Every Single Thing You See Is Future Trash. Everything."

I'd come across this headline in a September 3rd article of GOOD (www.good.is/) and found the article so interesting. All about our "relationship" with trash, what it says about us, and why is that ok with us?! I'd never thought in terms of actually having a "relationship" with trash, but it is so true! And its shameful, shocking and time to take stock.

However, most of us never think about our trash, how much we accumulate, how much we waste, where does it all go after we toss it in the wastebin to be hauled off once a week, to 'who cares' where...let alone ask the inevitable ... just how long can we sustain the status quo? Perhaps you've read of the large clump of garbage that takes up miles in our Atlantic Ocean...miles below the waters surface...it just floats...and grows ... as more and more of our garbage attaches to it. In light of all the non-biodegradable "junk" we produce, use, break, cast off, how long can this go on? Where do we dispose of it next? Into space? Maybe we're already doing that ... for all I know.

In checking the archives, I saw that about a year ago (October 7, 2009) GOOD published an article about "The Bigbelly Solar Compactor" being used in a few cities around the country...these garbage cans are actually trash compactors all in one. "When Philadelphia introduced the BigBellys downtown, each one only had to be emptied once a day. To fund the transition, Philadelphia used $2.2 million in grant money. Meanwhile, they’re estimated to save $875,000 each year—and free up city workers for other jobs. Other cities have been experimenting with the trash compactors, too. Boston installed 42 of them in 2008, and they’ve been introduced in New York, Vienna, and Vancouver, among other places. With smart bins, waste collection doesn’t have to be wasteful."

In March of 09 they wrote about the city of Somerville, Massachussettes garnering 49 of the trash guzzling beasts... "Because trash is compacted where it's deposited (rather than piling up and spilling out), each BigBelly can hold five times the trash a normal can could, which substantially reduces the number of pickup trips necessary. And the energy is clean: the compacter is powered by solar panels on top of the can which are, apparently, efficient enough to work in cloudy Somerville."

These new waste depositories seem like a no-brainer, an actual solution (though temporary as we still need to rething that relationship with garbage, right?) to an ever growing problem. Perhaps we need to be asking our city and town councils WHEN we will be seeing them locally?

Perhaps an upside to these difficult economic times, when so many of us have had to rethink our "relationships" with just about everything...including what we want vs what we need... we'll all begin to truly appreciate the gift of our planet and realize if we don't take care of it, who will. And this includes re-thinking our relationship with garbage.