MoJo Audio: Dave Chameides

What happens when you store a year’s worth of trash in your basement?

Photo: Jonathan Alcorn

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To hear the audio podcast of MoJo‘s interview with Dave Chameides, click below:

Meet Dave Chameides, a 39-year-old father of two and Hollywood cameraman whose work includes Donnie Darko, Will and Grace, and The West Wing. Since January, Chameides has not thrown away any of his trash—he has cataloged and stored all of it in his basement. What accumulates is whatever can’t be reused, recycled, composted, or fed to the worms. For the average American—who generates 4.6 pounds of waste each day—this could be a messy experiment. But as Chameides blogs on 365 Days of Trash and SustainableDave, it’s possible to live a comfortable, fulfilling life while generating only 1 pound of waste a month.

Recently, Chameides spoke with MoJo about the joy of worm composting, the problem with restaurants, and what his young daughters think about his trash, soon to become an educational exhibit in Connecticut’s Trash Museum.

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We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

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Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

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