One thing that I reclaim, and reuse is old art boxes from Sketchbox that get sent to me monthly through a subscription. The boxes themselves are cardboard, with tissue paper and art supplies that are ~$15 in total. Each box is individualized to the themes and works, however they’re about the size of a singular shoe box. 
Now, these boxes are absolutely perfect for rat beds and the tissue paper is absolutely wonderful for comfortable bedding. Thankfully the space in these boxes is usually decently used which allows me to feel a little less guilty about having the boxes to keep in my room. These boxes are usually ripped apart, soiled, and very well loved by my little babies, specifically Miss Brain who keeps her domain in a sketchbox. Sometimes these boxes feel like Amazon boxes and I’m worried that it’s wasteful, but I give them to my rats who happily reuse them and give the boxes a new purpose which includes the adoration of cardboard. Fun fact: when cardboard gets ripped up various times into smaller and smaller pieces, the softer it becomes and feels just like tissue paper and usual bedding that you can buy from the petstore. My other rat Pinky has made this into a fine art, and my third rat Esmerelda is her co-conspirator. Miss Brain has her own box that she uses as her castle of herdom.
Rats, bedding, nesting, oh my!
Ferrets, rats, both produce an impressive amount of soiled bedding and toys that smells completely awful if not cleaned up fast enough. Besides the bedding and toys, the debris and trash of dug out food and stuffing can be left all over the ground and it can pile up very quickly. My responsibility to not only myself, my peers and my furbutts is to make sure that I have a cleaned area that is sanitized. To my animals, I want them to be comfortable and keep them healthy. To my peers I want to make sure that they aren’t bothered by the smell or the worry of my critters getting out and getting into other’s personal items (they won’t, I’m very paranoid about it so I always check before I leave if there is any possibility that they could get out). I make sure when I clean up after them that I use a limited number of bags, deep cleaning to keep up for the next few days and then I’ll take the trash out to the dumpster outside of the dorm and throw it into the proper bin. My responsibility is to make sure that not only have I cleaned well, but that’s safe to not spill out on some poor soul. I believe my responsibility ends once I’ve checked all my marks. Now what happens to the poop-bag, I am not totally sure other than it will probably end up in some garbage dump, rotting with other trash and more than likely other poop-bags from my bi-weekly clean-ups. I only hope that the bags never rip, I have to clean it, and I know the pain of when the bedding drops and it’s just gross. To sum up this long-winded speech: my responsibility is to make whoever clears the dumps easier. The irony is that I have to constantly do this, so I’m still adding onto the waste, however I don’t think there’s a compost around here where I could donate a very constant stream of fertilizer.
Fabric Scraps Part Two
The form of waste I am choosing is fabric waste, which I wrote my first blog post about. I consider it my responsibility to try to use as much of the fabric as I possibly can. It becomes someone else’s responsibility when I am unable or unwilling to try to use it anymore and it moves from my scrap container to the trash. Based on the way our waste systems are set up, this is the logical division, but I think with a change in what I’m doing, this division could potentially be deemed unnecessary. I could either keep all fabric scraps until I am able to do something with them, or I could stop doing things that create fabric scraps. This could look like a couple of things; I could stop sewing and doing projects with fabric, or I could ensure that none of the projects I do create any scraps.
I don’t know the details of who deals with the waste after the people that collect it or how it’s dealt with. I would guess that if it’s specifically textile waste, as described in the reading by Gregson et al. it would be sorted into various categories. On the occasions that I do throw out fabric, it just goes into the general garbage. I do not know if that gets sorted or what exactly happens to it after it’s picked up.
Food waste responsibility
For this week’s blog post I will be building upon the topic of food waste from the Conceptualizing Waste prompt. When dealing with food waste I believe there is a lot that is my responsibility, largely because of the unique place food holds in human society which is quite different from other forms of waste. I think this for two reasons, one is that food is made of organic matter and two it’s an essential commodity that has to be produced. I think my responsibility for my food waste starts when I am buying food. It’s on me to think about am I really going to eat this? Cook this recipe? Am I getting sick of this food? In the past how often have I bought this and ended up never eating it. I know that I am someone who should not go into a store on an empty stomach because I buy way more food and often unhealthy products that I don’t want around. So right there cutting back on the volume of food is important in my responsibility with food. If I am in the dining hall being conscious of how much food/what food I put on my plate is important, if people only had crumbs/very little to scrape into the “food waste” bin the DC would not have much to throw out at all.
Prior to this class if you were to ask me when the waste I produce is no longer my responsibility I would have probably said when whoever picks up my food waste and takes it away is the moment it is no longer on me. Today I believe that line is a little blurry. I think that I will always be responsible for the making of the waste, but will say it’s when someone else who picks it up they are physically responsible for taking it wherever it goes, but definitely not for the production of it. I am not sure if it is an appropriate division of labor, but it is the only one that makes the most sense. I do not know what the work life of whoever picks it up. I imagine that it is someone who wakes up early (like the Pedal People) around 4:30/5:00 in the morning or works throughout the night. I imagine they see a plethora of oddities in their everyday trash pickup and items that should have been recycled. I would guess that they don’t feel respected by the community that they serve, that they could possibly feel looked down upon, especially if they are in a more affluent area such as where I live (Southborough MA) where their job can be seen as not respectable. Since I live in a boarding school our trash is put into a trash compactor which I believe goes straight to a dump/landfill afterwards. They might even just collect trash compactors from institutions like the one I live at, Fay is another boarding school right next to mine to which I imagine they also have a trash compactor that gets taken away for them. Possibly by the same sanitation workers?
Waste responsibility and waste workers prompt
The readings for the last week and a half connect issues of personal responsibility for environmental issues (like waste) with who does the work with dealing with it (you, waste haulers, sorters, etc). This week, choose a specific form of waste. (This could build off of one of your previous posts, or it could be something new.) When dealing with this waste, what do you consider to be your responsibility? What/where/when is the point where it becomes someone else’s responsibility? Do you believe this is an appropriate point to mark this division of labor, and why? Do you know who deals with this waste next, and what their work is like? If you do, briefly describe it, and if you don’t know, what do you imagine their work to be like?
Readings from this week:
Maniates, Michael F. “Individualization: Plant a Tree, Buy a Bike, Save the World?” Global Environmental Politics 1, no. 3 (2001): 31–52.
Nagle, Robin. “You are a San Man” and “We Eat Our Own.” In Picking Up: On the Streets and behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.
Gregson, Nicky, Mike Crang, Julie Botticello, Melania Calestani, and Anna Krzywoszynska. (2014). “Doing the ‘Dirty Work’ of the Green Economy: Resource Recovery and Migrant Labour in the EU.” European Urban and Regional Studies, 23:4, 541-555.
Tupelo, Ethan. “Revaluing Capitalist Waste Through Worker Ownership.” In Debris of Progress: A Political Ethnography of Critical Infrastructure. University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2022.
Food waste?
When I think of the numerous items that I use on a daily basis that could be considered waste, the one that stands out to me is food. Mary Douglas’s conception of dirt helps us to understand food to be waste because it is a prime example of matter out of place. In our culture food has specific times when it is “clean” and when it is “dirty”. I think the term farm to table describes the time period where food is in the clean phase of its life. Even though most of our food comes from a place that should be considered dirty being literally the dirt/soil, it is still acceptable in society because it is in place. Once we are done with food on our plate, there are multiple ways for it to reach the dirty status. Being thrown in the trash, scraped into the sink, wiped off with a paper towel, or even falling on the floor, all makes it dirty in our minds. However if that food were to stay on our plates we would keep on nibbling on it and think of it as clean. In the trash it’s often only touching other food items, which moments before was fine to eat, but only due to its different location means it’s no longer good. In the dining commons here at Hampshire, I often look in the “food waste” can and think of how in my mind I know it’s just a bunch of uneaten food, but it evokes a feeling of disgust. I know that’s just my society’s opinions speaking through me. For example I would never think to eat the food in the takeout containers from the DC that’s been left out overnight, even though hours before I was eating the food which was clean to me.
Leftovers are interesting because it’s just saving what would be food scraps from a meal. My grandmother is someone who will save any food item as long as it’s still good. A half eaten apple that’s turning brown “still good”, orange juice left in a glass “still good”, and something with a little mold on it just cut off the piece with it and it’s “still good”. Most of these situations I and many others would probably throw away or dump out the food/drink, and even though my grandmother lives in the same culture as I do she grew up in a different one. Her mother, my great grandmother, was a child of the Great Depression and passed the thinking of waste nothing down to her children. Even though we technically live in the same culture, it is interesting to see how it changes over time and to see that change through our view based on what waste is.
Really rescued this one
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?
This plastic micro-SD card container that my new micro-SD card from Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com shipped in was going to be thrown out by me, but thankfully I swooped in to save the day and stopped me from throwing it out, foiling Jeff’s evil schemes. I could have thrown it out, but it instead is perfectly useful as storage container for a full sized-SD card! Now I can store all of my pictures of micro-SD card containers in a safe container, where it will take the elements a very long time to destroy it (because it’s plastic!). Besides that, I am particularly squeamish – I still struggle to pick up my 15 year old dog’s poop, even with a glove on and a poop bag, and I have a history of passing out at sights of bodily fluids – I don’t find vomit very funny in comedy. I am conscious of my avoidance of the failure to actually retrieve something from a bin/bag/dumpster, but I have a get out of jail free card for this one B-)
I also want to reiterate my dedication to upcycling, particularly with scrap tech or various mechanical parts that I can handle in a way comfortable for me. The 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – are fundamental, but misleading to the actual process. Yes, we should reduce our production, reuse our materials, and “recycle what we don’t use,” but how? Reducing and Reusing are themselves forms of recycling – and can translate to downcycling, which is the reduction and conversion of materials, like plastic and paper that are labeled “made from recycled material,” and upcycling, which is the reusing of materials in other projects, whether that be technologically, artistically, etc.
Plastic Lid
This is the lid to a pack of wipes that I used up. I got it from the small paper bag that I use as a trash bag in my room. The experience wasn’t too gross since most of the stuff I throw out in my room is not sticky or smelly. The lid was pretty far down and I haven’t emptied this trash in a couple of weeks since it doesn’t fill up very quickly so it was a bit of a look into some of my activities in the last couple of weeks. There was something from my last period, which gave me a bit of a timeline for the trash which was kind of cool.
This lid was thrown out because its original purpose was to be part of the container holding wipes and when the wipes were gone, it no longer needed to serve that purpose. When I first threw it out I was not thinking about the potential uses for it. By taking it out of the trash and adding it to my collection of things to be used, I am doing what people of the past were described to be doing in the reading by Strasser. Even if I don’t use it immediately, it will eventually be given another purpose.
I could have saved the piece before ever throwing it away, rather than going back to find it. I have been trying to keep that in mind when throwing out other things. I have remembered to consider other uses for glass jars and some paper scraps, but those are the only two things I ever really think of before throwing them out. For the most part, I don’t often consider the possible uses for things I would otherwise consider trash.
Plastic
My object that I retrieved from the trash is a plastic fork, I got it from FPH in classroom 107. The experience was quite odd at first if I’m being honest. I was on a run and after that I decided to start dumpster diving. I stopped at every one I saw. I was finding that it was the same objects being thrown away in most of the trash cans. A lot of soda cans, plastic cups, to go containers and paper plates from the dining hall, and papers. It felt weird holding my phone flashlight peering into dumpsters, it just isn’t something that you’d normally see someone do. However we are at Hampshire so I don’t think people will think it’s that abnormal. I got into it and thought I’d find more interesting discarded objects inside and even though a plastic fork is not all that interesting it is an object I think is useful.
I believe there are many reasons why this particular object is regarded as waste in our culture. In “A Brief History of a Tomato” capitalism is the dominant theme/point. In it the “freegans” live off of the leftovers of capitalism’s endless mass production of material objects and American societies’ wasteful food practices. I would say capitalism is why this fork was thrown away. It’s made of plastic, which in my opinion is the material that is most associated with being trash. Not to say that other materials can’t be thrown away, but plastic is more often used than others for one time use things like packaging (on just about anything), grocery bags, trash bags, drink bottles, straws, etc. It is also used for more long term use items as well, but it is cheap to produce and extremely versatile so it’s not a wonder why humans use it so much.
More specifically on plastic forks, they’re given out in plentiful amounts here at Hampshire and elsewhere so I understand why people would throw them away if they know next time they need one a new one will be there. I keep a couple in my room and will use them when I bring meals back.
Reclaiming waste prompt
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?
Readings from this 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.
Strasser, Susan. “The Stewardship of Objects.” In Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, 1st ed. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.