Meditations on trash
I had a nice day today dropping pieces of old fence off down at the dump.
The smell at the dump was bad, not as bad as I expected. The gulls seemed not to care as they were engaged in eating garbage.
I feel inclined to state that I’ve thrown away a lot of stuff in my time. But don’t often dwell on the fact that garbage does not, in fact, disappear into a void but that it actually goes to a landfill, where men work tirelessly to sort and organize it, where birds and vermin pick and nibble at it and where the stench is at least somewhat bearable, at least for that instance.
What does it mean to throw something away? People throw away half eaten food and old medicine and Styrofoam, they toss out cans and bottles they put baby diapers in the trash bin along with everything disposable, unwanted and unused. But where are we “throwing” things away too? And what is “away”?. Away is not in your house or dwelling. But away is not gone or forgotten. Your trash ceases to be your problem and thus becomes someone else’s.
Can people be trash?
In my travels to San Francisco I’ve noticed many people on the streets who seem to be “thrown away”, much like the dirty diapers and apple cores in peoples garbage cans.
People seem to resent these folks much like they resent un-properly disposed of garbage.
After all, all that other refuse goes to the dump! And yet there is no dump for people who simply cannot support themselves. So they filter out onto the streets.
I notice the discomfort of people having to deal with both human and inanimate “trash”
There is the sense that in American society we pay for the privilege of not living in the dump or with the homeless on the streets. By working we signify our right to dispose of…indeed to “throw away”…to the next town the next block the next rock in the sky, anything that we don’t know how to deal with. It’s human nature to fear the ugly smelly dump and the dirty, mean streets of SF. Why should we keep what we can’t repair?
It’s only trash after all