Garbage In - Garbage Out: What trash reveals about community – What it may say about you. Take a close look at what we consume, dispose of and the means in which it’s done.

Date: Somewhere around December 12^th 2006

Time: Afternoon
Place: Baltimore

A Woman's Work…
On a chilly Saturday afternoon, I went to help a friend do some cleanup work around the rental property she owns in Baltimore City. An out of the ordinary task for both myself and my friend as usually she contracts labor every other week or so to keep the property looking pretty, but today as most entrepreneurs know she is resigned to wear multiple hats, and I go along to assist.

When we arrive, I assess the property (as I am seeing it for the first time) and from the onset it seems this will be a quick concerted effort. The property is a modest but impressive 10 unit building owned and operated by my entrepreneur / growing real estate mogul friend. It has a nicely manicured lawn surrounding an aged but well kept brick building with windows and doors neatly trimmed in white paint.

We quickly divvy up the chores. I am on outdoor trash detail, of which I am excited because I get use one of those long handled stick thingies with the grouper hand at the end to pinch and pick up stuff off the ground. I know the thing was supposed to facilitate trash pickup but to me it looked more like the robot arm from Terminator.

With my trash bags and Terminator's arm in hand I set off to execute my duty. After about ten minutes of horseplay, (it took me a minute to finally stop playing with the arm) I rolled up my sleeves and got down to business. What I found was awakening and it stuck with me to the core of which I share here.

Tell Tale Signs…..

Two things became apparent; one - there was obviously more trash than met the eye (hidden in that nice grass), and secondly there was an easily identifiable pattern of trash items. These can be grouped in three categories: alcohol bottles/cans, fast food wrappers/serving dishes, and drug paraphernalia.

I could no longer count the bottles and bottles, and bottles and bottles, of beer and liquor and some flasks just arbitrarily thrown on the street, blown onto the property or carelessly discarded. The environmentalist in me wanted to recycle them all, but something more paramount was wrong here, an underpinning message screamed silently behind why these particular items were there and in such abundance. I examined the usage patterns after all…it's only been two weeks since the property was last kept, and then I looked across the street I saw a liquor store, tangent to the liquor store was a fast food take out place, and further down another liquor store. That day we collected about 5 full bags of much of the same over a very small area.

What is garbage anyway…

I like looking up the meaning to words; I've listed the definitions for garbage/trash for my benefit and others as follows:

Garbage 1) discarded food waste, or any other unwanted or useless material

2) somebody who or something that is considered totally worthless

Trash: 1) to destroy, severely damage, or vandalize something deliberate (transitive verb)

Hmmm. Interesting. And it was interesting to see that by definition this is what people throw out, discard in our neighborhoods, communities, and backyards.

When I think of garbage or trash I think of what's left over from something once deemed useful, perhaps the resultant waste of something consumed. A transformation bi-product from useful to useless, and I will not tarry here too long pontificating on a topic of which I am no expert. However, if suffice to say this is true, then to the contrary, based on that day, by definition of "trash" that which was consumed was in most cases no different than the bi-product produced.

Still with me?

Garbage In - Garbage Out.

Crumpled lottery tickets balled in frustrations of hopelessness and tattered dreams. What's left after we take in, consume, and throw out after deemed unusable- - this is my people's trash, how usable was it really in the first place? What are we throwing in ourselves and in our streets?

It is indeed a lot to think about and I will not philosophize too deeply on it, but consider my experience. What services or products have lent themselves deliberately & conveniently to us as people, as a community? Is it a reflection of who we are or at least what we have access to? Garbage In Garbage Out, is it a reflection of you? My hope is that the answer to these questions are no and that going forward we will all think a little harder about what we intake and where we outtake.

What I didn't see were any health food bags, organic waste products, no health drink or vitamin pill bottles, nothing that gave any indication that we were trying to prolong the life of ourselves but every indication that we were self-destructing by our own hands and hands that auspiciously help us at a rapid and startling rate to trash ourselves.

Just something to think about.