where does it end up?

The New York Times has an interesting article today about a woman in Seattle who invited researchers from MIT to tag her trash with electronic devices in order to study exactly where her trash and recyclables end up.

One purpose of the project, said Carlo Ratti, director of the lab, is to give people a concrete sense of their impact on the environment in a way that might lead them to change their habits.

“If you see where a plastic bottle ends up, a few miles down the road in a dump, you may want to get tap water or some other container for the water,” Mr. Ratti said.

This type of project is being done in other places around the country as well. For the next three months, MIT is tracking 3,000 pieces of garbage from the Seattle area to see where it ends up and if recyclables are actually being recycled.

“If I found out that it wasn’t going where I think it does, if it is less recycled than I hoped,” Landsberg said she “might think about buying less of it or doing without.”

Great read.

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