Weigh-In on Waste Guelph Family Keeps 10-Week Garbage Tab
Paige Hilton, Guelph Tribune
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April 01, 2008

The Van Acker family's garage is pretty inconspicuous. There's room for a car and an assortment of patio furniture, rakes, shovels and sleds.

But soon it will be filled with garbage.

Rene and Susie and their three children - Chloe, 13, Daniel, 10, and Serena, 7 - have volunteered to keep their garbage in their garage for 10 weeks to find out just how much they produce. They're starting Wednesday April 2.

"I think our garbage will get smelly," said Daniel in an interview at home before they started keeping their garbage. "I'm a little worried about the smell," said Susie. "But if we're diligent, there shouldn't be much smell."

The project is inspired by the documentary Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home, which follows a family of five in Toronto who kept their garbage for three months.

They'll weigh their organic waste each week, and it will go out for pickup each garbage day in the Van Acker's south end neighbourhood.

Once the snow melts, the Van Ackers will compost a lot of their organic waste. The remaining dry garbage and clear waste will be piled in the garage.

Susie took on the challenge after meeting Guelph Civic League's Annie O'Donoghue through a friend.

"I said yes right away, and then afterward I had second thoughts about it," said Susie, laughing.

But the family talked it over and watched the documentary during a March Break trip to Florida.

"I'd like to see how much waste we produce," said Susie, a high school biology teacher in Kitchener.

The Toronto family in the documentary had to contend with Halloween, Christmas and a baby in diapers during their three-month waste challenge. Luckily for the Van Ackers, their 10-week challenge doesn't include any diapers. And Daniel's birthday party on an upcoming weekend is the only special event they'll be hosting.

But Susie figures the lack of diapers won't make a difference. "Once (children) get older they just make more garbage in other ways."

Not only will the Van Ackers be keeping the garbage they produce at home, they'll try to bring home the garbage they produce outside of home. That means Susie, the kids, and Rene, who is a plant agriculture professor at the University of Guelph, will be bringing home lunch garbage and other waste from work and school.

Susie said on average the family puts out two to three bags of wet garbage and two bags of dry garbage per week. Every two weeks they have about one-and-a-half bags of clear garbage.

She predicts their garbage production will decrease during the challenge.