Eating Garbage

Garbage is Beautiful.

And let me tell you why.

In 2010, the EPA estimated the US produced over 240 million tons of municipal solid waste. That is over four pounds of garbage, per person, per day.

We travel through our day throwing things ‘away’. But where do they go? Does your trash go to a landfill, incinerator, or Waste to Energy Plant?

Currently in NJ, thirteen counties have solid waste landfills and five counties have resource recovery facilities (incinerators). Of the five counties with resource recovery facilities, three also have landfills to receive waste that cannot be burnt. Eight counties have awarded waste disposal contracts and require that all waste be sent to one facility for disposal. The remaining thirteen counties have a free market system and transporters may send waste out of the county or state.

The majority of us don’t know information like this, and don’t care as long as we don’t have to look at it. But if we were forced to look at the garbage- if there was no more ‘away’- what would we do?

As of the early 2000’s, NJ’s resource recovery facilities were receiving and operating at 91% of their total capacities. Transfer stations were at 70% of their capacities. NJ is in a state of complete build out- meaning every acre of land is owned by someone. There is no more space. And there is hardly enough space to compact and ship our waste ‘away’. So what now?

Let’s switch tracks slightly.

We choose to surround ourselves with things that improve our mood and help us. Things we find beautiful.

At the Living Future conference in Portland this past May- many suggested that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.

In general, we can all collectively agree that things are beautiful: the beach, fall leaves, snowflake patterns, etc.

Kat Taylor suggests that we instinctively find things beautiful when they are in balance. So, if our waste cycle were in balance, we would find garbage pleasing.

If garbage didn’t have to be hauled miles outside of our cities to be shipped, trucked, and transferred to dirty plants and full landfills- what would we do with it?

Make Art?

Make it food/Energy?

If we follow the ideal of Bill McDonough in Cradle to Cradle, where Waste equals food, and mined our trash heaps for valuable materials and minerals, allowed scavengers to pick out food waste, then made ‘food’ out of the remainder for some system or process, garbage would be a commodity.

In many European cities, Waste to Energy Plants are town centers. The trash is turned into domestic energy. And these areas also have the highest recycling rates.

Thermal conversion of MSW reduces the total volume of as-received solid waste by 90% and total weight by 75%. Volume and weight reduction serves the purpose of conserving landfill space while also producing a more manageable, homogenous and possible valuable final

secondary product.

MSW Fuel characteristics: 2.97kWh/kg. Using the EPA estimates of trash produced in 2010- that would be over 600 billion kilowatt hours produced if we utilized existing WTE technologies.

I know as an environmentalist, people don’t expect me to be ‘for’ incineration. But the fact remains that not every material is recyclable. We exist in a society where there will always be stuff to dispose of, that isn’t collected back or reusable or recyclable. I’d love for that to change, but it isn’t likely to be soon in a consumer-driven society.

But as David Trubridge said, “It isn’t enough to create efficiency... To deny beauty is to deny humanity”.

A Japanese scientists at United Nations University invented a boiler that can turn any plastic back into oil, where it can be refined for use in generators, cars, motorcycles, etc. A landfill becomes and oil field, minus the drills and C02 released from extraction. A dump becomes a treasure trove.

So I say to you again. Garbage is beautiful. Do you see it now? It’s not something we should be sending ‘away’. It’s a resource we should guard.

Still think I’m over reaching by calling trash beautiful? Well, maybe- but in the words of Jason McLennan,

“Fuck yeah we’re over reaching. But what are we waiting for?”

Sources:

·     http://www.nj.gov/dep/seeds/hthtr/SectIV.pdf

·     Zugunruhe

·     Casey’s notes from the Living Future Conference, 2014

·     WTE feasibility study, CCNY Capstone Project

by: Casey Cullen, David Salmon, Ron Russo, Eric Fell