Photographer Gregg Segal Shows How Much Trash Americans Consume In One Week

In today’s era we are producing too much trash within one week such as; a bottle here, a wrapper there, a half eaten carton of bad strawberries etc.

 Professional photographer Gregg Segal snapped images to demonstrate people’s waste footprint. In order to make current photo series he takes photos of a paid participants and handful of volunteers surrounded by a week’s worth of their refuse. Segal shot these pictures in his California yard including people of all ages, from an array of socioeconomic backgrounds, lying in sand, grass or water, surrounded by piles of their own week’s garbage.

In an interview with Slate, Mr. Gregg Segal said some of the participants "edited" their trash piles, likely due to embarrassment over the "really foul stuff." "They thought it was kind of gross. I think there’s something mildly humiliating about it, but in a constructive way,” he added. “It’s kind of a once in a lifetime experience for people to be photographed with all their stuff. I think it’s seen as a kind of novelty for some people and the question of grossness was mitigated by the novelty factor."