MAKING A MUSEUM: Materializing Regimes of Value with the NYC Department of Sanitation

This is a large part of why I chose to interview individuals regarding their recycling & re-use habits for my observation. I began to think that while recycling is clearly important (as Samantha MacBride said in her presentation, as the cost of land-filling increases, the money that New York City saves by recycling becomes more important), it's not quite the cure-all that we've been led to believe. Therefore I thought it might be interesting to explore used-goods consumption among individuals. But genuine re-use is clearly not a realistic solution for Americans either, as people are constantly assaulted with advertisements created by the media machine that we purchase more, better, faster, fashionable items all the time. In addition, here in America a tone of moral obligation is added to the impulse to consume. If you all remember, one of the first things that George W. Bush told us we could do for our country after 9/11 was to go out and buy something to fuel our economy. However, we've been learning that in spite of all this, the individual's contribution to the solid waste stream is just something like 2%. So I began to feel like I was looking at an incomplete puzzle.

Perhaps because she is a sociologist, Samantha MacBride was able to put things in a context that was meaningful to me. I thought that the connection she made between two great American writers and the American attitudes that they embody was incredibly sharp. (And wow, Laura Ingalls Wilder was a Libertarian of the school of Ayn Rand?! I can't say I'm totally astonished but it was definitely an interesting fact to be told) Like MacBride pointed out, while Laura Ingalls Wilder's attitude regarding the individual's obligation not to waste makes sense in the context of lack, it becomes perverted in the context of our hyper-consumer society. As the population of this country has exploded, the power of the single individual (again, as reflected in Wilder's work) also becomes less valid. (Haidy mentioned something about the lack of history of group activism in the U.S. that was interesting.) Meanwhile, Steinbeck was on to the fact that consumerism, as it exists in American society, necessitates waste in order to continue and too many people have way too much to lose to allow this pattern to change.

On a personal level, it means I carry my empty bottles around all day until I find a recycling bin and feel incredibly guilty if I throw recyclables in the trash (can you imagine how liberated I felt when MacBride said "you should never feel guilty about your garbage"?). So what we're left with is an incredibly wasteful society with many well-meaning individuals without access to a productive channel by which to make a difference. What's missing here? In two words, it's corporate responsibility. I'm sure no one needs me to talk about the way that corporations line the pockets of politicians to ensure the passing of corporate waste-permissive legislation. It's funny because we spend so much time talking about the responsibility of the individual with regards to waste (and I mean actual solid waste production and not pollution) and so little discussing the role of corporations. It seems that the misguided guilt and also the sense of power felt by the individual with regards to their own waste serves as a convenient distraction to the garbage-spewing corporate machine. It's a testament to the evil genius of corporate marketing that so many products bear labels that amount to "help save the planet, buy this product!"

Thanks for reading my tirade. I'd be very interested to know what you think!