New Yorkers, have you noticed fewer trash cans on your local platform? The MTA thinks getting rid of trash cans will reduce the need for subterranean garbage collection, thus speeding up late night operation.
Trash train, photo via lurvely.com
Yes, it’s devastating to be waiting late night, to hear that rumble of promise, only to discover it’s the freaking trash train. Delays suck. But really, will we throw less away just because we have no where to throw it? Sure, there’s evidence that if we don’t have trays to load up, we take less food in cafeterias. It seems like a leap, though, to apply the same logic to solid waste. Thoughts?
Over the weekend, AfriGadget shared this wonderful short documentary by the Kenya-based Dutch journalist Ruud Elmendorp on trashpicking craftswomen near Nakuru.
The women, including Lucy Wambui, featured in a video and report on Elmendorp’s site, collect plastic bags from the dump and weave them into marketable goods. In an area of the world ravaged by poverty, HIV, domestic abuse and drug addiction, these women are bettering their lives and educating the next generation on the income they earn selling recycled plastic. Lucy, for example, pays her grandson’s school fees with part of her income.
I find this piece particularly compelling because I have been to Nakuru, spent the night in the national park for which the area is famed and even spent a night in town without ever crossing paths with a community of trashpickers. Elmendorp’s shot of the dump site with flamingo lake in the background beautifully illustrates the contrast between the two worlds. It reminds me of this photo, which I shared here in 2010, taken from the shore of the same lake.
Lake Nakuru
How different the planet appears from the other side of the looking glass.
I’ve seen this chic zero waste lasagne recipe printed straight onto the noodles in a few places recently. Kinda bobo, but I’m totally into it. I love that you can still read the words on the finished product. Has anyone tried it?
Early into my trash blogging career, people started to send me links to photographer Chris Jordan‘s work, which over the years I have turned over into several posts. This latest link (thanks, Chelsea!) is a talk by the artist himself, describing how he strives to help the viewer visualize incomprehensibly large numbers, and to “make global issues personal.” Check out what he has to say about his work and what a replica of Van Gogh’s Starry Night made of 50,000+ discarded cigarette lighters has to do with the Pacific Gyre. It’s a frightening tale of the consequences of plastic. As Jordan puts it, ”This is the Earth’s alarm system going off…”
Urban Omnibus, a project of the Architectural League of New York, has a fantastic series of blog posts and videos out called City of Systems. The final chapter, Waste Removal, came out two months ago, though I hadn’t seen it until today. Thanks, Annie, for posting it to the the Facebook page. The video features an interview with trashie icon Elizabeth Royte, who gives a brief history of solid waste management in New York and shares what motivated her to write Garbage Land, a must-read for anyone interested in trash. Back in 2007, Royte was the first author in a week-long series of author interviews we featured here called Literary Trash. Check out that interview here. Might be time to revive the theme.
Beirut-based architect Sandra Rishani keeps a blog of her visions of what the city could be. Beirut the Fantastic posts outline proposals for upgrading and greening forgotten and unused spaces or places that have not reached their full potential. Her latest post focuses on the rubble of the 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel and how that rubble could be used to create a beautiful seaside memorial.
Before
After
What I love about the blog is that Rishani writes about what are ostensibly pipe dream projects, but breaks them down step by practical step. In this case, for example, she goes into the history of the rubble, who dumped it where, current legal ownership of the materials and examples from around the world of war rubble upcycled into public parks and memorials.
Wooster Collective posted this Familia Gangsters video yesterday. It features the work of graffiti artist Mundano who uses the wagons of cartadores (pickers of recyclable materials) as canvases for his political murals.
For a closer look at this ongoing series, check out this flickr album.
And if you haven’t yet, please immediately buy, rent or stream the documentary Waste Land. It chronicles another trash-themed Brazilian art project in which photographer Vik Muniz enlisted cartadores to help create massive portraits of themselves using recyclables picked from a gigantic dump, then sold prints to profit their workers’ collective.
I’m in Minneapolis for the weekend visiting my mom. The weather is perfect and we’ve been biking a lot. We usually go to the big farmer’s market, which is one of my favorite open air markets in the whole world. This time, though, we popped just over the river from my mom’s place to the Mill City Farmer’s Market tucked adorably between the Mill City Museum and the new Guthrie Theater. Minneapolis recently licensed food trucks, so like many other places across the country, street food is all the rage here. We ate some yummy tacos before browsing the Hmong vegetable stalls, Nepali momo stand, Iranian gourmet chocolate table, the cute sundress shop and all kinds of other delectable vendor offerings.
Best eggplant ever
There was some live music playing and people were out in droves, sitting on the Guthrie steps to eat and listen and milling about the market. When my mom and I were done with our tacos (and, later, some ginger sorbet) we tossed our disposable packaging and utensils into one of the large compost bins prominently on display and STAFFED by local volunteers to help you decide what went into which bin.
Compost tutor
I couldn’t get over the staffed composting bins. Ours gave us a helpful lecture on why he felt composting was way better than recycling, stopping between impassioned sentences to direct the disposal of plates and cups. I love seeing the can labeled “trash” dwarfed in size compared to the other receptacles.
