I think, in general, the waste generated by our out-of-control consumption practices in western society is hidden from us (consumers) because it would function as a disruption of our worldview. The realities of the landfills and dumps that our trash is ending up in would serve as a wake up call to a lot of people regarding the casual nature of our purchasing habits and the negative impacts that they are having on the world. I know that a lot of our (US) waste is actually being exported to foreign countries, with the US paying other countries, such as India, in exchange for us sending out large amounts of our trash to be disposed of in their own landfills. It is sort of an out of sight, out of mind thing for many Americans, I think- including myself to a large extent- where if we can’t see the impacts of our actions, even if we technically know about them, we will not be motivated enough to change our habits. There is a sort of “myth” that we live under in the US, where we don’t see the backgrounds behind the products that we are buying in any way. It appears to a large part of the population as if the life cycle of products begin with the product, in its shiny packaging, in a store or on an online platform, and end the minute we decide to throw it out. The lives and the treatment of the workers who are producing the products, their environmental impacts, and the waste left behind after we are done with them go unnoticed. And I do believe that this is intentional on the parts of the corporations that are producing these things, so that we can continue to go about our lives unbothered by the impacts of consumerism.

Normal does not mean right, it does not mean good. Normal is just the loudest. Normality would have us believe that clothes lose their value as they age, that clothes are useless when ripped, that everything must be bought fresh from the store. Victor Lebow says, “the measure of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumptive patterns,” and I think this quote describes our current relationship to clothing. Clothes are a marker of economic class, of culture, of gender. Clothes help to place us in our social order. However, to look at the oceans of clothes in outlet stores, to see whole floors swallowed by them, trash bags piled on street corners and curbside donation bins, to see the amount of clothes bought and then thrown out, is to see the violence of normality. Normality does not serve us, it serves those in power. When confronted with the realities of clothing waste, the power clothing holds starts to slip.

Something functioning ‘normally’ is dependent on the eye of the beholder, it’s on a spectrum. There is no way to acknowledge what ‘normally’ functioning is. Things can just work out to not have anything get in the way but who knows if that is actually normal. There seems to be social constructs that make things more clear when we try to explain why we like clean and nice things. That might not just be social constructs because most people would just say that trash is gross and they would rather not even deal with it, if they had a choice. The waste disposal system has many hiccups that lead to major inconveniences and physical masses of waste in “incorrect” places. I would say that there is a correct place for objects that are owned by people and used most days. There is a chance that all the waste we are creating on this earth that people don’t want anymore is taking up so much space that we don’t care about anymore. They become someone else’s problem or just shoved under the earth’s surface to not have to deal with it anymore. Political and social change can be influenced by environmental protests and/or social movements to gather people to make change.

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.  

I’ve observed around in the Dinning Commons because we have Trash and compost bins, but there aren’t any recycling bins inside. It kind of disrupts me because plastic isn’t decomposable to even have it in the compost bin. There were so many plastic cups, straws, and small sauce containers in it which bothered me a bit.