The joy of taking out the trash | Aparna Nancherla

86,726 views ・ 2020-12-30

TED


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Transcriber: TED Translators Admin Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
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You might not know this just from looking at me,
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but you might guess it from smelling me.
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One of my favorite things to do is take out the trash.
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It's the laziest way to technically pare down your possessions,
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because the one thing you can never do enough of
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in a small New York City apartment like mine
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is get rid of stuff.
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The stuff that our modern consumerist carbon-powered culture
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makes us buy endlessly and often for no reason.
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Getting rid of people never hurts either.
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Roommates, family members,
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that old lady who's been in your living room for weeks.
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Who is she anyway?
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No squatters allowed.
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I don't care if you're a ghost.
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Also, not to brag,
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but I've been micro-decluttering since before Marie Kondo got big.
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In fact, I've cut out her step
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of picking things up and figuring out whether they spark joy in me
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because I already know what sparks joy in me,
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throwing out trash.
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What kind of trash?
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Well, I'll give you a clue.
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It starts with H and it ends with air.
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That's right, it's a lot of hair.
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Don't try and picture how much; you'll feel sick.
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And if you don't feel sick, you haven't pictured enough.
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I shed like an Instagram influencer sheep dog
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who's decided fur is the only thing holding her career back.
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We're all trying to reduce our carbon footprints and consumption.
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So by throwing out trash,
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I also naturally mean recycling and composting.
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I try to do both.
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In fact, I once carried a takeout container across half the city
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just to put it in the right bin.
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Where's my inspiring biopic?
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But then I learned recycling frequently isn't working.
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Even if we all separate out glass, cans and cardboard,
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a lot of stuff doesn't neatly fit into those categories.
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Paper envelopes lined with bubble wrap can't be recycled.
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Pizza boxes with grease stains can't be recycled.
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That memory from seventh grade when I ...
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Ah, who am I kidding?
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All of seventh grade can't be recycled.
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There's even a term for it: aspirational recycling.
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At first, I thought that's if you went to spin class last week,
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so it should count for this week too.
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China used to import a lot of the US's recyclables,
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but they stopped accepting foreign garbage in 2018
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as part of a pollution ban.
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Whatever happened to one country's trash is another country's treasure?
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Now, a lot of US recycling goes straight to landfills.
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The EPA says that only 10 percent of plastic has ever been recycled.
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Not that this is about me,
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but this balloons my anxiety the size of the giant Pacific garbage patch
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way out in the ocean
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where we'll all eventually go for our next destination wedding.
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So, if you're American,
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hound your political representatives to work on this recycling issue,
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and try to create less waste overall by reusing materials.
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Here's stuff I've been reusing in my life:
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plastic bags, salsa jars and old fights with my boyfriend.
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Now, the next time I have to throw out the trash,
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I can confidently ask:
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Hey, can I reuse this loose ball of hair again?
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And you know what? I probably can.
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In fact, I'm going to give it to that old ghost lady as a going away present.
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Thank you.
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