EVERYBODY Overwhelmed by RUBBISH
POST: EVERYBODY Overwhelmed by RUBBISH
| Topics: |  Zero Waste Movement, Dumps and Landfills |
Several months ago I clicked on a link in an e-mail entitled: “World Overwhelmed by Rubbish.” Up popped a photo essay from the Guardian UK that was actually entitled: “World’s Poor Overwhelmed by Rubbish.” The photos, as you can see, are astounding and definitely reinforce the case for upcycling. But there’s something about focusing on the “poor” that makes me super uncomfortable.
During our first Upcycling Portal conference call, I remember Leila asking something like: why is it important for me, here in New York, to know about what kinds of things are happening within the upcycling movement in Mexico or South Africa? This question started me thinking about an experience that I had on one of the first days I spent in India during my study abroad program. There was a freak late-season monsoon. All of us were caught unaware in New Delhi by the downpour. At that moment, I realized that there are sometimes circumstances that bring us all to the same level, no matter who we are, what we look like, where we come from. Natural disasters or severe weather can do this – if our area is suddenly hit by a hurricane or tsunami, it isn’t like just a small portion of us will be dealing with that situation, we all will. I believe that garbage is just like this...it isn’t just the problem of the poor (though this is often the impression we are given) ...it is something that eventually we will ALL have to deal with if we keep living in a throwaway society. Trash could really be something that brings us more together, rather than reinforcing the idea that our societies are stratified and divided (though they are).
I found myself annoyed, even angry, about the photo essay and the captions. Focusing on “poor people” as the victims of a world overwhelmed by garbage totally reinforces the concept that we (those with affluence or more material wealth) have to somehow “save” the poor from the garbage. What nobody wants to admit or talk about is that it is those living with more material wealth are CREATING a huge portion of the waste that those living with less material wealth have to deal with. This photo journalist also didn’t take the risk to say: let’s really take a look at the future and admit that one day (fairly soon) everybody (the rich, the poor, the middle class) will be living in the same kind of world demonstrated by these photos. In fact, we already are. Because we don’t yet have to live with our own waste sitting in a pile outside our front door or in the middle of our living rooms and just keep throwing our garbage “away,” we haven’t yet had to fully admit that WE ARE ALL LIVING IN A WORLD OVERWHELMED BY RUBBISH! Let’s get real.
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Comments
Posted by Little Shiva - on August 4, 2009 5:27 pm
Right on, Aerin. I totally concur: LET'S GET REAL!
Posted by Manuel Schacht on August 26, 2009 5:22 pm
Hi Aerin. This is Manu again - not stalking you, it just so happens that this was the article that made me want to sign up in the first place, and I finally found it again - This is what I wanted to say:
I have lived for the last 13 years among the poor and the VERY poor, and I observe in dismay how these people sit next to piles of their own garbage playing domino without a qualm, or how fussily they cut the grass in their yards, but don't seem to notice all sorts of junk lying about.
I know, poor people generally lack information and infrastructures to deal with their garbage, and the rest of the world doesn't care about the poor except when it views them as a resource. But I think that part of getting real is to realize that the true dividing line in this issue is between those who CARE and the ones who don't. These later are no doubt the vast majority, including oh so many among the poor. Look at the pictures. I don't like saying it one bit, but the kid swimming in that trashy water doesn't seem to care much. He just doesn't know better, I'd say. Hardly his fault, but if we are not going to nitroglicerin the factories that produce all the trash in the first place, then the question becomes - how can we move the line? How can we make people care?
Posted by Aerin Dunford on September 7, 2009 8:42 pm
Dear Manu. Thanks so much for your comments on this blog. I've been sort of "steeping" in what you have said here for the past ten days. I think that we have some pretty different perspectives on poverty, first off, which I don't really want to get into so much here. But I guess where this issue does come up for me here, and what I was trying to say in my post above, is that what seems obvious to me is that (like so many other things in the world) the "poor" don't have a choice about living in and with garbage, junk and waste (theirs and everybody else's). The thing with those of us from the upper social strata (included me) is that we aren't really forced to live with our trash in our faces. We get to chose not to see it, to throw it "away." And, even saying this, I don't totally believe it . . . because there is garbage EVERYWHERE and it's not too often that you see an individual of any social class walking around just picking up garbage of their own free will (without payment, some sort of organized "green up" event or the hope of earning a few bucks from "redeemable" items).
I guess that what I see isn't a line between people that care and don't care (and I'm not sure that I agree that the majority are those that don't care) but more a line between people that can see waste as a resource and something we can start using in super creative and innovative ways, and those who see it is a huge problem (which it can be, especially if dealt with in the way we like to deal with it now), or people who just don't want to see it or think about it all (and have the privilege to be able to do this).
I also disagree with the statement: "poor people generally lack information and infrastructures to deal with their garbage." I think that generally speaking, the predominant means (including our knowledge of and infrastructure for) dealing with garbage is pretty lacking. Recycling is a great example of this - a system which allows people (mostly wealthier people) think that their garbage is actually getting converted into the same thing that it was or something better, when many times this is not the case.
Finally (sorry for rambling on and on) I bet that the kid swimming in the trashy water probably would prefer that it wasn't dirty and full of garbage. I'm not sure this means that he does "know better". . . but I think that one thing that can be said for a lot of people that I know who might be considered "poor" (especially kids) is that often one of the riches they possess is the ability to be content, even with very little. I'm not trying to romanticize poverty by any means . . . and I don't pretend that there aren't powerful forces (such as "development," the free market, and global capitalism) at the root of much "poverty." But I often think of the times when the concept of waste was literally foreign to peoples (see home page of this portal) and I'm just curious how we can start to return to such a zero waste system, given all of the poor choices in design, consumption, distribution and disposal we've made as a species.
And . . . I believe it is possible. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing the work of searching out new and exciting uses for waste products at all levels of scale. Don’t know if others have responses to this post, but I’d be curious to hear other people’s take on this theme.