Author Archives: Danielle Sambrook

Archaeology

One thing I routinely throw in the trash is gum. The marketing of gum is a really interesting thing to examine, in that it is strongly linked to candy marketing targeting children and teens. Nowadays, it seems that there is every possible flavor of candy and gum. This is something that I feel has been on the rise in the past two decades or so. For example, I remember as a kid in a grocery store checkout line just seeing Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, as the token Reese’s product. Now, when I look through grocery store checkout lines, I see about six different Reese’s products. Therefore, I imagine when archaeologists dig up all the candies and gums, a view of marketing and the larger number of products would be clear. With the strong rise of technology, advertising has certainly changed, leaving old tactics to possibly be not as effective, so insight into that could be discovered by archaeologists as well. At times, chewing gum has been seen as a sign of disrespect, for example my childhood classrooms, as it was not something we were allowed to have. However, I am not sure how common this idea is now. Therefore, looking at the frequency of people’s gum consumption and where it happens intrigues me. Overall, seeing where gum is found most often would give archaeologists an understanding of our world’s levels of acceptability or not of gum, who is consuming it and why, and how marketing and advertising have influenced these things, specifically in children’s lives. 

 

Circular Economy

The other day a friend knocked on my door asking if I had a stapler. I immediately grabbed a mini teal one from my desk drawer. Upon handing it to them, I realized how infrequently I use the stapler myself. I have had the stapler since my 7th birthday and have never needed to refill it with staples. I am not sure how many staples came in it, but 11 years is certainly a long time to have something and not need to refill or replace it. I find it amusing that besides this time, I have no recollection of when I used it last, yet I still felt the urge to bring it here. One product that I use quite frequently and have been shared with others is scissors. Reflecting on my feelings during that time in comparison to the time of sharing the stapler is interesting. When the scissors were in the possession of another person, my anxiety surrounding the object rose. Even though I trusted the person and knew they would only have them for a short time, it was a drastic difference in how I felt about the situation in comparison to someone having my stapler. Another aspect that is interesting to examine within these circumstances is that the person who used the stapler had put too much paper in it, and it ended up getting stuck for 10 minutes, and it took 4 people to resolve the issue. However, even with this instance, I felt less anxious over that happening, than I did from just knowing that my scissors were not in my room, even with me having no need to be using them anytime soon. Therefore, this has helped me understand that trust in material exchange goes both ways. Trust is needed to believe and seek someone else who has the thing you need, and trust and belief in yourself to serve others’ needs even in small material ways. Recognizing this can help people work towards communal sharing of products and reduce the production and ownership of goods that one does not need regularly. In Monday’s class, we discussed the short life span of a hammer being used and yet the common ownership of one. Based on the obvious fact that everyone is a different person, some people’s most commonly used objects are maybe not the same as the people around them. I do think that is an incredibly beautiful thing and is a great way to encourage sharing of resources. However, the desire to possess things is very common in the U.S. I imagine this stems from this country’s colonial practices centering on the taking of resources and lands from Indigenous people. These ideas have also formed American Dream ideas of success such as owning a house to raise a family being considered a worthy milestone. Breaking down and unpacking these concepts can help us work towards a world of having innate value through one’s personhood rather than value being based on our possessions. Overall, this week’s readings have helped me unpack my relationship to my things, form a desire to live in a circular economy, and therefore consider how my internalized ideas of possessing things effects my personal steps needed to help share ideas of a circular economy.

Disruption

The brutal mistreatment of homeless people by police forces is such a common thing in our society that connects to ideas of taking up space and a way waste is used to justify aggression. People’s unease around seeing waste in public places is apparent. I think this relates to the way we are allowed to have or not have a certain amount of stuff in public places. Being that the majority of one’s possessions exist in their home impacts the way people operate in public places. Connecting space to gender expectations I think is an interesting starting point. Oftentimes, we see women having external bags to carry their things in public. While in general, women are not allowed to take up as much space as men, therefore I find this kind of ironic. However, maybe this connects to the idea of women being told they need things or relationships with others to be valued. Even in traditional men’s and women’s clothes, women’s clothing always have way smaller or even a lack of pockets. I have always connected this to capitalism and how women are then expected to buy bags, in order to carry even basic things like their phone, wallet, or keys. The things that people are allowed to carry in public spaces are based on context. For example, one might not carry a briefcase to a restaurant but would have it in an office. However, homeless people are really not allowed to have anything in any context. Being that homeless people don’t have any privacy with their belongings, police forces detect that as vulnerability, and therefore feel they have control over their things and personhood. While someone entering another’s home and taking or destroying their things is a criminal offense, and the police are considered to be the saving grace force in that scenario, that same argument does not apply to police entering homeless people’s spaces. Police forces have applied aggression to homeless people and argued that it is because their innate existence is not allowed in public spaces. The face-to-face interaction that the police forces have with the poverty they are systemically perpetuating when engaging with homeless people is different than the “disorder” they claim to be separate from and having to deal with. Overall, the terrible mistreatment of homeless people by police forces connects to ideas of taking up space and who and which objects are allowed to be present in certain contexts.  

Pollution

Ever since I was a kid, I remember the beach clean-up commercials plastered across my television screen begging people to join in on community clean-up projects. Despite not actually living near a beach, I did have my fair share of encounters with littering in outdoor spaces. My experience was located on hiking trails. Class conversations over whether or not dirt is dirty make me think of how even if we say no, the ways our actions may say yes.  Within these two spaces, people physically reveal more of themselves at beaches. For example, we often see people in bathing suits and even nude beaches exist. While on hiking trails, even in hot weather, most people are spotted wearing shorts and a T-shirt. While the beach attire is because of tanning and swimming opportunities, water sources on trails are sometimes present, and the ocean isn’t exactly known for being the cleanest water source. I do feel sand and dirt are similar in the sense of something that is fine when people are the ones engaging with it, but neither are things people like entering their own personal spaces. Another thing that comes to mind is the idea of being visible to others and how that affects people’s actions. For example, beaches are typically very open and for extended periods of time, you could be just feet away from multiple groups of people. While seeing someone on a hike is met with a brief hello. Even if one is not interacting with anyone else at the beach, one’s proximity to them still influences how one acts. Oftentimes when I have been on hikes, the further along you are on the trail, the more trash I find. I don’t quite understand why this is. My guess has always been that since one is deeper into the woods, people feel there is more anonymity and therefore less accountability needed to be taken. Something about the lower chance of being watched or caught is something that I’d say inspires questionable behaviors amongst humanity as a whole, especially when it comes to how we treat spaces. Overall, examining how specifically beaches and hiking trails are treated as potential sites for pollution gives me insight into how I interact with these spaces and wanting to challenge those ways.

Disposability

One thing I regularly interact with that is typically considered disposable is paper towels. I am a very clumsy person, so paper towels were one of the first things I packed when coming to Hampshire to assist in cleaning up any spills. I would consider paper towels to be disposable and not able to be reused, in contrast to something that is marketed to be one-time use, but maybe is not the reality, such as a plastic water bottle. The design of paper towels would be disposable as well in the sense that you can not use them for an extended period of time before they begin to rip apart. I always end up needing at least 2 paper towels with whatever mess I make. Something that is disposable also indicates a short-term use. This is even marketed by companies such as Bounty, as their slogan is “the quicker picker-upper.” Being able to clean up the mess as soon as possible connects to being able to disconnect yourself from the mess as soon as possible. Upon skimming Bounty’s website, apparently, for every tree they use, they plant two more. It is stated that this is done to grow lush and thriving forests. However, trees are not exactly grown overnight in the same way they are cut down to be used, so I think even what is considered sustainable actions by a company itself are always important to examine further While I am appreciative of paper towels and how they offer cleanup assistance, limiting use of disposable things is definitely something our discussions have reminded me to be consistent about. 

Conceptualizing Waste

The waste object I am going to examine is paper. I will be taking this object and applying it to the following three categories of waste that Moore identifies: archive, matter out of place, and resource. For starters, I frequently view paper as being archival material. I scrapbook often and all of the contents included are paper. Some examples include concert tickets or birthday cards. However, I do sometimes scrapbook with paper materials that would be considered waste. Some of these examples include straw wrappers from dinner with friends or streamers from holiday celebrations. It is thought-provoking to see how with concert tickets, there is more of an expectation for hanging onto them. But, with straw wrappers, even friends who have been present more than once when I take them home still ask questions about why I do it. My experience with this comes from a desire to create sentimentality around things that wouldn’t always be the first things chosen to do so. Now moving into paper being matter out of place. Once in elementary school, we did this lesson on recycling that involved each student being given a sheet of paper to crumple up. Some had words on them while others were plain. Once they were all crumpled, everyone threw their paper ball into a box to be mixed around. Then, we went around the room choosing a paper ball from the box. You had to decide whether or not you were going to throw away your ball. Everyone threw away their balls solely because they were crumpled up. I think it is interesting that whether or not the paper was crumpled superseded whether or not there were words already written on it. In the end, the whole idea was about not making assumptions and seeing how we could use paper in multiple ways. Now going into seeing paper as a resource. Even with paper being a commonly used resource for a plethora of things, I feel we as a society don’t reuse paper enough. I have recently started to cut up my paper scraps and color them to make confetti for decoration in my room. In conclusion, this reading allowed me to think about more waste categories and how they can be applied to a specific material and my thinking around what is waste. 

Distancing Infrastructure

Inside the Airport Lounge, there is a trash bin and a recycling bin right by the door that leads you to The Bridge.  I feel the trash’s positioning is connected to the idea of waste distancing. The placement of it by a door is common in most places (ex. classrooms). Harkening back to the first day of this course, where a pile of trash was in the center of the room, some more thoughts are coming to mind. While we discussed that seeing trash out in the open brought up many feelings, another thing to consider is how we weren’t seeing trash in its “proper place” within the classroom space, say being by the door. The arrangement of trash by a door allows for people to throw things away as they leave a space, a literal way of leaving the waste behind, and not taking it into another. But, once again this theme of disconnection and distancing. Something I find funny is that practically every time I am in the Airport Lounge, I hear someone ask where the trash is. This makes me wonder if a more centralized location would be beneficial in any way. Overall, this week’s readings and discussions made me think about how frequently the idea of distance is associated with waste, and whether there are ways to challenge this, while still offering convenient waste sites. 

Responsibility

This past week in our dining hall, a sign indicating new things that could be incorporated into the food waste bin was posted. Based on my own experience and class discussions, this was not something students were made aware of prior to or when they were installed. This sparked many conversations with others about how people felt about the poor communication surrounding this change. Even before this act, I’ve heard many complaints about the limited number of composting bins around campus, specifically their lack of presence in the residences. If the campus wants to implement composting on campus, education about why and how we should do this is key. Going along with this, consistency across campus is also very important. I feel like a lot of people have a hard time properly disposing of things because they are not expecting the ways the waste should be organized and they are not used to it. I think when it comes to the physical act of disposing things, a fast speed is praised. When it comes to waste workers, both the workers and customers want the work done as quickly as possible. I feel this translates when we ourselves are disposing of something. For me, I know that no matter how long I spend in the dining hall, whether it is 20 minutes or 2 hours, I spend less than a minute disposing of my waste. If I am honest, I find myself irritated if there is a line in front of me to do this and find myself guilty of taking too long if there are individuals behind me. This contrast inspires me to be more present and patient during these moments. When it comes to responsibility, I think it first is in Hampshire’s hands to properly educate, communicate, and be consistent about waste management. Of course, too there does have to be a willingness to learn from the campus, so that’s when the people’s responsibility comes into play. Once disposed of, the waste workers now have the responsibility, and I would argue the right to take whatever they want from it. Quick side note: I am curious if Hampshire has any policy surrounding this! If I do have waste in my room, I do feel responsible for it for a longer duration of time, but in regard to food waste, I try to always place that in common waste bins, in an effort to disassociate myself. Overall, our readings this past week have encouraged me to educate myself more on composting opportunities on campus, in order to properly participate in them.

Is it really waste?

One thing that seems useful to me is the cardboard from a cereal box. Upon writing this post, I just took out my trash yesterday, so having to dig through it was not terribly dreadful, as the only other thing in the trash was small scraps of paper. While it was not particularly dirty, I still handled it as if it were, using just my fingertips and placing it on a different surface right away. It has been a couple of days since I last wrote the first part of this post, and I have been able to find a use for the cardboard. The way that one of my friend’s dorms is located makes it where the Dining Commons outdoor night lights shine into his room. Therefore, they were going around asking people if they had any cardboard that he could use to make blackout curtains in their window. When it came to assembling the cardboard, I noticed that despite it being easy to tear, I instead reached for scissors. With the leftover smaller pieces that were not going to be used, I threw them into the trash can, and it wasn’t until now that I realized that they probably could still have been used just in a different way. I would say that because of the strongly individualized responsibility for handling waste, this has made it so that if I don’t plan on reusing something considered wasteful myself, I oftentimes forget that others could find a way to use it. Both the leftover cardboard and even paper scraps that surrounded it in my trash could possibly be used by the Queer Community Alliance Center’s Art Lab. I think getting rid of things always comes seasonally, even in college say for example, at the end of a year dorm cleanouts. However, the past few readings have motivated me to partake in the sharing of goods on a more consistent level. In the same way that taking out the literal trash is a weekly practice, finding places to give away things to friends or places on campus that could use such materials on a regular basis is something that I think would benefit me and others. 

Shit

Even just from reading the word shit, it is hard to not have a visceral reaction and want to no longer think about it. However, our readings this week, class discussion, and Kern tour offered me some insight into seeing shit in a slightly less shitty way. In reference to the aspects of the readings that discussed seeing shit as a resource, that really intrigued me. Not sure if I feel totally comfortable with the idea of eating food made from human shit, but with proper safety precautions, it is a neat idea. During our class discussions when people brought up urine, spit, and tears still being a form of human waste, I noticed my reaction to them was distinctly different compared to shit. These three things feel way less daunting, as they are all some sort of fluid, therefore I feel like I can easily connect them to water. However, when it comes to shit, it feels hard to connect it to food, but rather it feels like an entirely different category in my brain. Therefore, the idea mentioned of food being pre-shit and shit being post-food was fascinating to think about. To put a basic need like food and elevate it as a marker of social status, when it all goes to the same place in the end seems kind of ironic. For example, a five-course meal and a bag of Cheetos getting turned into the same thing is kind of funny when you think about it. One thing I thought of after our class discussion was the difference in reaction to specifically snacky foods such as chips or cookies based on class, as well as the idea of on or off-brand foods. In general, having the off-brand of something is looked down upon in society. In my own life, my grandparents are very committed to certain name brands and refuse to buy alternatives. In general, healthy foods are often associated with middle to upper-class lifestyles, but I think it is interesting how this changes a bit in the context of hosting others. For example, if one were to have a party, name-brand snacks like Lays chips or Oreo cookies would be the first picks. The emphasis on the name-brands here I think is very important, because if these individuals had off-brands, there would be a different response and possible hesitation from others when engaging with the food, because of expectations of what they should have. Yet, someone in a lower class would be frowned upon if they were consuming these same things, just because they are consistently living off of them. But, if they had off-brand versions of the same foods, it would be expected because of their social position. Finally, our tour of the Kern made me very interested in the idea of composting toilets. Seeing the thought process behind the decision to get them and the literal mechanics of how they work made me thrilled to have them on campus and definitely one of the first things I will show guests who come to visit me. Overall, the readings, class discussions, and our Kern tour shifted my feelings on shit.