For an entire year, Dave Chameides put nothing on the curb for garbage pick up. Not even a box of recycling.

Instead, he put all of his trash in the basement. Sounds like a nasty basement? Probably not. The year long experiment in garbage conservation generated only 30 pounds of trash, 153 glass bottles, 64 plastic bottles and a 50-pound box of paper for recycling. Dave's personal garbage dump fit an organized 10 square feet of basement space.

If Dave can do it, there's no reason a lot of us can't take up the challenge and confuse city garbage pick-up folks. Some tips from Dave. No plastic bags, drink tap water, and think about the packaging of stuff you buy. Oh, and probably most importantly, get some worms working for you. Dave used a worm composting bin that ate up leftover foods and "a couple of pounds of paper a month".

Dave tracked his year through his blog 365daysoftrash and now runs Sustainable Dave, a site on sustainability and not throwing stuff out. My city has a good organic bin program so I think I'll stay away from having a worm army in my house. But if Dave could reduce his waste in one year to what the average American puts out in six days, I'm sure there are a bunch of ways I can reduce my curb side pile.