Sharon's interest in garbology.
I study Economics, love Anthropology, and not too long ago developed a very keen interest in trash. Joining UWGP’s troop of volunteers is a necessary extension of what I'm interested in doing, which is to study waste in its many meanings and manifestations, waste as central to a growing environmental ethic on campus in particular, or waste in general as a backdoor to this very deep place inside all of us. After all, how we discard says a lot about how we consume, which in turn says a lot about how we live, the values that we cherish, our boundaries, beliefs, and daily interactions with the material world around us. Besides waste, my two other passions in life are food and traveling: food because it's a good way to educate oneself about how food is grown and how it dies, and traveling because it is what one has to do when poor, young, and hungry. Through volunteering with the UWGP, I look forward to learning about how to correctly identify, sort, and quantify waste. I'm also excited about chancing upon rejected wedding proposal rings, still-edible food, and the occasional well-written love poem while sifting through rubbish. I still don't know what I'll be when I grow up though I'd love to have a job that involves lots of walking, good coffee, justice, meaningful interactions with different people, and maybe, if I'm lucky enough, garbage.
Trash sorting first impressions.
As someone who believes that surprise, humor, wonderment, and pleasure can exist even in the most unlikely of places – the dump – I’m happy to report that my first two trash sorts have been nothing short of delightful moments pulling out interesting finds from garbage bags. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed about finding that rejected wedding proposal ring. But what stood out to me the most really was something more mundane than monumental – coffee cup lids. I had to learn to pay attention to them in a different way because some were compostable, others were recyclable, and the rest were just trash. Given that different coffee joints both on and off campus provide different types of lids, keeping track of which lid goes into which sorting bin was no small feat.
Yet, by the end of the sorting session I wondered if there was another way of thinking and talking about coffee cup lids. They are, after all, among the many objects central to a uniquely American phenomenon – our to-go food/drink culture. They are useful for as long as it takes a customer to finish a drink. Their social history is fascinating: in the 70s, there were only 9 individual patents for lids in the US; by the 80s, there were 26. And why the sudden spike? Apparently, Americans decided then that it was necessary for them to be able to walk, drive, and commute while sipping their coffee. A specialized vocabulary grew around their design: heat retention, mouth comfort, splash reduction, one-handed activation, accommodation of drinker’s nose, were innovations introduced. Today we have our dome lid to accommodate a growing taste for foam-topped gourmet coffee.
So yes, we can draw conclusions closer to home: Denny-zens like their coffee (but who doesn’t?), one even makes dedicated trips to Cafe Solstice, a handful drinks Starbucks, and a few are loyal fans of McCafe. But the presence of something as ubiquitous and invisible as coffee cup lids in our garbage bins points also to bigger understandings of how we as a society drink, work, and live.
Yet, by the end of the sorting session I wondered if there was another way of thinking and talking about coffee cup lids. They are, after all, among the many objects central to a uniquely American phenomenon – our to-go food/drink culture. They are useful for as long as it takes a customer to finish a drink. Their social history is fascinating: in the 70s, there were only 9 individual patents for lids in the US; by the 80s, there were 26. And why the sudden spike? Apparently, Americans decided then that it was necessary for them to be able to walk, drive, and commute while sipping their coffee. A specialized vocabulary grew around their design: heat retention, mouth comfort, splash reduction, one-handed activation, accommodation of drinker’s nose, were innovations introduced. Today we have our dome lid to accommodate a growing taste for foam-topped gourmet coffee.
So yes, we can draw conclusions closer to home: Denny-zens like their coffee (but who doesn’t?), one even makes dedicated trips to Cafe Solstice, a handful drinks Starbucks, and a few are loyal fans of McCafe. But the presence of something as ubiquitous and invisible as coffee cup lids in our garbage bins points also to bigger understandings of how we as a society drink, work, and live.
Visiting the Burke Museum's "Plastics Unwrapped" exhibit.
While the Plastics Unwrapped exhibition didn’t change the way I see plastics in general, I did gather some pretty interesting factoids about them as both material and waste. I like how tactile an experience it was for me visiting the Burke: I touched everything that I was allowed and not allowed to touch. But I also did wish for my sense of smell to be stimulated too, just because our ability to use our nose to learn and get information about something is as limited as our vocabularies for describing different smells. I would’ve been curious to know what the process of plastic-making would smell like, or what microplastics recovered from the abdomen of an albatross would smell like, or how our plastics and metals smell when burnt by people in poor countries. The use of provocative smells in museum exhibits, as invisible architecture made visible, can be a very strong way to make a statement about something.
Two things that caught my attention: the fact that most plastics are actually made to last, and that they are showing up as plastic gyres in the Pacific Ocean. It’s a delicious irony that our efforts to render less visible the plastics that we generate and throw away so casually everyday might one day end up forming man-made structures – garbage patches – so enormous they’re visible from the moon. Or that the things we don’t value end up having longer lifespans than the objects we value. We are not very good at having extended relationships with our material possessions; but once discarded, they go on to have very long and often times toxic interactions (especially if made of plastics) with the natural world. Italo Calvino’s description of the city of Leonia – a throwaway society – aptly summarizes our own society’s ability to make good-quality trash:
‘...the more Leonia's talent for making new materials excels, the more the rubbish improves in quality, resists time, the elements, fermentations, combustions. A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains. This is the result: the more Leonia expels goods, the more it accumulates them.’ - Calvino’s Invisible Cities
As for the plastics that we find during our trash sorts, it seems to me that a lot of it is used to protect and package food. The exhibition did a great job exhorting us as consumers to vote with the power of our purchase for better, more environmentally friendly materials. What's lacking in the conversation though is the role of manufacturers as users of plastics, or the fact that companies that sell electronic gadgets resort to a variety of ways to ensure that consumers discard their electronics and buy newer, shinier gadgets within a short space of time. While consumer activism is good, especially at keeping contaminants out of our own bodies and backyards, I wonder if it is just as good for protecting the bodies and backyards of the poor too.
Two things that caught my attention: the fact that most plastics are actually made to last, and that they are showing up as plastic gyres in the Pacific Ocean. It’s a delicious irony that our efforts to render less visible the plastics that we generate and throw away so casually everyday might one day end up forming man-made structures – garbage patches – so enormous they’re visible from the moon. Or that the things we don’t value end up having longer lifespans than the objects we value. We are not very good at having extended relationships with our material possessions; but once discarded, they go on to have very long and often times toxic interactions (especially if made of plastics) with the natural world. Italo Calvino’s description of the city of Leonia – a throwaway society – aptly summarizes our own society’s ability to make good-quality trash:
‘...the more Leonia's talent for making new materials excels, the more the rubbish improves in quality, resists time, the elements, fermentations, combustions. A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains. This is the result: the more Leonia expels goods, the more it accumulates them.’ - Calvino’s Invisible Cities
As for the plastics that we find during our trash sorts, it seems to me that a lot of it is used to protect and package food. The exhibition did a great job exhorting us as consumers to vote with the power of our purchase for better, more environmentally friendly materials. What's lacking in the conversation though is the role of manufacturers as users of plastics, or the fact that companies that sell electronic gadgets resort to a variety of ways to ensure that consumers discard their electronics and buy newer, shinier gadgets within a short space of time. While consumer activism is good, especially at keeping contaminants out of our own bodies and backyards, I wonder if it is just as good for protecting the bodies and backyards of the poor too.
Keeping a trash log.
The majority of my waste for the one week I kept track of it were either compostable or recyclable. Whether or not these two categories of waste were actually composted or recycled was another thing, however. My apartment unit does not come equipped with compost bins, a service that, according to my apartment manager, will add a hefty $700 to his monthly waste removal bill and thus should be put off for as long as possible. I once brought my food scraps and moldy bread/fruits to school to be composted but gave up the idea the second time around. Doing so would have quickly been, quite honestly, a bore and a chore for me. As for recyclables, I notice that I'm less religious about properly discarding them when I'm out at places where recycling bins are less present or visible. Otherwise, like anyone in Seattle, a little bit of my soul dies if I don't recycle properly when given the opportunity to do so.
A big chunk (in size/frequency, not necessarily in weight) of what I discard seems to be packaging materials. Not a single day goes by without me producing waste in the form of plastic wrappers, safety seals, soiled plastic bags, plastic/paper envelopes, and cardboard boxes. Another category of waste shows up often too - what I call waste-that-is-totally-not-my-doing. It includes receipts for grocery bills as well as unsolicited advertisements and product catalogues. Discard that reveals some of my more wasteful consumption habits are used aluminium foil and single-use K-cups. Sorry. I'm nonetheless more conscientious than I used to be about tearing open the plastic cover of my K-cups so that the coffee grounds can be composted. My own bin at home has always been a bit of a black hole for me. As such, this week-long exercise was as revealing as it was sobering because it gave me an idea of what I was doing and not doing right when exercising the daily ritual of discarding.
A big chunk (in size/frequency, not necessarily in weight) of what I discard seems to be packaging materials. Not a single day goes by without me producing waste in the form of plastic wrappers, safety seals, soiled plastic bags, plastic/paper envelopes, and cardboard boxes. Another category of waste shows up often too - what I call waste-that-is-totally-not-my-doing. It includes receipts for grocery bills as well as unsolicited advertisements and product catalogues. Discard that reveals some of my more wasteful consumption habits are used aluminium foil and single-use K-cups. Sorry. I'm nonetheless more conscientious than I used to be about tearing open the plastic cover of my K-cups so that the coffee grounds can be composted. My own bin at home has always been a bit of a black hole for me. As such, this week-long exercise was as revealing as it was sobering because it gave me an idea of what I was doing and not doing right when exercising the daily ritual of discarding.
The biggest waste problem on campus.
I think some of the biggest waste-related challenges the UW faces are those relating to its composting practices. It's always fascinating how one's major or field of study can determine the specific spaces within campus that one is exposed to on a daily basis and thus, the waste disposal ethic that one practices. The heart of campus seems to be well equipped with composting bins; the opposite is true for its peripheries. The first challenge is thus to work out the costs and logistics of introducing more composting bins both inside and outside buildings throughout campus and not just for places that receive the most foot traffic.
The second challenge is to provide guides for what people can do with waste from off-campus dining facilities. During our trash sorts, I myself was confused over the types of packaging materials from Jimmy Johns, Starbucks, Chipotle, Subway, etc. that qualify as compostables. While it's very clear that most on-campus utensils and packaging are compostable, the same cannot be said of food containers obtained from the Ave.
The third challenge is to make the cost of sending compostables to landfills more visible to folks on campus. If students can see how their waste disposal habits result in a larger campus waste bill, which in turn translates into increasingly expensive tuition fees, they may start looking out for that composting bin. If students can be psychologically primed into thinking that how and what they discard are being observed, they may begin to self-regulate and hence properly discard their compostables. As my housemate - the pragmatic industrial engineering major - recently pointed out, there is currently neither an incentive for doing the right thing, nor a disincentive for not doing the right thing.
The second challenge is to provide guides for what people can do with waste from off-campus dining facilities. During our trash sorts, I myself was confused over the types of packaging materials from Jimmy Johns, Starbucks, Chipotle, Subway, etc. that qualify as compostables. While it's very clear that most on-campus utensils and packaging are compostable, the same cannot be said of food containers obtained from the Ave.
The third challenge is to make the cost of sending compostables to landfills more visible to folks on campus. If students can see how their waste disposal habits result in a larger campus waste bill, which in turn translates into increasingly expensive tuition fees, they may start looking out for that composting bin. If students can be psychologically primed into thinking that how and what they discard are being observed, they may begin to self-regulate and hence properly discard their compostables. As my housemate - the pragmatic industrial engineering major - recently pointed out, there is currently neither an incentive for doing the right thing, nor a disincentive for not doing the right thing.
Three benefits of doing garbology.
Garbology adds to the general pool of knowledge that we have about human societies because it takes the humblest of a society's objects - its waste - and gives meaning and substance to it. So in the broadest sense, the formal study of garbage is a pretty good and accurate way of revealing things about ourselves - our daily woes and wants and habits and choices and histories - that are often times not very apparent to us.
In a narrower sense, the practice of garbology at the UW helps plug critical gaps in current understandings of how and what the UW community discards everyday. Having insight into waste practices on campus enables the UW Recycling to fine-tune its waste policies and facilities while working towards reducing UW's waste bill. For example, there is a clear sense that our efforts as volunteers are contributing directly to useful data about Denny's composting efficiency - data important for UW Recycling to have when deciding whether or not to implement the same policies campus-wide.
For me, learning the tools of garbology is cool mainly because trash sorting while wearing a space suit is a lot of fun! My volunteering experience with the UWGP has been full of moments of honest joy and pleasure pulling out very interesting finds from garbage bags and then making up all sorts of stories about these objects and their previous owners. In fact, we've constructed pretty sophisticated even if fictive caricatures of people based on trends that we notice in Denny's waste. There is the tobacco-chewing, tweed jacket-wearing professor who teaches dead languages, the student who hates Arabic class and dreams of spending her summer semester at sea, the K-cup coffee addict desperately trying to finish his dissertation on time, or the group of friends who'd throw Chipotle parties over the weekends and are not at all fans of beans and rice.
In a narrower sense, the practice of garbology at the UW helps plug critical gaps in current understandings of how and what the UW community discards everyday. Having insight into waste practices on campus enables the UW Recycling to fine-tune its waste policies and facilities while working towards reducing UW's waste bill. For example, there is a clear sense that our efforts as volunteers are contributing directly to useful data about Denny's composting efficiency - data important for UW Recycling to have when deciding whether or not to implement the same policies campus-wide.
For me, learning the tools of garbology is cool mainly because trash sorting while wearing a space suit is a lot of fun! My volunteering experience with the UWGP has been full of moments of honest joy and pleasure pulling out very interesting finds from garbage bags and then making up all sorts of stories about these objects and their previous owners. In fact, we've constructed pretty sophisticated even if fictive caricatures of people based on trends that we notice in Denny's waste. There is the tobacco-chewing, tweed jacket-wearing professor who teaches dead languages, the student who hates Arabic class and dreams of spending her summer semester at sea, the K-cup coffee addict desperately trying to finish his dissertation on time, or the group of friends who'd throw Chipotle parties over the weekends and are not at all fans of beans and rice.
Looking back on the quarter.
Getting involved in UWGP's Denny Hall project turned me into what my friends affectionately call a 'garbage nazi' because I acquired the habits, knowledge, and vocabulary to have better, deeper conversations about waste, the economics of managing it, and proper ways of sorting our daily waste - all of which are skills worth keeping and sharing with others. Sorting trash every week also helped me see how it is far from a mundane or terrifyingly disgusting job. Instead, it involves hard work, a clear sense of purpose, a strong memory, but also lots of pleasure, imagination, and camaraderie.
I think having more public trash sorts can be a way to get people aware and interested in the work that UWGP does. People are often amused when I talk about my volunteering experience with the UWGP in the middle of a conversation, probably because they find it so hard to imagine how work like that matters, or why anyone would want to do it. Organizing some of our sessions out in the sun in public places on campus may sound like a logistical disaster. But it may also offer the UW community the chance to see its waste being sorted correctly, to hear us talk about the latest waste-related green initiative on campus and why folks should care, and maybe, just maybe, even to fall in love with our awesome personalities and shiny tyvek suits.
I think having more public trash sorts can be a way to get people aware and interested in the work that UWGP does. People are often amused when I talk about my volunteering experience with the UWGP in the middle of a conversation, probably because they find it so hard to imagine how work like that matters, or why anyone would want to do it. Organizing some of our sessions out in the sun in public places on campus may sound like a logistical disaster. But it may also offer the UW community the chance to see its waste being sorted correctly, to hear us talk about the latest waste-related green initiative on campus and why folks should care, and maybe, just maybe, even to fall in love with our awesome personalities and shiny tyvek suits.