ACT10 members define tracing trash

babette
food cycles through the city. on its path to consumption, food collects waste (wrapping, packaging), and becomes waste (peelings, leftovers, table scraps, wishful thoughts). while most thinking about food celebrates, maps, and otherwise records its passage from farm to table, we've interrupted the passage from farm (or factory) to landfill, reminding ourselves that trash is (re-)produced and these processes too need examination. to start, trash is multi-faceted, multi-colored, never pre-determined, and not natural.


clarinda
Space is taken up by the left over as well as the new. We're planning vertical farms, sky-high hydroponics, and rooftop gardens. Where will all the trash go? What do we throw out and why? What else could we do with it? Let's take a look at what we've got and where it goes, and dream about what could be different and how.

deena
Trash is an intimate part of our lives; most of us would rather keep hidden. Tracing it back to how it came into our lives (as food, packaging, stuff...) and tracing it forward to where it goes (compost, landfill, ocean, space...) ACT 10 Highlights some of these routes and raises possibilities for US urban communities to reduce trash output, such as exploring the example of Mumbai’s tiffin.

elliott
Through a series of linked public events and conversations, we are exploring and exposing [danger, bad pun to follow: art-iculating] the hidden lines of the food system: following the decaying, the disposable, and the derivative among others.
re the n-dtgc:
How can the re-design of the familiar to go container challenge our reliance on and acceptance of the disposable?

jill
Awareness is the first step. Rather than waste waste, we contemplate it, we watch it, we capture it, we expose it. Through art, design, and other innovative acts, we engage others and through dialogue, encourage others to do the same.

kathy
“Derivatives for Dummies”, a monologue by Kathy Westwater in collaboration with ACT 2010 members, explores the role of derivatives in the trajectory of trash from production to consumption, i.e. the "trashy" prequel to the trash. What you always wanted to know about derivatives, but were afraid to ask… Westwater asks for you, and attempts to answer.

neha
Total number of food containers in a given system must stay constant, they can only be transferred from one user to another. - Tracing Trash’s Law of Conservation of Food Containers

This hypothesis is supported by the joint effort of the n-dtgc and its distribution network, as a part of generating a Disposable Container Free Society.

sara
The trash collection aspect of Tracing Trash looks for patterns of day to day life revealed in stratified layers of garbage collected over time. Sorting and formalizing collected garbage in clear vitrines takes sorting our trash to a level beyond the rituals of separating plastic from glass from compost, and reconsiders the results of daily consumption.