everydaytrash

  After running in Prospect Park yesterday morning, a friend and I noticed a series of signs for an exhibit on refugees and displaced persons organized by the relief organization Doctors Without Borders.  We followed the signs arrived just in time for the first guided tour of the morning through a mock refugee camp set up in the park.  A volunteer doctor who had just returned from his second year in the Sudan walked us through stations set up demonstrate the different areas of a refugee camp.  They had built examples of the plastic-tarp covered tents or shanty-town shacks one might see in a rural or urban camp.  They had packages of emergency food bars one might drop from a plane to starving people caught up in war zones that the doctor passed around and allowed us to taste.  They had a water station to show how water is pumped, treated and distributed.  They had a latrine and picture books to explain what a latrine was and how to use one for those who had never seen one before.  They had clinic tents and  displays on vaccination, malnutrition and treatment for cholera. 

Overall it was a fascinating exhibit and more than a little depressing since posters all around announced that there are 33 million people in the world currently displaced by conflict and these displays of food, shelter and medical care represented only what those people in countries with aid workers are receiving (to say nothing of those living in areas too violent for help to reach them).

At the water station, the doctor asked the women in particular to lift a five gallon jug plastic water to imagine waiting lugging the beast around a camp.  Apparently the ideal camp provides five gallons per person per day to cover washing, cooking and drinking needs and the women of the family wait in line for this water and bring it back to where they sleep.  I could barely lift one jug.

According to the doctor-tour guide, Americans use an average of 100 gallons of water per day.  A Brooklyn mother on the tour was outraged by this fact and as we walked from the water pump to the latrine she asked how much of that water was from flushing toilets.  She and I got to talking about composting toilets, which are less disgusting than they sound.  I had heard of these devices before, toilets that don’t use much or any water, but had never actually considered how these might work.  I’m still not quite sure how a regular household or business could effectively use one of these things.  They are large and hold waste in a chamber where it breaks down over time until it is no longer smelly and can be used as fertilizer.  Removing the fertilizer and tossing peat moss into the toilet after using it instead of flushing don’t seem very practical for indoor use, though.  It seems that in places where outhouses and portable toilets exist, these are high-class latrines that would be ideal.  I’m curious what others think.

  The French officials responsible for illegally dumping toxic sludge from oil tankers around the Ivory Coast could get as many as 20 years behind bars.  So far seven people have died from exposure and more than 60,000 have ended up in the hospital.

Related posts: Weekly Compactor,  toxic slop smells like rotting eggs

  My friend, salmon, recently informed me that wine-in-a-box can be purchased in individual portions, like jumbo juice boxes for grown-ups.  I keep meaning to tell my grandmother this.  For a short time after they retired, she and my grandfather had a small vineyard in New Jersey.  They made and bottled their own wine, mostly drunk by our immediate family but also tasted at local get-togethers with other farmers struggling to make grapes happy on the East Coast.  Grandma has told me more than once that wine-in-a-box, or more specifically wine-in-a-bag-in-a-box, is a better way to store wine over a long period of time without losing flavor. 

It appears that vintners in Canada agree with her as several wineries have foregone traditional glass bottles in favor of the box.  Usman Valiante, a contributor to Canada’s Solid Waste and Recycling Magazine, weighs the environmental and viticultural pros and cons of this decision on the blog he keeps off the magazine’s Web site.  Aside from trashing the taste of the wines he sampled, Valiante explains that the materials used to store the drinks aren’t as green as the vineyards imply.  He also points out the irony in the label “Recyclable–where facilities exist.”  I guess I’ll have to stick to sangria in a thermos at picnics. 

  At the Brooklyn book fest this past weekend, Rats author Robert Sullivan informed the crowd that the clear plastic garbage bags favored by downtown establishments post 9-11 now allow the casual observer an unobscured view of rats eating dinner and therefore a better understanding of the rodent’s relationship with trash.

And speaking of style, the fashionistas at style.com, treehugger, fiftyRx3 and fabulously green are all raving about the green garments on display in London this week. If two points make a line and three blogs make a trend, then this eco fashion must be some hot shit.

  While reading through the latest newsletter from DSNY, New York City’s trash authority, I came across a tiny item in the congratulations section that mentioned the recent promotion of two women to the rank of deputy chief.  I guess the city of New York felt the story was bigger than garbage, because the mayor’s office issued a press release, not the department of sanitation.

I don’t have much commentary to add to this story.  It’s a mid-level administrative rank and not surprising that women have not yet surpassed deputy chief given the staunch old-boys-club nature of both sanitation and New York City. 

It is interesting, though, that garbage collection in our country is such a male-dominated industry given the widely-held cultural belief that wives should pick up after their husbands and sons and not the other way around.

A cursory Google for international comparisons reveals that:

• In India, garbage-free village initiatives offer job opportunities for women;
• Women in Jordan used a Global Fund grant to go door to door collecting trash, then turned their local garbage dump into a community greenhouse;
• Egyptian women sort trash and sell what they can to fund women’s health programs;
• And local teams of women environmentalists in Mozambique spend their mornings getting rid of cesspools of trash and their afternoons educating their neighbors on how to avoid malaria and cholera by coming up with new ways to dispose of household waste.

It would appear that women the world over are taking the tidyupper sterotype and, if not rejecting it entirely, at least turning it on its head.

People living in Abidjan are angry and turning violent over the hundreds of tons of shipping sludge illegally dumped near their homes. In the past few days they have beaten up the minister of transport and burned the home of the port director. Twenty-six thousand Ivoirians have sought treatment for headaches and vomiting and difficulty breathing. The BBC took this powerful photo and reported that burning barricades have been set up around the city.

Meanwhile, Côte d’Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo is un-rsvp-ing to a UN meeting on the future of his country next week. His opposition to the meeting seems to be that he 1) doesn’t want peace and 2) doesn’t like the part of the plan that calls for open presidential elections within a year.

Related posts:

update on Côte d’Ivoire

death by trash

  It seems there has been yet another death by trash this week.  A seventh person died yesterday from the ill effects of toxic waste dumped in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.  Earlier this week the entire parliament resigned over the scandal.  The ministry of health now estimates 1,600 others are sick from “fuel slops” dumped by a ship described in varying news reports as “Panamanian” “Greek-owned” and “Dutch-based”, though I suppose it could be all three.  The UN and French officials have confirmed that 400 tons of the toxic waste was dumped at several sites around the city. 

Despite the known risks, trashpickers are returning to work.