The Landfill

(I took this lovely photo #artmajor)

The world “landfill” is often loaded with connotations and imagery of piles upon piles of garbage. It provides a visual landscape of rotting, often toxic, waste forever polluting miles of our precious soil and bodies of water.

I was therefore very excited to see that after Emerson’s new renovation that the sign above the trash bin near the dish and recycling bins, boldly and largely it says “Landfill” right above a much smaller “trash”. Personally, it made me rethink the direction of the object I placed in it. No longer could my waste hide behind the ambiguous word “trash”, but the objects final resting place was there before my eyes. It was no longer simply objects in a black bag, that was picked up by a blue truck, and then taken away, only for the same process to be continued the following week. I therefore found myself attempting to minimize my “landfill” contributions by either taking less food that I did not believe I would eat, or making sure to use the silverware provided by the dining hall instead of the plastic utensils.

I was very curious if any of my peers had a similar kind of reaction to this small, but important shift. Upon interviewing three different individuals, I am saddened to report that their experience with this change did not affect the way they viewed their disposal process. One interviewee did have an excellent idea that there should be more information present on sorting trash, recycling, and possibly even composting. She believed that if people were told specifically the most effective way to get rid of waste, we could therefore minimize objects that were thrown away that could have otherwise been recycled.

Although this topic is not directly linked to food studies, the issue of cheap disposable commodity is one closely linked. Often we treat our products wastefully, and very few people see any problem with throwing things away when they are no longer deemed useful. The way we handle food is not different, we have all been responsible for throwing away our fair share of useful, usable goods simply because we were done with them. That is why I believe this small change in the language could help alter our perception and allow us to take more responsibility when using and disposing. It starts with awareness. 

Ps. Thanks Emerson!