Choosing Channels for the March of Trash Scorecard

The 2018 March of Trash challenge scorecard invites you to get rid of 28 items during the month of March, with the items grouped into seven channels, or ways of getting rid of things. The challenge is to get rid of seven items one way, which you designate as channel 1, six items in a different way, channel 2, and so on. There are extra lines in a lighter shade of gray for those inevitable moments when you go over in one of the channels.

To get you started, I’ve suggested municipal refuse and recycling as the first two channels. Those are most people’s go-to channels for getting rid of most things, so it should not be hard to fill in 13 items between those two channels. When you put something in the trash, write that item in the channel 1 column. Likewise, when you put something in a recycling bucket, write that item in the channel 2 column.

It may be harder to choose channel 3, a way of getting rid of another five items. Will it be by taking books to a book drive, donating clothes to a thrift shop, deleting obsolete files from your computer, selling things online, compost, burning, or by some other means? I’ll be suggesting some of the more interesting channels over the next two weeks in the form of cards, but you don’t have to limit yourself to the channel cards I post here. The important thing is to remember that you have options to choose from when it is time to get rid of something.

Write your next method of choice as channel 3, and write the items you get rid of in that way in that column. Continue in the same way, though on a smaller scale, through channels 4, 5, 6, and 7. By the end of the month, you’ll have proved that you can get rid of clutter in seven different ways.