Trash Talk

Meet Billy the Trash Man. Billy is made out of all the garbage I produced over the last two semesters. Specifically, Billy is made out of non-recyclable metals and plastics, not paper, organic, or recyclable waste. Basically, Billy is made out of all the stuff that gets sent to landfills everyday to sit for years and years.

Over the last two semesters I collected all the trash that wasn't biodegradable (coffee lids, candy wrappers, drinking straws, etc.) and put it in a box. A couple people probably thought I was crazy as I stuffed styrofoam cups and plastic boxes in my backpack, as if I were some demented hoarder. The reason I did this is because one day I realized that everything I threw out, added up. For every bag of chips I threw out, there were millions of other bags being thrown out at the same time by people like me all over the world. And that thought drove me crazy. Every time I see people use plastic spoons and drink out of styrofoam cups I cringe, because those items are being used once and then they're being thrown away to fester forever.

Everyday we throw away more and more garbage and it just piles

up. But you never really think about it because, what's another plastic spoon on the pile going to do? But we do it every day, over and over again. So, as a personal goal, I am trying to cut down my non-biodegradable, non-recyclable garbage waste to next to nothing over the next year (which will be tough for me). My experiment over the last 2 semesters was a way to show myself what I was really doing, as a way to ween myself off waste.

So back to Billy. The reason why I made Billy is because I wanted to save my garbage from being stuffed into a landfill. Billy was penance for my careless and reckless consumption. My idea was the make art out of my waste, in order to infuse some sort of value into these materials that are otherwise worthless. Unfortunately, since I am not an artist, the best I could do was make a sad snowman-looking thing. However, this might be fitting for the purpose, because the problem that I am trying to confront is just as ugly as Billy is. He's a symbol of society's addiction to waste and consumption and, who knows, maybe with the rate that garbage is piling up, our children will be making snowmen out of trash.

The twisted irony of my situation is that I'm going to have to throw Billy out. When I leave school on Wednesday I will not be able to take Billy home with me. So, I will lay Billy to rest in a trash can, where he'll proceed to live his immortal life in a dump. Or, in the ocean.

While I'd really like to see corporations and governments take more action to help combat

waste dumping and pollution in general, it really comes down to normal people like you and me.So what do I want you to do? Make small sacrifices. Eat more fruits and vegetables (ones that

don't come in non-recyclable packages), use reusable cups, and just think about where your trash is going, because if it's not going in your backyard, it may be going into someone else's. It's a really big problem.

Thanks for reading.

Some quick garbage facts