ bin liners. Keeping my bin ‘naked’, like I saw in Zambia. Meaning I would be more conscious about what goes in there mainly due to the fact I will be the one washing it out.
4. Should the need to line my bin come upon me, I could use old newspapers. This way I am repurposing materials and not adding a plastic bag into the mix.
5. If things really get to the point of desperation I could line the bin with biodegradable plastic bin liners.

All these options, present a very good case for doing away with my current rubbish harbouring ways.

I mean if you think about, why keep rubbish in your home?

Your home should be a clean, peaceful, positive place. We were not designed to live with rubbish, we were designed to live with humans and in harmony with nature.

And so, the last thing I want to be doing is to be consuming in a way that gives no regard to the final outcome of where my rubbish will end up. My choice of product consumption will be at the forefront of my mind when shopping now.

What do you think, could you live without your bin? And if so do you think it could make your lifestyle just that tad bit more sustainable and beneficial to our environment?