Waste Is Revealing

I get to read some interesting articles in my monthly waste journals. One of the most recent article was titled "Something in the water - science detects drugs abuse patterns in wastewater." Source: Waste News, September 17. Researchers at Oregon State University have shown that less than a teaspoon of untreated wastewater can provide a wealth of information about a community's drug use - both illicit and legitimate. If we think about, any drug that we ingest eventually ends up leaving the body...so it makes sense that these drugs would end up in untreated wastewater. This same principle applies to solid wastes too.

I've performed numerous garbage container inspections (we call this "dumpster diving" in the garbology field) in my career and I'm always amazed at how the garbage tells me information about the generators: (1) do they drink-evident by the number beer or liquor bottles found; (2) do they have young children-evident by the presence of diapers; (3) are they on prescription medicine - evident by the number of prescription bottles in their wastes; (4) what types of foods do they like - evident by the food containers and wastes; (5) are they large or small people - evident by the size of clothing in their wastes. I think you get the picture of how much information you can collect about generators of garbage.

I've also come across personal confidential information during some of my dumpster dives. I'm talking about people's ss#, bank account #'s, addresses, name - everything needed for someone to perform an identity theft. The lesson learned from this is that we all need to shred our documents that contain our personal confidential information. Many people think that their garbage and recyclables magically disappear once they put their garbage out to the curb for collection. This is not true and on the average 2 or 3 people will see it before it finds its final resting place. The question is: what are you revealing about yourself and is it information that you want other people to have access to?