Garbage in...No Garbage Out

This is an old story, but one of my favorites because it is just as relevant today as it was when it was written. I found it while covering a meeting of the Derry Township supervisors. Some guy mentioned he knew of a family who didn't have any trash and I wondered if it was true, and if it was how they did it. He contacted them and they called me allowing me to do the story. This is a magazine piece, so I had more time to work on it. The interviews were conducted over a few days rather than one shot.
There is an interesting quote here about how Mr. Quimby said he could take a shower in two quarts of water. That seemed impossible to me, so I asked him again if he was serious and he said yes. After the story was published he called me on it and told me he said a gallon, not two quarts. I stand by what he told me, but it just goes to show you it is best to ask again when someone tells you something that sounds outlandish.
Because a lot of time has gone by I've often wondered if I should do a follow up on this family to find out if they are still living this lifestyle. I still may.

By ALAN FOSTER
Apprise Magazine (It is now Central Pennsylvania Magazine published by WITF.)

The Quimbys, of Hershey, have figured out what to do with their disposables---everything except dispose of them. (This was the subhead, the story starts below.)

Serious campers, those with the aluminum-frame backpacks that tower over their heads, have a saying about parks and streams: “Take only pictures, leave only footprints.” It means when you use nature and enjoy its beauty, you should allow the next person the opportunity for the same experience.

A family in Hershey has taken this philosophy and applied it to their visit to Earth. When the trash truck is in the vicinity of their house, it does not stop. It passes by, because nothing is on the curb. No large, dented garbage cans. No green plastic bags. Nothing.

Meet the Quimbys.

John Quimby,46, is a forest entomologist (studies bugs in the woods) for the Department of Environmental Resources in Middletown. His wife, Jodi,30, is a graduate student studying environmental pollution control at Penn State/Harrisburg. She also works as an environmental consultant for local government and supervises the household. Sarah,17, and Christine,16, attend Lower Dauphin High School. Sarah is a musician and a member of the Harrisburg Youth Symphony. Christine is a track star, and last spring won the 3200-meter race at the Mid-Penn meet.

While not fanatical about their lifestyle, they are persistent. They are concerned. They think about what they consume.

According to Jodi Quimby, their commitment to recycling begins with the grocery cart. The Quimby family ponders every purchase, always asking, “What are we going to do with what is left over?’ One place they shop is the Country Store near Mt. Joy, owned by Lillian and Jim Zimmerman. The store has lots of bulk foods: noodles, pasta, rolled oats, assorted beans, and spices. Jodi always brings along her own egg cartons and paper bags. She buys in as large a quantity as possible, because it is easier to recycle one big box instead of three smaller ones. On this shopping day, she spends about $30, which includes bulk foods and the fixings for a giant sub for Christine’s sixteenth birthday party coming up.

While the small store has many items, Jodi still visits the supermarket. She chooses Pronio’s in Hershey. They have refillable milk jugs, and they stock A-Treat soda—which is bottled in Reading—in returnable bottles. Again, she brings her own bags. She says she avoids plastic jars, recommending, for example, Smucker’s or Peter Pan peanut butter, packaged in glass jars. She never buys variety packs of cereal in all those little boxes: she picks the biggest box of Cheerios she can find. She stays away from Ocean Spray cranberry juice in plastic, opting for it in glass. Since all of the vegetable oils are in plastic, she buys a gallon jug. She prefers meat from a farmers’ market because it is usually fresher and wrapped in paper rather than plastic. She selects Marcal toilet tissue because it is made from recycled paper.

The visit to Pronio’s ends with more plastic than Jodi wanted to buy, and a store employee who not only helps with the bags but insists n carrying them across the street to the car.

“There are economic reasons to do without the trashman,” John Quimby says. “No landfills. It does not make sense to throw away what can be recycled.” John has fond memories of the 1970s and the first Earth Day. Much of what he does now, he says, we all did years ago—like buying soda in returnable bottles, and, as kids, gathering them for a two-cent refund at the local grocery store.

John Quimby does more than just talk about his family’s environmentally conscious lifestyle. He leads by example. He rides his bicycle to work every day. Yes, even in winter. “When I grew up, you just did it,” he says. “Now I go about ten miles and it is normal. I don’t need to listen to Traffax.” He can somehow take a bath in two quarts of woodstove-heated water, which even his wife admits is a little strange.

The Quimbys are not all as Spartan as Dad. The whole family complains about Sarah’s long, luxurious, steamy showers, but she insists they are a vice she will continue to enjoy.

And even John himself has visited the package-intensive Mcdonald’s. Christine said he went to the drive-in window and ordered a “Big M-A-C,” spelling out the second part of the sandwich’s name. About a year later, the legend goes, he confidently drove to Wendy’s, announced, “I’ve got it right this time,” and ordered a Big Mac. Visits by the Quimby family to fast-food restaurants are infrequent because they are concerned about the use of plastic and foam packaging, but Jodi admits to a passion for yogurt in “those little plastic cups,” and Christine craves The Country’s Best Yogurt (TCBY).

“We don’t feel that we live that differently,” Jodi says. “Both adults work: the kids are in school.” Recycling is automatic. “It is really easy. You don’t have to change your whole life to do it.”

Sarah, too, says, “It has never been an effort to do this.”

A walk around the Quimby home underlines their commitment to their “leave only footprints” lifestyle.

In addition to the woodstove, the Quimby home has a solar collector, a large garden, and lots of boxes for cans, bottles, paper, and plastic to be recycled. The solar water heater has been in operation for nearly ten years and provides 60 percent of the family’s hot water. The initial cost was about $500, and maintenance, they say, is not difficult.

The home is heated with wood, and the Quimbys use about four cords a year. The heating system is backed up by an oil burner, which, so far has kicked on once---back in 1980.

There are a few things the family does not recycle: these things must be burned. Among them: paper towels, and plastic bags and other items (like yogurt cups). The Quimbys have found a way to recycle everything else.

Burning trash, says Jodi, “is not something we like to do, but it is done at a low temperature to lessen pollution, and it is better than putting these items in a landfill.” The ashes are spread in a wooded area of their property. Jodi cites a recent Environmental Protection Agency study that says that 41 percent of solid waste is paper and paperboard, 25 percent is food and yard waste, 8 percent is glass, 9 percent is metals, 7 percent is plastic, and the remaining 10 percent things such as textiles, dirt, stones, rubber and leather. “Of these items, we recycle all of the paper, except for those things I mentioned. All glass, all metal, and some plastics are recycled.”

Most landfills, Jodi says, “do not have enough oxygen or sunlight to decompose anything properly. Some people think of a landfill as a very large compost pit. This is not the case…Waste buried in landfills does not decay as fast as we think.” She cites a study done by William Rathje, of the University of Arizona, who explored four landfills in the United States. “Hot dogs and pastries are still recognizable after 15 years. Newspapers can still be read after 30 years in a landfill.” Predictions are, she says, that a disposable diaper can last 400 years, and estimates are that there are enough disposable diapers thrown away in the United States to fill a barge every six hours.

“Everything you do has a price environmentally—we have been sheltered from this. It is unfair. If the public knew, we would be more willing to change our ways.”

Jodi summarizes her feelings about recycling by paraphrasing an Indian parable: The land belongs to the people—some dead, some alive, but most not yet born.