Have you ever dreamed of downsizing to a smaller house? How about to a tiny home?
With the tiny house movement really taking off, a lot of people around the world are getting rid of their unnecessary belongings and moving into smaller, highly-organized, transportable tiny homes.
There's a lot to love when it comes to tiny houses: they're great for living a nomadic lifestyle and traveling more, they encourage getting outside and being around nature, and they help you cut down on your environmental impact.
Plus, most tiny houses still have all the comforts of home — showers, bathtubs, full-sized kitchens, large beds, etc.
For a lot of people, living the tiny lifestyle is ideal. It's less expensive than owning a regular home, but you can still own property and have a space that is entirely your own.
Many people opt for tiny homes that are on the larger end of tiny — around 120 square feet of livable space — and we could probably all live easily in that space.
But what about 36 square feet?
That's exactly what Jeff Wilson, "Professor Dumpster," set out to do when he moved into a 6'x6' dumpster.
[H/T The Atlantic]
When most people downsize to a tiny home, they still want to have many of the same aspects of home life as they did before.
They want a traditional bed, kitchen, and bathroom, and want their living room/dining room space to be convertible.
That's not quite what Jeff Wilson was going for. In 2013, Jeff was a professor and dean at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas.
He taught environmental studies and was always interested in learning more about the footprint humans leave on the planet.
That year, Jeff decided to launch the "Dumpster Project."
The idea was basically this: Jeff and his students would turn a regular dumpster into a sustainable home where he would then live for an entire year.
He planned for it to be both a social experiment and an educational challenge.
On his Facebook page, Dumpster Project, Jeff explains the inspiration behind the unconventional project:
What does home look like in a world of 10 billion people?
How do we equip current and future generations with the tools they need for sustainable living practices?
We believe awareness, education, and fun are critical to answering this question — and that's why we got a dumpster.
We seek to use our living experiment — the dumpster-as-home — to inspire and challenge learners of all ages.
The project includes the design, testing, and building of the dumpster home itself as well as the delivery of an integrated set of formal and informal education experiences intended to energize STEM learning and engage people in sustainability awareness.
The educational approach common to these programs is to leverage the central dumpster-to-home challenge – how do you turn a 36 sq ft metal box into a home? — to introduce sustainability topics in the areas of food, water, air, energy, waste, and health in fresh and engaging ways.
Because the dumpster is unconventional, it engages student interest in a way that traditional approaches may not.
Jeff worked with a group of students — the "Dumpster Team" — to find a perfect dumpster to live in.
After purchasing the "home," Jeff waited nine days before moving in.
On February 4, 2014, Jeff moved into what would be his home for the next year: a normal green dumpster.
The first night, he slept in a sleeping bag on some unfolded cardboard boxes on the floor.
At first, it definitely wasn't a nice, homey place, but Jeff was just getting started.
For the first 6 months, Jeff didn't make any major changes — he wanted to establish a baseline for his comfort level in the dumpster.
The first big renovation they did was adding a false floor to the dumpster.
It added 10% more floor space and made room for storage beneath the floor.
At some point, they painted the inside walls of the dumpster white to make it brighter, and added area rugs to spruce up the place.
Additionally, Jeff hung tapestries from the walls to brighten the atmosphere even more.
Eventually, the dumpster was functioning like a full-fledged home (well, almost).
It had a decent bed, electricity, air conditioning, and even a camping stove for cooking.
Next, Jeff wanted to add an external structure that would house the shower, toilet, and kitchen.
Ideally, the next phase of the dumpster would be a pop-up second story, a folding balcony, and a sleeping loft.
The point of the project was to prove that happiness is not dependent on how much stuff you have.
Although living in a dumpster is probably not on most people's to-do list, Jeff says he really had a wonderful time living in the unconventional home.
Jeff now spends some of his time talking about the Dumpster Project to kids and teenagers, explaining how he was able to use less space, less water, and less energy, all while creating less waste.
The Dumpster Project is definitely fascinating, but would you be brave enough to live in a dumpster for a year?
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