View allAll Photos Tagged garbage
we're 2 1/2 weeks into a garbage strike, and while that puts a focus on the issue of waste, the problem is still apparent even when things are going smoothly. the strike does have to end soon, hopefully via mutual agreement. beyond that, though, we generate far too much garbage, and having its presence in the face of the public every day should ideally make people think about their behaviour.
can we socialise out our bad habits? i like to think so, and education and reward strategies to reinforce the message that trash production is wrong will help. punishment can also be effective to retrain people, but of course fines for generating garbage and littering will effectively amount to a tax on the poor most often. i have no trouble targetting anyone who dumps junk on the street, but as with all laws, we'll see the disenfranchised suffer more than their share.
so, trash seems to be a problem that will be solved (or best treated) by a multi-faceted approach. to reward us, we ought to consider lowering property taxes for households that consistently generate significantly small amounts of waste (and that can demonstrate that they are not simply dumping their junk when no-one is watching) and compost and recycle the bulk of it. clearly that rewards home-owners, but will still benefit renters like me if we work out deals with our landlords to have the savings kicked back in rent-reduction and the like. we also ought to consider offering money for trash the way in which we give money for returned beer and liquor bottles. refunds on beverage containers is already a part of the way we think now, so extending the idea to juice bottles, milk cartons and bags and coffee cups isn't something to which people will have to adjust. beyond that, promoting the reward of cash for empty tin cans and other metal scrap in a way that more people than just the very few scrap collectors who take advantage of the plan would boost recycling.
we'd still have litter, of course, but incentives to clean it up could be implemented - if not financial, then in some undetermined manner via socialisation as i referred to above. that's easy on a personal level for me and my immediate social circle, but the 'clean up your neighbourhood' days some parts of the city promote haven't been as popular. financial punishment may help us, though - why not simply charge fees to the corporations whose junk winds up on the streets the most often? if you take a quick inventory of the litter in your neighbourhood (and yes, i do this all the time. i really am that much fun), you'll see cigarette butts, junk food wrappers/containers and other bits of throwaway crud, much of it prominently advertising the name and logo of the company who should be held partially responsible for putting it on the street. yes, the people doing much of the littering are the individual customers, and i am quite happy levying monstrous fines on them, but we ought to be placing a great deal of the blame and responsibility on those who directly create the cheapest and most disposable, unwanted garbage. much of it is redundant, too, which defies explanation, but the truly essential bits could certainly be retained or returned to their creators a lot more thoroughly.
should we financially punish corporate litterbugs, we can consider using that money to directly clean up the local environment. people who bring in bags of litter and/or recyclables can be reimbursed in this way, but we can also pay more trash-pickers and street-sweepers, be they part of a traditional workforce or the people who we see now picking up bottles and cans in the area.
yes, there are dozens of problems with these ideas, this i fully admit. there are also solutions or possible solutions for most, if not all of them. articulating them is probably not my strength, and there are people out there much more experienced in the field. we do, however, have to expect to address these concerns more and more, as we already are beyond our capacity to sensibly deal with the waste we generate. speculating just when we reach a tipping point with trash has been a grim game for years, and some think we're already well beyond our ability to correct the errors we've already committed. though i somewhat agree, i think this viewpoint is troublesome as it discourages some people from acting responsibly (and that's already endemic). simple solutions for individuals are obvious (stop buying crap and properly dispose of what you do consume), systemic solutions are more work. being a pessimist i don't think we're up for it, but i would like to be proven wrong.
ongoing documentation of the strike can be found in the photostream of flickr member sharkboy, a friend.
A three legged chair and a garbage can full of snow recently staged a play in an empty parking space. Most residents of the neighborhood saw the gathering as a mere claiming of a snow shoveled space. Unfortunate, since the performance may have been one play of an unfinished, presumed lost Samuel Beckett trilogy.
Though no script of the play is known to exist, the idea for the work is mentioned in letters, predates Waiting for Godot, and has long been the subject of debate among theater historians. Local anthropomorphologists have inspected the can and link it stylistically to props from Beckett’s play Endgame. It’s also similar in construction to garbage bins manufactured in Paris during his time there. Research into the chair's origins has been inconclusive.
A tenant whose apartment overlooks the parking area recalls odd activity. While washing his windows, he noticed the chair teetering in the wind. A man pushing a grocery cart stopped abruptly beside the space. He watched for five minutes, possibly the length of the performance. During a long pause which may have signaled the end of the play, he suddenly rushed toward the two parallel yellow lines. Just as he was about to enter the space, a pedestrian turned the corner. The man hesitated, then returned to his cart and continued down the drive.
The day after the performance, the chair was missing and likely stolen. The snow had melted and the garbage can was on the curb, now half filled with garbage. When Eric Bartlett returned to his shoveled space, the sight of the missing chair sent him into a rage about thievery, neighborliness, parking, and global injustice. He lifted the can to return it to the space, and so reassert his rightful ownership. As he did, he slipped on a patch of ice, tumbled onto the asphalt, and rolled with the can into the center of the parking space. The same spot the chair and garbage can had occupied the day before. From the belly of the courtyard came a disembodied voice, “Squatter’s rights.” Laughter from an apartment window merely rekindled his outrage. Bartlett resumed his rant from the ground. It was this scene that first triggered the connections to Beckett’s play.
Early in his career, Beckett saw a neighbor’s possessions hauled out of his building and left the sidewalk. Given that he was on the verge of eviction himself, this incident and a line from a letter has led to much conjecture: “Such a fine space for parking.” It could reveal concerns about his own living situation. Not owning a car at the time, it’s unlikely the comment was automotive in nature.
The line composes its own paragraph. It rests uneasily between a long paragraph about the frustrations of publishing and an exceedingly longer one about a rashers and bangers breakfast where the bangers were knocked on the floor. Given its free floating context, the line lends itself to wide interpretations. It may be a non sequitor or, as one armchair psychologist suggested, “an artistic land grab.” Since Beckett’s precarious finances kept him a renter and pedestrian, “through the work, he was claiming a small piece of land as his own.”
Draw your own conclusions. Join the debates at the counter of the Parking Bureau. But walk distractedly through neighborhoods at the risk of missed cultural opportunities. Rumor has it that a spare tire, a blown out carburetor, and an Eldorado chassis are staging a hip-hopped up Camus play. Possibly in a west side abandoned car park.
If these performances prove true, Beckett may have posthumously spawned a theatrical movement. If it takes hold, he will have stripped the play of not just words, but actors, and a theater as well. Set the space and life will circulate. Artistic viability may just be a matter of raiding your living room and garage of its clutter.
Already anticipating the legislatablity of such a trend, the city council is considering a special session. The topic would be the zoning legitimacy and taxability of “performance based parking space occupancy.” One alderman claims his candor on the proposal --- “What a friggin’ waste of time.” --- has lost his district funding.
Word of the Beckett staging, or spacing, has spread quickly. When asked if he’d heard of the performance, a desk clerk at the auto pound observed, “All the city’s a parking space, all the furniture and garbage receptacles merely players.”
Asked about the prospect of a new Beckett play, a man outside a Parisian resale shop put his Age of Reason on the curb, thought for a moment, and in a cloud of cigarette smoke said, “What furniture has wrought, no man can undo.”
In a Dublin pub, a man sat reading a newspaper. At the mention of the topic, he shook his head, “This again.” He then transferred a fish from the bar to his newspaper, tucked it under his arm, and left behind a two-word summation,
“Fuckin’ Tossers.”
BeautifulGarbage special edition rose thingy + 2x ticket stubs from their 2005 tour here. we met all the band members except Shirley.
Estas tvs estão no lixo
Eram de um Senhor que conserta eletrônicos
Hoje vou buscar algumas para ver se faço algo
Pensei num aquário, que tal?
Tem alguma sugestão sobre como reaproveitá-las?
-----
These televisions are in the trash
They were of a Mister who repairs electronics
Today I will get some to try if I can do something with them
I thought an aquarium, what about it?
Any suggestions about how to re-used them?
Feel free to use this picture but give credit to: www.traveling-shapy.de/
Das Bild steht zur freien Verfügung jedoch gebt: www.traveling-shapy.de/ als Urheber an.
**NOTICE:
This is a picture from the Roadchubbs Productions Recycling Bin a.k.a. Roadchubbs on Flickr.
This picture/photo/image has been posted with permission of Roadchubbs.
Yes, they do play music. It serves as an alert to the neighborhood that you had better get your trash out side fast or you are going to have to live with it for a few more days.
"This garbage truck is a job and home rolled into one. The city gives the driver free room and board in the living capsule in the back of the vehicle provided that he completes the daily pickups. Back at the city owned lot, the truck is resupplied and connected to utilities. In some instances, the driver is actually locked inside the vehicle as part of a semi-parole job program. Razorpoint ink pen on 9x12 recycled photo scrap book paper."
Old drawing, new resolution. Finally found the original drawing for this and rescanned at a 21st century web dimension.
CD1
01. Intro/Alien Sex Fiend
02. Subhuman
03. Supervixen
04. Queer
05. Only Happy When It Rains
06. As Heaven Is Wide
07. Not My Idea
08. A Stroke Of Luck
09. Shirley speaks
10. Girl Don't Come
11. Butterfly Collector
12. Shirley speaks
13. Trip My Wire
14. Sleep
CD2
01. Vow
02. Stupid Girl
03. Dog New Tricks
04. My Lover's Box
05. Fix Me Now
06. Milk
07. thanks/encore applause/Shirley speaks
08. Kick My Ass
09. The Boys speak
10. Driving Lesson
11. I Think I'm Paranoid
12. When I Grow Up
13. encore applause
14. #1 Crush
There were two raccoons that had decided it was a good idea to go foraging through the garbage at work, but then couldn't get out. I took a photo of them before placing a 2X4 in a place that they could crawl out of the bin on their own.