Walking with trash

Environmental campaigner Rob Greenfield's wandering the streets of Los Angeles and neighbouring US cities wearing his rubbish. A specially designed suit holds all the junk that he has produced over the last few weeks.

Rob Greenfield: "So this is a specially designed trash suit. Because the average person creates about five pounds of trash per day, this needs to be able to hold onto a lot of weight. So today's day 27, and I'm up to 63 pounds of trash on my body. So this suit has clear expandable pockets that grew with me through the last 27 days."

With just a few days remaining to complete his month-long challenge, Greenfield is already wearing 28 kilograms of rubbish generated from drinks, snacks and meals he has consumed. Normally, he leads a minimalist life but to demonstrate his point, he decided to eat like an average American for 30 days.

The legs of his trousers are filled with drink cans that inhibit his walking and clatter when he moves. The rest of his suit is filled with the packaging from all the food.

Rob Greenfield: "It was about day 12 that I got into this and I started to really feel the burden of consumerism. I really started to just myself feel the weight and see the visual and just say 'wow, it's astounding how much our trash really adds up!'"

Anne-Marie O'Connor spotted Greenfield on the street and was shocked to realise how much rubbish she could be producing.

Anne-Marie O'Connor: "I think it's inspiring that Rob is taking this journey. I think it's also kind of embarrassing in some ways that, to learn – cause I don't know much about that – to learn how much trash I, as an individual, am actually contributing to the environment on a daily basis."

Greenfield has attempted different ways of raising awareness in the past, including growing all his own food for a year. However, he feels this new public demonstration of waste has been a great way of reaching people.

Rob Greenfield: "People can understand this message, and it helps me to really reach people from, from all walks of life. Now, there are some people who think that I'm someone who's experiencing homelessness or that I have a mental health issue. But for the most part, people have just been really positive, very inspired." View Less