Climbing out of my van one morning whilst visiting Vancouver, my eyes were assaulted by:
Oh man! What planet have I been living on?! I didn’t think this kind of waste happened anymore! Ok- I didn’t really think that, but let’s look closer and be perplexed together. And please do not be distracted by the Sun’s efforts to cast some light on this sinister scene.
You with me?! WTF right!?
Note how much trash this person/family has generated in one week. Un frikking believable! Zero thought went into the amount of waste generated. Note the empty recycling containers behind. Zero effort was made to recycle. Note the amount of food scraps. Zero effort was also made to compost (this person has a large back yard and the City of Vancouver offers compost pick up). Note the way in which they have crumpled the Tetra Pack juice containers. Zero time went in to handling the trash. Greedily they just gobbled the juice and hastily threw the vessel out…of sight and mind.
Let’s look even closer.
Picturing them chowing their soybeans and stuffing the skins into a clamshell container (then into the bulging trash sack, then into the overflowing bin) is utterly offensive to me. I just find it is SO trashy and unsophisticated, which, funnily enough, is probably 100% contrary to what these people want you to think of them (these people live in one of the richest neighbourhoods in Vancouver). You may call me a total judgey hag, but I will accept your abuse and go further to say they probably think their sh*t don’t stink. If I could have captured the smell in the image, you too, would see that it does.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to pick on any particular caste or community. This image, this morning, just down the road from us:
I don’t know how they would react if I first told them that their dirty secrets are publicized on the web, but I bet both offenders would claim that they “totally believe in helping the environment”. Who, for the most part, could disagree?! Except me, because I hate that saying. The environment doesn’t need help. We do.
Wasting is a symptom of a very much larger problem, and is a burden on so many levels. On a personal level, for me not creating waste is so utterly freeing, and a complete pleasure and privilege. Apart from just feeling good, it allowed me a clear examination of what was awry in my own life. Zero waste was/is a path to me.
Now, let the raccoons do the work or lift the lid yourself. It’s time you had a look.
4 comments
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March 9, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Janice
I’m with you! Horrible. Horrible. Horrible.
Thank you for providing inspiration … it helps greatly knowing I’m not the only one horrified by all the plastic (besides my kids, they are horrified too) – and the trash, lack of recycling – and all our other horrific mess.
Thank you. <3
March 10, 2012 at 2:35 am
Nina
Argh! Disgusting. I’m not going to call you any names because I judge people by their garbage too – my parents-out-law who put newspapers in their main bin, for example, or my aunt who has a huge garden but has given up composting, or my neighbours who put clothes in the bin and cans there too. Mind you, I hate to think what you’d say about my “trash”… We carefully separate the recyclables, but there’s an awful lot of plastic in there, and it’s taken almost a year of living in this flat to find a solution to the food waste problem (I’ll be sharing that on my blog soon).
March 12, 2012 at 12:18 pm
layne
Nice work! How to educate people???? The resources are available (I just had a home pickup by pacific mobile recycling, who took six large bags of plastic for only $30) but people have to get interested.
Maybe a stickering campaign (stickering everything in the supermarket) would raise awareness, but then those stickers are made of plastic!
Layne
April 9, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Tanya Quinn
Oh I really could start ranting here. I can’t look in the kitchen trash at work anymore, it drives me mad! (pop cans, single serving creamers, compostables galore, more tin cans which i’m not sure if people are too lazy to recycle a few feet away or if they are too lazy to clean them) When I was in Toronto, you could choose your size of can, and paid extra accordingly. I couldn’t believe the number of people that got an extra large, to me that would be a couple years worth of garbage. Even the small which you had to take was super spacious. I had a neighbour that would not recycle anything, even wine bottles, and when it came to pay for garbage curiously did not put anything out. Sadly she wasn’t converted to zero waste but rather using her mammoth recycle bin as a general purpose. Still I feel we put out too much – the main culprit is kitty litter as I cannot seem to convert the cats who started on clay litter to a more enviro friendly litter that could be backyard-composted. Tanya on Denman.