City Harvest‘s new PSA highlights food waste in New York.
Archive for the ‘Trash Politics’ Category
Apples
Wednesday, February 3, 2010A plastic education
Friday, January 29, 2010This article, which I came across via my friend Oriana‘s Facebook page, might just restore my faith in the Peace Corps. Why? Because Peace Corps volunteer Laura Kutner used her time in Guatemala to lead a local effort in collecting plastic bottles and used them to build a school.
Photo by Laura Kutner via planetgreen.discovery.com
Thanks, Oriana, you always have the best trash tips!
Greening the ghetto
Friday, January 29, 2010Watching Majora Carter‘s TEDTalk on the way to work today reminded me why I’m such a big fan of this local environmental revolutionary. She articulates better than anyone what it’s like to live in the “away” other people never picture when they throw things away, the lasting legacy of Robert Moses and the impact his reign over New York City planning and expansion had on her neighborhood and how she has led a community effort to fight back and “green the ghetto.”
On the job
Thursday, January 28, 2010Collecting trash is a dangerous job. You don’t have to travel to developing countries for examples of why this is true. A Mack truck ran into and killed a sanitation worker this week as he was standing behind his truck in Queens, New York. If you read the comments in this City Room post, you’ll see locals complain that even though this street may have been closed to giant truck traffic, Mack trucks cut through it for convenience. I don’t know yet if that’s true—if the truck that killed this sanitation worker had made an illegal turn or a legal one—either way Frank Justich‘s death was tragic.
Garbage Warrior
Wednesday, January 20, 2010Attn: New Yorkers
UnionDocs is showing Garbage Warrior—the documentary about radical sustainable architect, Michael Reynolds—on Friday, January 29th, @ 7:30 pm. Director Oliver Hodge will be on hand for a Q&A. And at least 50% of the everydaytrash.com team plans to attend.
Since we first blogged about this film in 2007 and 2008, it has traveled the festival circuit racking up awards. Check it out if you’re in the area and keep an eye out if you’re elsewhere.
Thanks for the tip, Oriana!
Trashspotting
Tuesday, January 19, 2010“15 Trashspotting blogs” = the Best. Roundup. Ever.
And I’m not just saying that because we made the cut. This listing of “trashspotting” sites on the Construction Management Degree blog includes some of our favorite trashies—Last Night’s Garbage, The Visible Trash Society, 365 Days of Trash—as well as a most intriguing group of newcomers. I can’t wait to check out the Budapest Trashspotting Club.
Stay tuned for a bloated blogroll and reflections on the meaning of trashspotting.
Trash harbouring in Honolulu
Friday, January 15, 2010International trash transit seems to have run into some government bureaucracy this week, according to a piece in The Daily News. Apparently, trash shipments from Hawaii to Washington, over the Columbia River, have been suspended due to the need for an environmental assessment plan, including a 30-day public comment. Transports have up until now gone over road and rail, and with the change in transportation mode, regulations kick in. I.e., if you are a reader of everydaytrash.com and live in the area, you should be interested and here’s a golden opportunity.
While the imports of Hawaiian Waste Systems (based in Seattle) are on hold, trash that hoped to float along the North Pacific Ocean are stacking up in Honolulu docks. Several hundreds of tonnes of trash bales are posing a health threat, says Hawaiian officials. On the other hand, if one trusts a news piece from The Seattle Times written in June 2008, explaining the intended process, it seems as if the risk is minimal. In any case, the bales are likely to sit around for another two months or so, while the wheel of bureaucracy keep on turning.
H&M sucks
Wednesday, January 6, 2010“It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being destroyed nightly.” –NYT
Update: H&M says it will end the madness. Power of the press?
“Where can I recycle my mortar?”
Wednesday, January 6, 2010Well, recycling is a good thing, but perhaps the person who decided the time was ripe to leave their 1951 155 millimeter artillery shell at a recycling station in Seattle should have thought another round. Luckily, no one was hurt, and the Army apparently came to save the day.
The trash of war is, as war itself, destructive. The examples are endless, again as war seems to be. Some war trash has direct impact on human security, such as the around 18 million land mines layed down by the British at the battle for El Alamein in 1942, still killing and injuring the Bedouin population living there. But war does not only create weapons trash, it also turns infrastructure and nature into trash, with manifold long-term effects. In short, as if it needed to be stated, war is bad when it happens, and long after.
The other green movement
Thursday, December 31, 2009I was born in New York City—to an American mother and Iranian father—on January 15th, 1979, the same day the Shah fled Iran and what, in a more just world, might have been Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 50th birthday.
Growing up amidst the nostalgia of Iranian exiles and American progressives, I was taught from the earliest age that my birthday held special significance and that celebrating this significance required something deeper than a cupcake. Consequently, the days leading up to it each year are accompanied by a tingling sense of urgency, as though something important is about to happen.
This year, watching protests in the streets of Iran via online video and getting updates from family members via phone and email, that sense is stronger than ever. And though I love writing and thinking about trash, lately it has felt strange to be doing so while so much is happening in that far away land so many people I love call home.
I know the struggles are related—environmental justice is linked to civil rights—but the linkages can at times appear tangential.
So, rather than abandon garblogging during this tense time, I thought today I’d occupy my pre-birthday anxiety by listing out the connections between trash and the slow march toward a democratic Iran. Thanks for bearing with me. I am aware that today’s post is a bit navalgazey.
These are connections I have stumbled upon solely because of everydaytrash.com, reason 1001 it’s lovely to have a trash blog.
Connection #1: Burning trash makes a dramatic political statement.
Getty Images
Connection #2: Iranian sanitation workers were at the forefront of post-election protests (a fact pointed out to me by trash-minded artist Douglas Brodoff).
Connection #3: Iranian-Americans have an affinity for trash. Through the blog I have discovered the trash-related work of artist Kuros Zahedi, filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, and food justice activist Andy Sarjahani. [Note, I think Bahrani is actually Iranian-Canadian, but since Robert Ebert named him the next great American director today, I think it’s fair to lump him.]
Kuros and his piece "Finding Away," photo by Lele Barnett
Connection #4: As a nomadic people prone to political upheaval and averse to waste, Persians make things meant to last forever, never to be thrown away.
Persian carpet
Here’s hoping 2010 brings success to both the green movement to protect the environment and the green movement for political evolution in Iran. Happy New Year, trashies.
xoxo
Leila
Beijing to have trash crisis in next decade
Wednesday, December 30, 2009China Daily and China Radio International both report today that Beijing will soon be void of space for trash from the 20 million people living in the Capital of the world’s most populous country. With an annual trash growth rate of 8%, landfills (i.e. Beijing’s main method of taking care of trash) are about to overflow, and disposal plants are already overworked.
As Beijing doesn’t have much space for new landfill, nor much time to establish new landfills, city officials have stated that they are considering incineration, a method highly unpopular among the public, who fear more pollution in an already terribly polluted city. (Illustrative pic can be found here, the real nerds should check out this twitter feed.)
The local government is trying to argue that incineration isn’t necessary a big polluter. Clearly, there are advantages of emissions from incineration facilities over toxic gas generated by landfills, but then again, science is always an argument. (A good account of the debate can be found in this wiki post.) What is of course more disheartening is that the Beijing government, similar to governments everywhere, seem to care less about figuring out how people in Beijing could generate less trash to begin with. 8% growth per year is no joke.
Middle East conflict trash
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sidon Garbage Dump
A dump that started with the rubble of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon has morphed into an environmental hazard in the city of Sidon, the BBC reports. Palestinian refugees make some money scavenging from the 4-story stinking eyesore—sifting among syringes and discarded human organs for reusable materials. Meanwhile, hunks of garbage from the dump make their way into the ocean, clogging and destroying the local fishermen’s nets. According to the article, there are prospective donors that might pay to clean up and deal with the mess, but the local government can’t get their act together to coordinate (Via Greenprophet).
The year in trash
Friday, December 18, 2009It’s been a wasteful yet waste conscious year. Here’s a quick and dirty roundup of what I remember offhand of what we’ve discussed here:
- everydaytrash.com gained a voice when Victor joined as contributing editor writing first from Stockholm and then, in a happy turn of events, from right here in Brooklyn;
- We saw some movies: No Impact Man and Garbage Dreams brought trash to the big string at home and abroad;
- Vic and I headed to Jersey for Laurapalooza and met some cute kids;
- We co-hosted the first annual Decorative Dumpster Day (can’t wait for next year!);
- We celebrated some Trashtastic Tuesdays (and, um, are overdue for a few more);
- It was a chaotic year for trash litigation; and
- An incredibly fruitful and creative year in the world of trash art.
Oh, and the Facebook page grew a lot. If you’re on there, fan us. We post extra photos, links and updates. Plus, you can interact with other trashies (which you can also do here. Comment more, please).
Trashy new year, everyone.
xoxo
Leila
Badass
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Little Shiva, http://www.visibletrash.net
Little Shiva‘s trashtastic ensemble for Copenhagen next week.
New trucks
Thursday, December 3, 2009
DSNY
NYC is rolling out hybrid garbage trucks. -via The L
everydaytrash 