Living Among Refuse
My perspective about the excessive level of consumption we’ve established in modern world, especially in the West has typically been informed by collateral issues including unsustainability, demographics gone mad, ecological destruction, commodity culture, advertising (programming, actually), and the sheer absurdity of manufacturing, buying, and consuming so much stuff, much of which we don’t need. All of these things come at not so hidden a cost, naturally, even while our style of consumption seems to make our lives happier and more comfortable. (I say “seem” because it’s not entirely clear or agreed upon that plenitude equates to physical, spiritual, or psychic wellbeing, either as individuals or as societies.)
I recently caught wind of a few details surrounding a further issue that threatens to overwhelm us: what to do with all the refuse we create. The “dump” or regional landfill is by now such a well-established fixture of our thinking that it hardly bears comment. Still, that’s the subject of a documentary movie called Trashed. I haven’t see the film so can’t comment knowledgeably, but I can devine its message from viewing the trailer.
I’m really more intrigued by some of the perhaps less obvious instances of the impact and scale of our material and manufacturing processes. For instance, many of us have seen pictures of the airplane graveyard outside Tuscon, known as The Boneyard:
This image (if my research is correct) dates from 1994, when the U.S. military lined up acres of decommissioned warplanes (bombers) from the Vietnam War era to demonstrate to Russian satellites compliance with the SALT II Treaty. Those particular planes have by now been chopped up, recycled, and repurposed as, among other things, soda cans.
