Have you ever walked into the house and found half-eaten bowls of food sitting on the table and thought “There are starving people in this world who would appreciate that food”? Have you ever sat and watched a football game (in which your team loses) for three hours and thought “I just wasted three hours of my life”. Do you remember times (when you were young) that you just took a drive and “wasted gas”? I’ve experienced all of these and still do somewhat.

After contemplating difference situations and resources, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are several different types of waste.

First, during my 30+ years of life, I have purchased 100’s of pens for home and used 100’s more at work. The odd thing is that I can’t ever remember running out of ink with any of them. Where do they go? Some end up down that catchall crevice on the couch. Others end up on the floor of the car. Still others end up in the hands of my children making marks on the walls. Think about this though, how often do you throw a pen away after it has run out of ink and theoretically served it’s purpose. Just about never. Therefore, you are wasting the ink and rest of that pen’s life when it is lost. I’m going to call this unconsumed waste.

In the past 12 months, gasoline has ranged from $1.50 per gallon up to over $4.00 in Ohio. However, you never accidentally dump you tank or “lose” gasoline. Therefore, it is really wasted in a different way. One time, I decided to take the family out for a pizza at Costco (yes, they really like the pizza there). We drove down on a Sunday afternoon. By the time we got there, it was closed. As we drove back, I considered that I had driven about 20 total miles roundtrip and in the minivan, that is approximately one gallon. Basically, I had just wasted $2.00 (let’s assume that was the price). The gas was consumed. However, it did not result in anything useful. I’m going to call this example expended waste.

I like all kinds of movies and usually can draw out some appreciation when viewing even the lowest rated movie. However, every once in a while, I will watch a film and as the credits roll, I will think I just wasted 90 minutes of my life. All of us have 24 hours a day. No matter what we do, the resource of time trickles away in our life. In those 90 minutes, I could have volunteered my time to charity, cleaned the house, spent time with the kids, or took a nap. Each of those has different values to different people. However, since I consciously realize that I wasted 90 minutes of my life, I will call this example immediate recognized waste.

There is a parallel that I can draw on from my childhood days. As a kid, I used to watch TBS and the Atlanta Braves all every chance I could. The team was horrible, yet I liked watching Dale Murphy. There are probably lots of things I could have done…..like worked harder on my homework or helped my parents. At the time, I certainly didn’t regret my activities. However…..now I look back and say “How could I have wasted all that time watching the tube?”. I’ll call that delayed recognized waste.

For the example of food that I mentioned earlier, I can’t only blame the kids. There are many leftovers that end up in the trash….because us adults don’t want to eat ham/turkey for 5 meals in a row. Those come to mind because when you make a large amount of anything and store the leftovers, there are many times that you become tired of that same meal. I’ll group my kids not finished their “plate” of food in this same category. Basically, the cook (my wife or I) have made too much food and it goes to waste. I’ll call this over-production waste.

In summary, there are so many different ways to waste food, time, gasoline, and almost every resource. If you are a golfer, just think about how many times that you actually “wore” the golf ball out so bad that it could not be used anymore. That never happens. It gets “lost” in the woods, water, or somebody’s backyard. Someone picks it up and uses it again. Maybe that is recycled waste. Anyways, just consider how much each of us waste and if we could just improve our efficiency a little bit every day. Things that reduce waste are worth their weight in gold. A good example is the DVR which allows me to watch TV without ever seeing a commercial, essentially saving me 16 minutes of time for every hour of TV watching.

Take Care.