My Month Without the Garbage Man
—
Passion Project
One day, as I tossed a plastic container into the recycling bin I started to wonder: does this actually get recycled? I read up on the subject and learned that much recycling doesn’t ever make it, or even worse ends up in the ocean. I started to wonder about my own trash. How much do I make?
This project is an exploration of that question. For one month I tried to keep all my trash. At the end of the month, I worked with photographer Tori Skinner to photograph my growing mound of trash.
I arranged each piece of trash carefully, as if it was that was fragile and needed to be preserved. In a way that is what we have done with the planet, prioritized our plastics, and other wastes so they will last forever. We have inadvertently made trash our keep sake. 
E-waste is a special type of trash that must be disposed of correctly. Much of it ends up in huge junk yards where people try to harvest the valuable metals. Often they do this by burning it first, releasing hazardous chemicals in the air. 
If composted food waste is one of the easier wastes to deal with. However, much food waste ends up in plastic bags where it cant decompose properly. 
