Trash the trash, save the planet

By Dave Chameides · February 2, 2009

Dave Chameides, aka Sustainable Dave, with the year's worth of trash and recycling he saved. (Leon Chameides)

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Makoto Otsuka, director general of the Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama, Japan, with visiting schoolchildren in front of a photo of Anne Frank.

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LOS ANGELES (JTA) --  My parents are dining at a Jewish federation event with some folks from their community. As happens on occasion when Jewish parents get together, the subject turns to the accomplishments of their children (shocking, right?).

Mr. Cohen offers up that his son is curing cancer. Mrs. Schwartz mentions that her daughter is working with Obama. Then my mom proudly declares, "My son didn't throw anything away last year, instead keeping all of his garbage and recycling in his basement. And worms eat all of his food scraps!"

The table falls quiet as forks clink on gefilte fish plates and looks are traded. Someone coughs. A few moments pass and one mother leans in to another.

"They always seemed like such normal people," she says. "Didn't David go to yeshiva?"

And then I wake up.

Yes, I did in fact attend a yeshiva in my formative years. Yes, I did save all my trash and recycling in my basement last year, feeding food scraps and paper to my 10,000 worms. And yes, my mother is quite proud of my accomplishments, as is my dad.