last summer I found a really cool painting out by the side of the rode it VT. I’d just finished a backpacking trip and was hiking along a forest service rode to get back to a town where I could be picked up, and someone had dumped this landscape painting of what I assume were the Green Mountains off on the side of the road. I was miles from civilization and the only vehicles on that road at all were forest service trucks, so I have no idea how the painting ended up there. It was really well done, and still in pretty good shape even though it was raining at the time and it had definitely gotten wet. I picked it up and walked with it the rest of the way, and put it up in my room at home when I got back.  It’s still there, although I don’t have any photos of it on hand. I don’t know why the painting would have been seen as waste- I guess someone was trying to get rid of it, but it seems like there are a lot of other, more obvious ways to dispose of something like that than to throw it in the middle of the woods. I definitely would not consider it to be waste, it’s beautiful and someone obviously put a lot of effort into making it, so I’m glad I found it and was able to salvage it.

Ewww, me a dumpster diver. One of the most disgusting things I’ve done. Even through my doubled gloves I still felt the filthiness creeping up my finger tips. At my friends apartment, one of her neighbors threw away a desk. It was neither the fanciest nor the cheapest one I’ve ever seen but it was decent. We didn’t necessarily take it out the dumpster but with a whole 2 cans of Lysol and good wash, it could be back in use. To me there was nothing wrong with it. Maybe someone didn’t need it anymore but it was still able to be use. Instead of stoving it into a dumpster with trash, it could’ve been donated or given to the good will. For an item the wasn’t completely worn down or broken, doesn’t belong in the dumpster.

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. 

Rescue something that seems useful to you that was placed in a waste bin/bag/dumpster. Post photos of the object and where you got it from if possible, and describe both of these. What was the experience of retrieving this object like for you? What from the readings this week (and earlier) can help to explain why this object has been treated as waste? Could or should it have been treated otherwise?

Relevant readings from last week:

Barnard, Alex V. “A Brief History of a Tomato.” In Freegans: Diving into the Wealth of Food Waste in America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016, 1–23

California v. Greenwood. 1988. 486 U.S. 35.