By Courtney Foster
Some people like to watch TedTalks on erudite topics such as economics and relativity theories.
I do like those things. But the other day, I watched a talk less than eight minutes long entitled “What I Discovered in New York City Trash,” and no debrief on science or mathematics could have had more depth.
The speaker, journalist Robin Nagle, discussed a long-term investigative project she’d been working on concerning public sanitation departments, particularly in the City. First, she simply studied this type of work, but eventually her job led her to take up a position as a garbage truck driver herself. To imagine such a small woman in the window of a bulky green vehicle loaded with human-generated waste was an impactful image in and of itself.
Nagle confessed that hoisting heavy bags of garbage onto the truck took some getting used to, as did the ever-present stench of trash, but after a while, these obstacles were not noticeable. What Nagle began to see was a somewhat concealed cause-and-effect: wherever human development exists, there is waste. And wherever there is waste, someone has to be there to pick up after us.
It’s a service on which we rely, and one we take for granted. In sun or sleet, in times of joy or times of tragedy, the garbage men and women do their jobs, cleaning the streets and allowing us to continue on with our daily lives.
We never take the time to thank these people, or think about the essential role they play. Usually we just complain that they decided to park in front of our homes while eating lunch or that they don’t line the barrels up neatly after emptying them.
At a deeper level, Nagle noticed that trash and trash collecting has a sort of rhythm to it. We live, we create garbage, the garbage workers pick it up, and so on and so forth.
Nagle gave the public a simple call to action: to think about the waste we leave behind and ask ourselves: who cleans up after us? — not just on a local level, but all over the world, where the goods we use daily originate. Maybe this will help us to reconsider some of our life choices, and to think more broadly about how our actions affect a larger society.
The holiday season has arrived, and while this may be primarily a time to eat and be merry, it is also a time of reflection. For many, a timely irony has surfaced: the day after Thanksgiving, a day to express gratitude for the fortunes we are blessed with, America has created a new “holiday” solely for the consumerist sector: Black Friday, a whole day centered around increasing the magnitude of how much we can buy.
After a day of peaceful family dinners, chaos reigns. Fights break out over xboxes and and bridal gowns and television sets. Police are called in. In the most extreme cases, people are spit on, tazered, and trampled– sometimes to death.
As I pondered this Thanksgiving/Black Friday paradox, a thought came to mind: in the production of all the things we amass over the holidays, who picks up after us?
A little research told me that Americans produce 25% more waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day than they do any other time of the year. What may be a celebratory time for us, is certainly not for our planet. Not to mention the fact that this increased consumption actually makes the holiday time less jolly: we put pressure upon ourselves to buy as much stuff as we can so we can make people happy.
This season, perhaps I owe the planet — and myself — a favor. For my parents, I’m keeping the gift list short and targeted. I aim to mind the reams of wrapping paper, the gaudy plastic packaging, the stress I put upon myself to buy gifts instead of giving them. I’m far from an ideal global citizen. But I’m making an effort to step slightly away from consumerist culture, and to keep in mind: who is picking up after me?
