In Manhattan’s Union Square, residents queue patiently, holding unwanted computers, cell phones, printers, TVs, cables, and monitors. The New York City Department of Sanitation, charged with managing 3.5 million tons of waste generated annually by New Yorkers, is hosting an e-cycling event in partnership with Dell computers. In one day they will collect 50 tons for recycling.(Footnote: 1)
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My job as Deputy Director for Policy and Planning at the Department puts me in the center of activity. As the day passes, I’ll reprise the same dialogue a hundred times over. Residents thank me for the chance to recycle items that they have, in some cases, been holding onto for years because they “didn’t know what to do with them.” They then ask, “What happens to the collected electronics?” I explain that all but the most up-to-date, valuable, working items will be crushed so that metals, glass, and plastics, can be separated and sold. Economics dictates that rather than reusing components, we “recycle them much as you would a can or bottle.” Sometimes there’s a pained response, “But people need computers — and mine works!” Many have brought the documentation and original boxes with them. I explain that the labor involved in testing, repairing, and redistributing each item would outweigh its value. The most efficient means to recover value from e-waste is to destroy any computation ability it has, returning it to a raw state.
As I watch thousands of people making their way on foot or arriving by taxi at these events, carrying heavy equipment on carts, bringing items they found at the curb or have had stored in their apartments, I ask myself why they are doing it. Some are aware that e-waste contains lead and other heavy metals that are dangerous to dispose of, but that doesn’t appear to be the main impulse. It is a shame for these items to go to waste. A shame. There is an immorality to throwing away working instruments, which drives New Yorkers to store their old hardware and to go to great lengths to bring it to us, expecting that someone else will use it.
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There is an immorality to throwing away working instruments...
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I would argue that this moral impulse reflects a recognition of want around them. On average, and certainly in terms of access to technology and other consumer goods, all but the poorest in the US are vastly better off than those in the developing world. Still, many Americans go without. Absolute scarcity doesn’t explain this, nor does making use of things that would otherwise go to waste right it. City Harvest, a New York-based charity, collects tons of surplus food from over-catered affairs each day.(Footnote: 2) It feeds the needy, but hunger in New York persists. Similarly, the “digital divide” between those between those with access to technology and those without is not a result of PCs going into the rubbish. Yet contemporary constructions of the immorality of waste in terms of scarcity, and redress of scarcity through redistribution of donated surplus, still organize the ethic of e-cycling and recycling in general. To the extent that the aims of such activities are not addressing the problems they seek to solve — material inequality and pollution — the immorality of waste in American invites further analysis.
I’ll begin with a prototypical image of the morality of not wasting, as portrayed in the first of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s seminal series on her experiences as a young daughter on the American frontier, Little House in the Big Woods. The first chapter includes a description of “Butchering Time,” the annual transformation of an animal into a set of meat products. After slaughtering and gutting the hog, Pa and Uncle Henry cut it up functionally. Nothing is wasted. “Every piece was sprinkled with salt,” before the women’s work begins (14). Ma “tries out” the lard over a flame, carefully extracting the brown cracklings (17). Methodically, she addresses each fragment of flesh, large and small. Once the job is finished, survival during the coming winter is assured. All that remains is the pig’s bladder. It too is used, as a toy, “a little white balloon” (14). Finally, the pigs’ bones go to the dog.
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The Little House series was written during the Great Depression, and Anne Romines’s study, Constructing the Little House, situates it among evolving conditions of abundance and scarcity. One one hand, as documented by Susan Strasser in Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash in America (1999), the true “consumer culture” had already begun in the late nineteenth century. By the late 1920s, households were used to “getting and spending” in the name of efficiency, cleanliness, and luxury, with the concomitant increases in household waste production. But the onset of the Depression forced many to re-embrace older practices of thrift. While families may not have gone back to butchering time, they did re-adopt their grandparents’ strategies of mending, reusing, and consuming less.
The Little House books, according to Romines, “reinforced and promoted the consumption patterns that many families were compelled to practice: minimal buying, limited travel, family entertainment at home” (113-114). Still, she points out that the books were careful not to critique consumption per se. In fact, Wilder scholar Benjamin LeFebvre suggests that “the texts’ emphasis on self-sufficiency and independent living on the land” reflected “Wilder’s oppositional stance to F. D. Roosevelt’s measures for social relief.”(Footnote: 3) Wilder apparently believed that self-sufficiency and scrupulous avoidance of waste could save one from want. This articulation of individualism implies a specific construction of blame. He who lacks does so because he has squandered the material goods he needs, or has been lazy in the application of labor for such goods. This view is at odds with the notion that social structure enables and constrains individuals and groups unevenly.(Footnote: 4) Self-sufficiency is not possible once land is enclosed and owned by a few; goods can only be bought with wages; and commodities are priced to absorb most of a working-household’s income.(Footnote: 5) Under these circumstances, it’s possible for an individual to go hungry without being wasteful herself. In such cases, where is the wasting taking place?
The Little House books, according to Romines, “reinforced and promoted the consumption patterns that many families were compelled to practice: minimal buying, limited travel, family entertainment at home” (113-114). Still, she points out that the books were careful not to critique consumption per se. In fact, Wilder scholar Benjamin LeFebvre suggests that “the texts’ emphasis on self-sufficiency and independent living on the land” reflected “Wilder’s oppositional stance to F. D. Roosevelt’s measures for social relief.”(Footnote: 3) Wilder apparently believed that self-sufficiency and scrupulous avoidance of waste could save one from want. This articulation of individualism implies a specific construction of blame. He who lacks does so because he has squandered the material goods he needs, or has been lazy in the application of labor for such goods. This view is at odds with the notion that social structure enables and constrains individuals and groups unevenly.(Footnote: 4) Self-sufficiency is not possible once land is enclosed and owned by a few; goods can only be bought with wages; and commodities are priced to absorb most of a working-household’s income.(Footnote: 5) Under these circumstances, it’s possible for an individual to go hungry without being wasteful herself. In such cases, where is the wasting taking place?
A fiercely alternate portrayal of the immorality of waste comes from another American author writing during the Great Depression, John Steinbeck. In The Grapes of Wrath, he describes the autumn plenty of the California valley as the result not only of nature’s generative capacity, but also of advances in technology. Boosts in agricultural efficiency have overestimated the social capacity to consume, and wasting begins — this time in response to a profit-realization crisis. Steinbeck writes:
And first the cherries ripen. Cent and a half a pound. Hell we can’t pick ‘em for that… The birds eat half of each cherry… and on the ground the seeds drop and dry… Purple prunes soften and ripen. My God, we can’t pick them… we can’t pay wages, no matter what wages, and the purple prunes carpet the ground. The little farmers watched debt creep up on them like the tide. They sprayed the trees and sold no crop. They pruned and grafted and could not pick the crop. And the men of knowledge have worked, have considered, and the fruit is rotting (427).
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Farmers lose farms and fruit rots until we come to what Steinbeck calls “the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground” (428). He writes:
The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? … men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. (427)
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Here we have extreme immorality. Steinbeck calls this “a crime that goes beyond denunciation” (428).Potatoes are thrown in the river, pigs are killed in ditches and with quicklime, and “mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze” (429). Steinbeck is describing the destruction of use value within a context of want, for profit. In this case, waste is deliberate and efficient.
In both of these Depression-era works, hunger is a brute example of want, but wants are of course many. Today, it’s certainly possible to survive without a computer or cell phone, but such instruments have become so embedded in daily life that without them, life seems impoverished, and may in the near future be unmanageable. Wilder’s and Steinbeck’s contrasting constructions of the immorality of waste in relation to want are alive and well in the twenty-first American imagination, but are inadequate to understanding contemporary waste problems.
Carl Zimring, author of Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America (2005), proposes two evils of waste: inefficiency and pollution.(Footnote: 6) Inefficiency, often considered a barrier to profit within the firm, has historically been the cause of want in the household. If the entire pig is not transformed into storable meat products, the family will go hungry. If the family does not need the entire pig, wasting it represents loss for another who might. If there is no want, then waste as inefficiency is no moral crime.
In both of these Depression-era works, hunger is a brute example of want, but wants are of course many. Today, it’s certainly possible to survive without a computer or cell phone, but such instruments have become so embedded in daily life that without them, life seems impoverished, and may in the near future be unmanageable. Wilder’s and Steinbeck’s contrasting constructions of the immorality of waste in relation to want are alive and well in the twenty-first American imagination, but are inadequate to understanding contemporary waste problems.
Carl Zimring, author of Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America (2005), proposes two evils of waste: inefficiency and pollution.(Footnote: 6) Inefficiency, often considered a barrier to profit within the firm, has historically been the cause of want in the household. If the entire pig is not transformed into storable meat products, the family will go hungry. If the family does not need the entire pig, wasting it represents loss for another who might. If there is no want, then waste as inefficiency is no moral crime.
In Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966), Mary Douglas famously describes pollution as “matter out of place.” The great immorality of matter out of place is in the death and suffering it catalyzes. Post-consumption, the dispersal of wastes into water, air and ground is only a step. The ultimate harm is the insertion of displaced matter into living things — humans, animals, and plants. The sea turtle chokes on a plastic bag; the tern coated in oil suffocates. In each case, fossilized remnants of ancient life were transformed and dispersed as waste plastic and petroleum by human economies; matter becomes something that kills. But such cases of macroscopic harm are the exception. The vast majority of the suffering caused by pollution entails disruption of biological systems at the molecular level.
In the twenty-first century developed world, this disruption is chemical, not bacteriological, as it once was. This trend has proceeded apace with industrialism; today, everyone has manufactured chemicals in her blood.(Footnote: 7) Here we return to the lead, cadmium, and chromium in computer parts that leach in the landfill or are dispersed upon incineration.
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Such pollution isn’t new, but its rate of molecular penetration are. In the 1960s American scientists Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner illustrated the pathways and effects of chemical pollution in bodies and ecosystems.(Footnote: 8) As a result, DDT was banned, and certain releases listed as toxic were regulated, but overall the proliferation of molecular-scale “matter out of place” continued. In 1993, a coalition of lawyers, scientists, and physicians warned of persistent toxins that have the capacity to lodge in organic tissue and stay.(Footnote: 9) A decade later, the World Wildlife Fund reports that “hazardous chemicals are found in the tissue of nearly every person on Earth.”(Footnote: 10) This aspect of waste is one of two upon which its immorality rests.
The other still involves the notion of inefficiency, but now backwards. Here Steinbeck, not Wilder, accurately denounces the contemporary crime. While waste within the factory has an economic reason to bee minimized, waste moving outside — as effluent or as overstock — does not. Today, waste is linked to profit at unprecedented levels. I’ve witnessed new paperbacks in recycling facilities being kept from rescue by potential readers because of book destruction agreements. A few years ago, The New York Times paid to have recycling bins in Grand Central Station redesigned so as to prevent retrieval of newspapers by a second user.(Footnote: 11) These two cases are relatively minor, blunt instances of a positive requirement by market-based production to offload matter out of place as pollution or junked commodities. This economic state coexists with unfulfilled basic wants for some, surfeit for others, and the latent threat of disease for all.
Let us return to the e-cycling event in New York’s Union Square to see antiquated and contemporary constructions of the immorality of waste at play and in conflict. In the spirit of Wilder, New Yorkers are concerned that an otherwise useable implement, which someone might need, is being discarded. Assumed is that redistribution of old computers would satisfy privation, would redress the fact that the poorest Americans are on the losing side of the digital divide, unable to achieve self-sufficiency because they lack the tools and skills of survival — in this case, hardware and software. This is a mythic and, I would argue, misguided interpretation of the immorality of waste. Even if redistribution to the needy could be accomplished, the pace of change in technology would render such charity obsolete. And if repair and redistribution happened at a significant enough scale to reduce demand for new computers, how would Dell and its like respond? With virtual kerosene.
In reality, the economics of e-cycling conveniently dictate that the majority of computers collected are recycled, not reused, and this requires crushing and extracting the valuable metals. In this particular case, profit happens to be enhanced with a bit of pollution reduction in the bargain. It could just as easily have been the opposite. Depending on markets, the plastics and leaded glass may well be landfilled after the recycling operation. And overall in the economics of electronic equipment, waste will continue as a requirement; how else to endlessly market new models and devices?
After our e-waste event, we hope, though we are not certain, that the firm is not exporting material to be processed by hand in developing countries. But even if e-cycling is done under safe labor conditions in the USA, the molecular danger within the computers is just postponed, not eliminated. This is all recycling is. We are in a marginally better situation because the lead and cadmium are not entering the air, water and ground through technologies of disposal at this point. But the system that introduced them, and continues to introduce them, chugs along unabated, and growing.
A minor tragedy here is that the well-intentioned e-cycler has motivations that are really moral. The structure of the economy does not permit such motivations to yield healthy, safe, or equitable outcomes — although people do feel better. A pure impulse is perverted and wasted. Such derailments erode the potential for significantly changing the present system of material want and waste. This is a crime that goes beyond denunciation.
The other still involves the notion of inefficiency, but now backwards. Here Steinbeck, not Wilder, accurately denounces the contemporary crime. While waste within the factory has an economic reason to bee minimized, waste moving outside — as effluent or as overstock — does not. Today, waste is linked to profit at unprecedented levels. I’ve witnessed new paperbacks in recycling facilities being kept from rescue by potential readers because of book destruction agreements. A few years ago, The New York Times paid to have recycling bins in Grand Central Station redesigned so as to prevent retrieval of newspapers by a second user.(Footnote: 11) These two cases are relatively minor, blunt instances of a positive requirement by market-based production to offload matter out of place as pollution or junked commodities. This economic state coexists with unfulfilled basic wants for some, surfeit for others, and the latent threat of disease for all.
Let us return to the e-cycling event in New York’s Union Square to see antiquated and contemporary constructions of the immorality of waste at play and in conflict. In the spirit of Wilder, New Yorkers are concerned that an otherwise useable implement, which someone might need, is being discarded. Assumed is that redistribution of old computers would satisfy privation, would redress the fact that the poorest Americans are on the losing side of the digital divide, unable to achieve self-sufficiency because they lack the tools and skills of survival — in this case, hardware and software. This is a mythic and, I would argue, misguided interpretation of the immorality of waste. Even if redistribution to the needy could be accomplished, the pace of change in technology would render such charity obsolete. And if repair and redistribution happened at a significant enough scale to reduce demand for new computers, how would Dell and its like respond? With virtual kerosene.
In reality, the economics of e-cycling conveniently dictate that the majority of computers collected are recycled, not reused, and this requires crushing and extracting the valuable metals. In this particular case, profit happens to be enhanced with a bit of pollution reduction in the bargain. It could just as easily have been the opposite. Depending on markets, the plastics and leaded glass may well be landfilled after the recycling operation. And overall in the economics of electronic equipment, waste will continue as a requirement; how else to endlessly market new models and devices?
After our e-waste event, we hope, though we are not certain, that the firm is not exporting material to be processed by hand in developing countries. But even if e-cycling is done under safe labor conditions in the USA, the molecular danger within the computers is just postponed, not eliminated. This is all recycling is. We are in a marginally better situation because the lead and cadmium are not entering the air, water and ground through technologies of disposal at this point. But the system that introduced them, and continues to introduce them, chugs along unabated, and growing.
A minor tragedy here is that the well-intentioned e-cycler has motivations that are really moral. The structure of the economy does not permit such motivations to yield healthy, safe, or equitable outcomes — although people do feel better. A pure impulse is perverted and wasted. Such derailments erode the potential for significantly changing the present system of material want and waste. This is a crime that goes beyond denunciation.
This article originally appeared in SubStance, Vol. 37, No. 2, Issue 116: Waste and Abundance: The Measure of Consumption (2008), pp. 71-77.
Footnotes
1. Adriana Kontovrakis, Deputy Director for Waste Prevention, Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling, Personal Communication, New York, New York City Department of Sanitation, April 1, 2007.
2. Food Bank for New York City and City Harvest, Hunger in America 2006: The New York City and State Report, New York, City Harvest, 2006.
3. Benjamin LeFebvre, Personal Communication, January 15, 2007. See also: William Holtz, The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane, Columbia: U of Miss P, 1993.
4. Joshua Cohen, On Democracy: Toward a Transformation of American Society. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
5. Robert Brenner, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism,” New Left Review, I, 104, July-August 1977.
6. Carl Zimring, Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2005.
7. World Wildlife Fund, Chemicals and Health in Humans, Washington, DC, World Wildlife Fund, May 2003.
8. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Barry Commoner, Science and Survival, New York: Viking Press, 1966.
9. Richard Williamson, et. al. “Gathering Danger: The Urgent Need to Regulate Toxic Substances That Can Bioaccumulate,” Ecology Law Quarterly, 20, 1993, 605.
10. World Wildlife Fund, p. 1.
11. Arianne Chernock, “At Grand Central Terminal, No More Free Newspapers,” New York Times, August 19, 2001, Section 14WC, p. 7, col. 1.
1. Adriana Kontovrakis, Deputy Director for Waste Prevention, Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling, Personal Communication, New York, New York City Department of Sanitation, April 1, 2007.
2. Food Bank for New York City and City Harvest, Hunger in America 2006: The New York City and State Report, New York, City Harvest, 2006.
3. Benjamin LeFebvre, Personal Communication, January 15, 2007. See also: William Holtz, The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane, Columbia: U of Miss P, 1993.
4. Joshua Cohen, On Democracy: Toward a Transformation of American Society. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
5. Robert Brenner, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism,” New Left Review, I, 104, July-August 1977.
6. Carl Zimring, Cash for Your Trash: Scrap Recycling in America, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2005.
7. World Wildlife Fund, Chemicals and Health in Humans, Washington, DC, World Wildlife Fund, May 2003.
8. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Barry Commoner, Science and Survival, New York: Viking Press, 1966.
9. Richard Williamson, et. al. “Gathering Danger: The Urgent Need to Regulate Toxic Substances That Can Bioaccumulate,” Ecology Law Quarterly, 20, 1993, 605.
10. World Wildlife Fund, p. 1.
11. Arianne Chernock, “At Grand Central Terminal, No More Free Newspapers,” New York Times, August 19, 2001, Section 14WC, p. 7, col. 1.