Features
Hollywood Man Collects Trash
By LaDale Anderson
Nov 16, 2008 - 7:01:19 AM

HOLLYWOOD—Dave Chameides is generating major buzz for his attempt to help the environment.  Chameides doesn’t actually consider himself an environmentalist.  “Calling yourself an environmentalist to me is saying that you have made a choice to be involved in the environment, sort of like calling yourself a member of a political party says that you choose to align yourself with their beliefs.  It’s my opinion that being involved in the environment and the well being of our planet is not choice, but a prerequisite for being a member of society, so I don’t think of myself as a environmentalist, but as a member of the human race,” said Dave Chameides.  He mentioned that as a kid, he was aware of things like recycling and not wasting, but not to the length that he is now.

According to the website www.sustainabledave.org, “Sustainable Dave,” as he likes to be called, worked in Hollywood as a director/cameraman for about 16 years and has won two Emmys, one for his work on the TV medical drama “ER.”  

Dave Chameides has been generating a bit of buzz in his attempt to store all the trash that he creates for 1 year in his basement. His goal is to make people think about the things that they buy and what happens to those items when they're done with them. Photo courtesy of http://www.sustainabledave.org.

Dave is highly interested in educating people on various forms of renewable energy and sustainability; he even created and teaches a course on it to high school and middle school students in various regions of Los Angeles County.  Dave writes articles for Edmund.com on alternative fuels.  He also has two blogs which he frequently writes on, ‘Achieving Sustainability’ and ‘365 Days of Trash.’ He even drives a vehicle that runs on grease.  “I converted my volkswagon tdi to run on used vegetable oil.  It’s cleaner for the planet, cheap (free actually) and keeps my car running great,” he said. 

Dave began the project at 12:00 midnight on January 1, 2008.  Each day on his blog “365 Days of Trash,” Dave posts a list of all the trash he has collected for that day.  He has even posted a set of rules.  Rule number one states, “If something is waste that I have generated, I’ve got to deal with it.  If I buy something for myself, the packaging is mine to deal with.  Hopefully, this will entail figuring out what it is made of, what would happen to it if it were “thrown away” and what I will be doing with it,” said Dave.  In rule number three, he notes, “Any waste which for health reasons (dog poop, medical waste from doctors visits, etc.) cannot be saved, will at least be noted and examined regarding the impact of its creation and disposal.”

Dave indicated that he currently has 32 pounds of trash in his basement at the moment (that’s actual garbage, not recycled).  “I’m down to about .5 pounds of trash a month compared to the national average of 4.6 pounds per person per day,” he said.  He further stated that he has collected more paper, 51 lbs to be exact, and the majority was junk mail. 

When asked whether he can move in his basement, “Oh yeah, it’s not too bad.  I have everything pretty sorted out in boxes and whatnot, although the stairs are a bit tough as I have the bottles on them,” he said.  He doesn’t see himself running out of space to store trash in the basement. 

People’s response when they hear he collects trash, “Well usually there is that stare with the blinking eyes,” Dave said.  One individual from the “365 Days of Trash” blog named Smitter said “I can’t believe you are doing this alone!  You are going to become so busy trying to deal with the garbage you won’t have a life!  Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

The site lists nine things that people can do to help the environment.  On that list is: think before you buy, get a travel coffee mug and make money, stop drinking bottled water, join or start a CSA, dig into worm composting, switch to non-toxic cleaning supplies, stop using plastic bags, junk your junk mail and cut out single-use disposable items.  Dave’s been getting many inquiries about worm composting, which involves feeding food scraps to worms, which in turn creates fertilizer.  So many people have been fascinated by what Dave is doing, he decided to post a YouTube video on his blog explaining what a worm composter is and how people can create their own worm composter.

“Fascinating video!  Thanks for making the time to do worms, but right now we feed almost all of our kitchen scraps to our chickens, and paper goes to recycling.  I’m very tempted to try the worms, though, for the fertilizer (I have a big garden) and because I think the worms and the process are cool,” said Caroline in NH on the “365 Days of Trash: Worm Composite Blog.”

He also gives tips on how people can get rid of junk mail by visiting Greendimes.com, who will charge only $20 a year to remove your name from several mailing lists and you can help plant trees.  Dave notes the average amount of junk mail an adult receives a year is about 41 lbs.

“My wife thinks I’m a bit odd, but she’s generally supportive of what I’m up to.  I think she’ll be psyched when January 1 rolls around though. My kids are 4 and 6 and they think it’s funny.  They like the worms quite a bit as well,” Dave said. 

When asked one thing he’d tell people to help them take the necessary steps to protect the environment, he said: “When you buy something think about where it comes from, what went into making it, how will you use it and where will it end up.”