Doesn't trash just disappear?

Growing up, I never thought about waste lifecycles. I didn’t have to. Our trash was picked up in three separate bins (trash, recycling, and compost) each week, and I was quite comfortable living in ignorance thinking that once the trash was carted away, it just disappeared.

In high school, we took a field trip to our local waste management facility. We watched as machines sorted through the different types of recycled materials––paper, aluminum, glass, and various types of plastic. From there recyclable materials were sold to the informal sector while the remaining waste was incinerated, sealed, and buried in a local waste field.

The field trip cemented what I should have already known––that nothing just disappears. While burning waste reduces its size significantly, there was still charred contents that had to be put somewhere. We watched as fields were filled with burnt waste and sealed off to reduce the toxic leaching, but we were told that leaching was still likely.

That experience, along with a handful of others, were the only times in my life that I put a lot of thought into the lifecycles of waste.

I’d like to implore you to consider the lifecycle of your garbage from just this week: the plastic yogurt container, granola bar wrapper, cereal box and plastic lining, the one plastic water bottle you used when you forgot your reusable bottle at home, or whatever seems to accumulate in your trash can.

What if your trash wasn’t picked up this week, if it was sporadic, or if it didn’t exist at all.

In Kerala, that’s the reality for many people––waste collection is sporadic, and more often, non-existent.

Positive Change for Marine Life began operating in Kerala in 2018. They interviewed daily wage earning, coastal community members to determine the organizations starting point. They learned that although the fishing has deteriorated in the last 20 years, and people often run on a deficit during the off season, the biggest problem they face was waste management. They shared that they were living among waste as fishing boats caught plastic in their nets, streets and community centers were full of litter, and no one knew how to manage it.

PCFML realized that they could only improve the ocean ecosystem and livelihoods of coastal community members once they solved the problem of waste.

I arrived in Kovalam in March. After a few weeks, I wondered what happened to my trash. All I knew was that I sorted it, and that my host family gathered it every few days. After a few weeks, I peered over the ledge in our backyard to see my box of cornflakes, surrounded by plastic wrappers, laying under the canopy of coconut trees. I was mortified.

I asked myself how I would think about waste if I peered over the ledge everyday to see every piece of trash I have ever thrown away. My stomach sank further.

Over the past few months, I’ve watched people, outside of the PCFML’s waste collection pilot program, deal with their waste. Each evening, I notice plumes of smoke, followed by the repulsive smell of burning plastic. Unlike the facility I visited in high school, there is no mechanism to filter the toxic chemicals that burning trash released, nor a way to seal the waste once it was burned.

I’ve remained curious about the physical impact of burning plastic was on the people living here, or how the leaching impacts local terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

I write this because personal waste management is a rarity in the US, but a reality in many other parts of the world. People who grew up with formal waste management systems too often hold the romantic idea that waste disappears. It gives us permission to consume and discard frivolously while placing judgement on communities like Kovalam where the beachfront is marred by piles of waste.