Chapter 7

       Throughout this chapter Humes takes his audience to a new way of solving this situation. Smart Trash is the main topic of this chapter. This new technology changes the way we view our own trash and how we get rid of it. Smart trash consists of putting a small device in the things and products we use. This would help the way we recycle and get rid of our trash. Tim Pritchard, a 50 year old volunteer that participates in Trash Tracking became one of the most deeply involved people in this experiment. "While the average U.S. city recycles about 30 percent of it's waste, Seattle topped 50 percent the year Trash Track came to town"(Humes 148). However, there are people that believe that this technology was too expensive and a waste of time. The question that many people had going through their minds were, "How long would the battery life for this device last?" Well, "The devices went to sleep whenever they stopped moving as a further energy saver. Smart trash had enough battery life to last up to thirty hours of constant motion; standing still, it could last through three to six months of hibernation"(150).   In 2009 the MIT volunteers and Pritched released the smart trash experiment. Stage one was to drive around and get random trash that was abandoned. Stage two Pritched collected six hundred pieces of smart trash. This allowed him to see how long and how far our trash was traveling. However, there are some trash that couldn't be considered as "Smart Trash." Some object contain poison which is dangerous to recycle. Yet, this isn't the main problem that the American people are facing, it's the amount of trash they are creating over time without even realizing it. Seattle is a community were trash is their main priority, they understand stand that this trash problem is major. If only our world was able to do the same. We could really make a difference and actually find a true solution for this major trash epidemic.