Welcome to my Wasteland

I once heard about an old Italian woman who only threw away a small grocery bag worth of garbage every week. I think about that a lot. I realize that our society almost necessitates waste with all the packaging that goes into our consumption, and that we should be grateful for the blessings of convenience which we have, but at what point, I wonder, do we surpass being grateful for blessings and become egregious consumers and wasters?
I guess I just wish I was better at recycling basic things.