Your cafefully separated recycling heads to the dump. Reporters in D.C. follow some of the trucks around town and watch them dump the trash and the recycling together into the same truck. (previously)
posted by caddis on Nov 9, 2009 - 66 comments

Trash Humpers [more inside]
posted by philip-random on Sep 10, 2009 - 43 comments

How the Moon Became a Trash Can. [more inside]
posted by gman on May 14, 2009 - 65 comments

Los Marauders live on Public Access TV [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on May 4, 2009 - 4 comments

Convert your Honda Accord to run on trash.
posted by gman on Jan 11, 2009 - 36 comments

Hello Hello Finally a myspace blog post worth seeing: funny window messages about neighbors with trash disposal concerns, vaguely reminiscent of the window messages in "You and Me and Everyone Else We Know" [more inside]
posted by srs on Jul 13, 2008 - 15 comments

Federal and state government officials and border activists say the garbage dumped in the Sonoran Desert by illegal immigrants and their smugglers is staggering. The cleanup is costing taxpayers millions. The Southern Arizona Project(pdf) is a multi-year program setup by the Bureau of Land Management to mitigate the impacts to the ecology by illegal immigration and smuggling. In 2006 alone, more than 1.18 million pounds of trash was collected along the southern Arizona border.
posted by netbros on May 7, 2008 - 22 comments

Holy Shit! What am I going to do without MOZZARELLA!!!!! [more inside]
posted by snsranch on Mar 28, 2008 - 30 comments

A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila. MTV made a show out of her because, amongst other reasons, she has over 2.5 million friends on myspace and she claims not to discriminate. The cast bios are interesting fucking ridiculous. The latest has her and some dude named Bobby breaking up. Fan sites are abuzz.
posted by gman on Jan 11, 2008 - 103 comments

This guy saved all his trash for an entire year. It amounted to 96 cubic feet. Perhaps not surprisingly, his message is conservation.
posted by desjardins on Dec 31, 2007 - 22 comments

The Garbage Game. What would you do with 64,000 tons of garbage every week? The Gotham Gazette is a not-for-profit newspaper that reports on New York City politics and policy. On their site is a highly informative game that puts you in the place of a resident and then the Sanitation Commissioner, shedding some light on NYC's garbage problem.
posted by brooklynexperiment on Nov 14, 2007 - 14 comments

Bob Log III plays distorted trash grimey blues slide guitar with his hands, he drawls through a telephone attached to the bubble face of the motorcycle helmet he wears, and he drums with his feet. He is known to ask women to stir his scotch on stage with their breasts, which is sadly Not currently Safe for Work. Sometimes he asks them to sit on his knee, bouncing up and down on the blue glittery jump suit he wears whenever he plays. [more inside]
posted by 6am on Oct 11, 2007 - 47 comments

The Algalita Marine Research Foundation's video Synthetic Sea is pretty shocking. "All we can do is stop polluting and hope the system will clean itself up in hundreds of years." So, what will be the fate of the plastic bag until the inevitable ban comes? Should they be Taxed? Should they be Banned ? Should stores charge extra for them? We don't really have a lot of time to argue about it.
posted by chuckdarwin on Jun 27, 2007 - 36 comments

Mr Fusion - coming soon. Startech Environmental Corporation's "Plasma Converter" works like "the big bang in reverse," creating nothing out of something. With the ability to break down any type of material (other than nuclear waste) into component molecules and and actually generate energy in the process, we may be at the twilight of the landfill industry. Via.
posted by jonson on Feb 17, 2007 - 54 comments

The SF Dump's Artist in Residence Program currently features Sudhu Tewari and Nome Edonna but will be welcoming Ellen Babcock and Nathaniel Tookey shortly. Its an idea that's been around for a little while. "Many artists find and recycle materials in their art, but no one else has this much material to pick from," says Program Director Paul Fresina. The 2,000-square-foot art studio is located at SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc.'s Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center. The 44-acre site is where most of San Francisco's garbage and recyclables are temporarily dumped before going to a landfill or recycling plant. Throughout a residency, each artist talks to young students and adult tour groups about the experience of turning trash into treasures. Previously and via.
posted by fenriq on Jan 30, 2007 - 7 comments

Ilha Das Flores video "A tomato is planted, harvested and sold at a supermarket, but it rots and ends up in the trash. The end? No. ISLAND OF FLOWERS follows it up until its real end, among animals, trash, women and children. And then the difference between tomatoes, pigs and human beings becomes clear." A remarkable and devastating 12 minute film from director Jorge Furtado.
posted by maryh on Aug 18, 2006 - 15 comments

Music video gems and reviews from the spandex era. It's called trashfan although not all of it is trash (Springsteen). But some stuff definitely deserves to be there (Shalamar? Colonel Abrams? Pepsi & Sherley? Eew). And yes, I used to have Junior's "Mmmmmmama used to say" 45 rpm. And you know you liked it too!
posted by keepoutofreach on May 31, 2006 - 11 comments

Dan Goodsell (of the unbelieveably great - and previously linked - Tick Tock Toys) has been keeping a blog for the last six months or so covering a variety of subjects (including his webcartoon, Mr Toast), but largely focused on U.S. pop culture ephemera of the 50's though the 70's, with a ton of great stuff.
posted by jonson on May 29, 2006 - 5 comments

Drama is impossible today. I don't know of any. Drama used to be the belief in guilt, and in a higher order. This absolutely cruel didactic is impossible, unacceptable for us moderns. But melodrama has kept it. You are caged. In melodrama you have human, earthly prisons rather than godly creations. Every Greek tragedy ends with the chorus — "those are strange happenings. Those are the ways of the gods". And so it always is in melodrama.
His career as a film director lasted more than 40 years, but Douglas Sirk (1900-1987) is remembered for the melodramas he made for Universal in Hollywood between 1954 and 1959, his "divine wallow": Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), The Tarnished Angels (1958, William Faulkner considered it the best screen adaptation of one of his novels), Imitation of Life (1959) -- all considered for decades little more than a camp oddity. Now audiences are beginning to look deeper at the films of Douglas Sirk, at how, in megafan Todd Haynes' words, they are "almost spookily accurate about the emotional truths". Now, lucky Chicagoans can enjoy "Douglas Sirk at Universal", matinees at the Music Box. More inside.
posted by matteo on Apr 29, 2006 - 14 comments

Where do your recycleables go? Minneapolis' Star Tribune has created a very interesting, informative, interactive feature, describing where your recycling goes after it is picked up from your curb. An educational way to spend your afternoon!
posted by santiagogo on Apr 25, 2006 - 14 comments

Recent surveys show that fast-food packaging makes up about 20 percent of all litter, with snack foods comprising another 20 percent. Oakland, CA is the first city to tax companies who create "Fast-Food Trash".
posted by stbalbach on Feb 8, 2006 - 30 comments

Your Mr. Fusion is ready. Sort of.
posted by loquacious on Sep 14, 2005 - 13 comments

Dumpster World - "Your Dumpster Diving and Curb Crawling Resource." [via Information Nation, which also links to that story of a woman who was recently unloaded into a garbage truck]
posted by mediareport on Jun 27, 2005 - 19 comments

The WEEE Man is a huge 3 ton figure standing 7 metres high and is composed entirely of WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment)--from washing machines to mobile phones and electronic toys. The WEEE Man represents the amount of waste a single person in the UK is likely to produce in a lifetime. Measure your own footprint here.
posted by fandango_matt on Apr 28, 2005 - 13 comments

Throw paper in the bin game. - Satisfying.
posted by kenaman on Jan 14, 2005 - 25 comments

Mongo is the treasures people discover in garbage, and Ted Botha has written an excellent book about it and talked about it. If your curiousity is peaked, you might want to try it yourself.
posted by drezdn on Aug 14, 2004 - 11 comments

Creative, probably not on purpose, trailer trash.
posted by Recockulous on May 4, 2004 - 25 comments

TRASHLOG — or — arresting and acute observation of ordinary offal.
posted by pedantic on Jan 23, 2004 - 5 comments

Trashtalking - German Style. Forget talking dolls, Berlin's speechifying its trash cans to thank pedestrians after they dump their litter. But is it appropriate to have immaterial things tell you how to use them? [More Inside]
posted by gregb1007 on Nov 23, 2003 - 15 comments

Freecycling. Reducing the amount of trash we generate by connecting people who have things that they no longer want with people who want those same things. The only rule: Every item posted must be free.
posted by grabbingsand on Nov 18, 2003 - 31 comments

"Toronto flings garbage at Michigan" no no!... - US Courts Canadian Crud! ...Eh?, well, OK: Toronto trucks it's tons 'o trash across the border to dump in Michigan landfills, and some Yanks are eager to buy, although others..."It's so disgusting we don't even talk about it...Why can't they keep their garbage over there?" .....[''We need to put an end to this desecration of our beautiful state,'' fumed Representative Candice S. Miller, Republican of Michigan who also warned that terrorists or weapons of mass destruction could be concealed amidst the rotting food and used diapers.] ......"Relations between the United States and Canada have been souring for two years....Canada's wishy-washy stance on the Iraq crisis...has irked Washington" chides the Boston Globe, clearly piqued that Boston is not in a position to catapult cannisters of it's garbage and toxic waste northward at Canada, towards the "Great Concavity" of David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest". [other shades of "....Jest" loom as "...a reputed haven for terror groups." whispers the Globe...just like in Wallace's book!] .....Toronto can't find any Canadian communities willing to furnish an immense garbage pit, while "Michigan's underused landfills are famous for courting crud from outside the state's borders.": They approached Toronto with the deal. ["Ontario, meanwhile, accepts imports of toxic industrial sludge, low-level radioactive waste, and other dangerous refuse from Michigan and other US states."] Garbage is a protected "free trade" commodity under NAFTA and Michigan may need the 'trash jobs': NAFTA has spurred automakers to shift production away from the US and build new factories in Canada and Mexico. Canada's auto factories are 7% more productive than US ones and have lower health care costs. ["The growth of imports to the U.S. from these factories has contributed substantially to the growing U.S. trade deficit and the related job losses."]. So: Canada sends garbage and shiny new autos south: the US sends radioactive sludge, spittle, jobs and curses north.

Meanwhile, walk across the border and the murder rate per 100,000 (per year) drops from 42.6 (Detroit, USA) to 2.2 (Windsor, Canada): "Are Canadians somehow flinging all their fear and murderous rage into the US along with the garbage?" (asks the Daily Tabloid)
posted by troutfishing on Mar 10, 2003 - 42 comments

How I found my gun, my furniture, and my microwave. Or, On the pleasures of dumpster diving, and the rush of rubbish, and the ravages of rag-picking.
posted by DenOfSizer on Oct 1, 2002 - 19 comments

We're exporting toxic technologies to third world countries. We all know computer components contain lots of chemical badness, and it seems that as much as 80 percent of US electronics trash is sent to developing countries, where it is becoming a major health hazard.
posted by brookish on Feb 25, 2002 - 22 comments

The Zen of Dumpster Diving: The strangely moving tale of one frustrated man, and how he reinvented his life with trash. You can also listen to author Dirk Jamison read an abbreviated version of this story.
posted by ryanshepard on Dec 26, 2001 - 15 comments

Cleaner dumps £5k art -- Mistook rubbish for... well, rubbish.
posted by frednorman on Oct 19, 2001 - 11 comments

Did you hear about the Trash Bloc? Some anti-authoritarians are planning a bloc for the weekend of the IMF/World Bank protests that would go around Washington DC neighborhoods and pick up trash. I think we can all get down with that.
posted by sudama on Aug 20, 2001 - 4 comments

Copenhagen is one of the cleanest cities I have ever visited, so what does this mean for the rest of us? My wife and I were a bit troubled when our house guest told us he flicked his butt from our balcony; it's likely that his flying butt did not land on the street--more likely on the balcony two floors below. Quelle horreur!
posted by Dick Paris on Jun 6, 2001 - 10 comments