Waste Stream 13

Image by Urban Woodswalker
"Waste Stream"
Wall Hanging by Mary Anne Enriquez 2009

Wherever there are humans, there is unwanted debris found in urban, industrial, suburban, agricultural, and "pristine" wilderness regions. Fishermen might leave behind lead sinkers, nylon fishing line, food and drink cans in "natural areas."
Unresponsible campers, tourists, highway litterers, the homeless, just plain people like you and me, children…its impossible not to create waste that can wind up in public places. Mankind’s waste leaches chemicals into the soil – ultimately into rivers, lakes, and oceans –affecting us all.

I spent 1 year saving "trash" in and around my own daily life. Mostly the trash is my own, but a little bit is from the street, waste receptacles, or on the sidewalk. I then encased this colorful often recognizable detritus and created fish.

Fish are an indicator species of how unhealthy our water and environment is. Water is a carrier of waste from long distances a way. Water is absolutely necessary to all life on earth. The play on words "waste stream" is to make the viewer think about how our daily lives affect the entire planet.

Materials used:

– steel office staples & clear vinyl… encapsulate advertising, popular culture, artifact, and unwanted waste.

– tree branch – a highly invasive non-native shrub called European Buckthorn, Rhamnus Cathartica, was cut down by the Forest Preserve of Cook County Illinois. I found it in a restoration pile of branches along a roadside.

– lead sinkers, and nylon fishing line (both poison/ kill a large amount of wildlife each year)

Materials used to stuff the fish:

– paper ( magazines, junk mail, office waste, newspapers etc)
– cardboard packaging, (cereal boxes and food packaging)
– plastic of all kinds
– candy wrappers
– wood and metal "found" objects

Show is up until July 31, 2009 in Hammond, Indiana.

FINIS

Household Waste and What to Do With it

Household waste will generally be collected once a week, whether by a private operator or a local authority. They will follow a specific route and different areas will be serviced on different days.

The waste collection centre supplies plastic sacks for PET bottles and aluminium boxes and large plastic sacks for expanded polystyrene waste.

Household waste is typically a mixture of organic materials, such as food wastes, paper, and cellulose packaging materials, and inorganic materials, such as plastic packaging materials, fabrics, ferrous and non-ferrous objects, batteries, synthetic materials, etc. Those living and working in each home or office are entrusted to separate materials that are inappropriate to incineration from the remainder in accordance with the community regulations and deposit them, as in the correct container.

Household waste is usually collected from your home on a weekly basis. Waste for recycling and the remainder of the waste is often collected separately and at different intervals. Household waste is exempted from being regulated as hazardous waste. Nevertheless, it should not be disposed of indiscriminately.

Recycling avoids the cost of sourcing materials from scratch. There is a great deal more money to be saved from recycling aluminium than steel (because steel is initially relatively cheap to produce anyway). Recycling is an economical and environmentally sound way to handle some types of household hazardous waste, such as used automobile batteries and oil.

It is illegal to dispose of used lead-acid batteries in the landfill. Recycling collected in orange sacks and mixed recycling banks at blocks of flats must be sorted out before it can be recycled. The mixed recycling is also weighed by Western Riverside Waste Authority after it has been collected.

The waste collection tariff charged by local authorities and commercial waste companies consists of a basic fee plus a charge based on the weight of the rubbish collected on each occasion. The weighing of rubbish is being introduced in some countries and states to encourage source-sorting and recycling. The waste collection centre in our town has been functional since July 2004. It has the technical and human capacities to guarantee the collection, reuse and recovery of industrial waste of the whole town area.

Recyclable waste refers to newspapers, magazines and corrugated cardboard. You should always separate by type and tie up before putting out for collection. Recycling is not wasteful, as there continues to be community and government pressure to reduce waste at source and to increase recycling rates.

Properties may use different types of receptacles such as waste containers on wheels, roller cages and large containers. The choice of receptacles depends on sorting obligations, the size of the waste collection point, the number and age structure of the residents, as well as sorting activity. Properties with 20 or more apartments must in most areas as a minimum requirement start collecting recyclable cardboard from the beginning of this year or next. Most properties also have collection points for waste paper and some say that its recovery is best organised by the paper producers.

Solid waste in bags other than the specially marked official bags placed outside for the cart will not be collected. If residents do use nonconforming containers or bags, the resident\’s garbage will not be picked up, since this is not part of the city\’s contract. Solid waste collection involves both the provision of a service and the selection of appropriate technologies. Past methods of planning for and operating waste collection systems are under pressure, resulting in the need for further management.

A new technology previously developed for security in stores and warehouses called RFID verification can improve productivity in the waste collection and disposal process, and help all parties involved understand their true costs and margins. Finally, it can increase consumer and community satisfaction, and contribute even more to sustainability efforts. Additionally the service includes the collection and disposal of needles, syringes and sharps in appropriate containers.