Speaking of garbage...

Lately, it would be fair to say that garbage is being shoved down my throat, figuratively of course. I have been inundated with information about our garbage problem from speakers, documentaries and books. After visiting the landfill a couple of weeks ago I started re-reading the book Cradle to Cradle. Author William McDonough's tag line for this book is "remaking the way we make things". In essence, this book addresses using quality designs to make products that will last and keep these products out of landfills. If you can't design something that functions well from the beginning, then working with the infrastructures that are currently in place is the next best thing--this is what my work is doing.

My workplace has become a Green Star School, meaning that we strive to become a zero-waste school. Each room is equipped with a compost bin, co-mingled container bin, paper recycle bin and yes, a garbage bin. During the initial process of becoming a Green Star School Eco-cycle, the local recycling center, trains students and staff on how to recycle/compost via talks and guided lunch-room help. In the lunch room we switched back to the old school re-usable plastic lunch trays and actual silverware. It is also worth mentioning that we have an amazing school lunch program headed up by Ann Cooper who is a Jamie Oliver-esque food activist and chef.

How else is garbage being stuffed down the hatch? Two newish documentaries, Dive! and Bag It offer a palpable, entertaining and sometimes humorous journey through the American waste sector. I saw a screening of Dive! with a Q & A session by director Jeremy Seifert after the movie. Dive! documents Seifert learning to dumpster dive for food in LA. At times, he desperately tries to find a use for the food that is thrown away. Throughout the course of the film Seifert exposes the immensely wasteful American food production system. Although the movie makes you want to stake out your local dumpsters and start eating for free, that is hardly the point. I think Seifert is trying to show us just how much food is wasted, think about where our food comes from and stop food from being wasted to begin with. The movie does a nice job of shedding light on yet another important piece of industrial food complex in the US.
Bag It is a movie about plastic. The beginning of the movie focuses on the life of plastic bags. Plastic bags are one of the most widely used and disposed of items. We use them for a few minutes and then toss them out. The movie discusses some of the chemicals that are used in these bags including phthalates and BPAs. The narrator of this documentary and his partner find out during the movie that they are having a child. After this, the movie looks into the ways that these two chemicals affect the human body and development. I am sure the American Chemistry Council might have some things to say about the narrator's perspective. The most heartbreaking part of the movie is about the damage that plastics are doing to ocean-dwelling animals--particularly those that live near ocean gyres of which there are 5 in the world. You might have heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? You know, the one that is filled 3.5 millions tons of garbage? The movie shows us just what this garbage patch looks like--a plastic soup that fills the bellies of countless animals and kills them. While you watch the movie you might be thinking to yourself, well, what about recycling? Bag It shows that recycling is a double edge sword. It is a band-aid we are using for the creation of all this plastic waste. And why is all this garbage being created to begin with?

Annie Leonard shares her viewpoint on consumerism and waste in her short video called The Story of Stuff. I am betting many of you have seen this oldie but goody that is totally worth the 20 minutes to watch it again and share it with people who have not seen it. Our waste will continue to haunt us until we can find a better and more sustainable means of production. I don't know about you but I don't want anymore blood from the of suffering animals, ecosystems and other countries on my hands just because I am an American.