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What Happens To All That Trash?
In New York, according to Urban Omnibus, "Each week, approximately 64,000 tons of household and institutional waste are collected. ... But public awareness of what happens to that trash once it leaves the curb is limited."
Urban Omnibus talks with Elizabeth Royte, author of the 2005 book Garbage Land on video, "who offers a snapshot of how New Yorkers have treated their trash from the 18th century onwards."
"The immense distances trash travels (and the amount of cost and energy used to transport, transfer, recycle, incinerate or dump it) pose obvious questions about how we expend environmental resources in support of our country's vast consumption practices."
In another video, a team behind a project called Trash | Track (MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory) created sensors that allowed them to track where their trash went once it was collected. According to Urban Omnibus, "They completed a pilot project in partnership with the City of Seattle that visualized these journeys and documented the ultimate fate of pieces of trash that are barely considered after being tossed in the garbage (see introductory video below)."
Full Story:
Published on Thursday, December 15, 2011 in
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