We put the 'Cover' in Resource ReCovery

A mountain of trash - The 'Resource Recovery Corporation' in RI

To raise one's awareness,  I heard once that you must make the invisible visible; either for yourself or others. So I took a trip to the Resource Recovery Corporation in RI so I could see the trash we produce for myself (apparently they give tours so I will take one later to get some more info and inside-the-fence photos). This is a large (and growing steadily) mountain of trash. I don't have any facts with respect to what's recovered and not (though I heard that recycling is not being done as much since it is so expensive), but I'm interested in finding out. 

The trash problem is not easily solved. In Vietnam, they throw their trash over the next hill; what they think is away. In Mexico, I've driven through trash 'fields' on the outskirts of the cities. In New England a century ago, farmers used to have small trash pits on the corner of the property and would even put old bottles in their stone walls (which you can still find if you're observant, or lucky). 

New York City now generates 50,000+ tons of trash/day. 50,000 tons. I don't even know what that looks like, let alone the result of a long period of daily accumulation (I heard it is shipped to other 'mountains' in New Jersey and Pennsylvania). Imagine if NYC's trash 'outgo' were to stop? I wonder how many inches of trash on the street/day that would be (perhaps that's a good trash metric to think about in a society). 50,000 tons of trash/day would certainly be visible then. Maybe people would change their habits if that happened. I wonder if culture would absorb this new ever-present-trash paradigm and just accept it and do things like use it to build hip new nightclubs (derelicte!) or fish through it for shaggy-chic fashion accessories. There would be a windfall in the perfume industry. 

Michigan is aggressively trying to build trash mountains as they import trash from Canada (getting paid something like $12/ton for it). Where that money goes I don't know.

After talking to an environmental engineer at Shaw Environmental, I learned that there is not really much bio-degrading going on in landfills. In order to prevent water leeching through and contaminating groundwater, landfills are capped with impervious (at least for a while) membranes, eliminating oxygen amongst the very dense collection of refuse. Without oxygen there is no degrading. It's more like preservation. So we are preserving trash. I even heard that it'll eventually be profitable (as technology advances and marginal mining costs rise around the world or maybe it could even be catalyzed by a domestic currency crash and the concomitant price surge of commodity imports from countries we may not have financial or military control over that goes with it*)) to mine landfills for valuable materials. Already they contain a higher percentage of some metals (like copper) than the richest mines on earth. 

With the above in mind, I can think a little more clearly with respect to PR's potential trash mitigation strategies. 

After my trash field trip, I went back to PR and began to build the floor to the outside bathroom -

That rock doesn't look heavy but it took me 2 hours to get it there (Triangles don't roll well, in fact, it tacked back and forth across the path). This will eventually be a natural granite deck to complete the waterfall shower.

There's something about building with rocks that's satisfying. Perhaps because it's a way to make a lasting impact on the world. I'm also building a bench underneath the beech trees (as soon as I devise a pulley system to lift this 300+lb perfectly smooth granite boulder I'm dead set on using)  - It's no stonehenge, but I wonder if it will last 500 years. That's more of a legacy than I would have left otherwise I think. I wonder how many people will sit on it. 

After wrestling with rocks I took another walk, this time starting off in a different direction. I found this amazing collection of big-leafed green plants -

And these yellow flowers began to bloom in the fields (I think they are called Goldenrod) -

And this tree was impressive - 

I would like to thank everyone for their interest and encouragement. This was initially meant to be a personal account, and then as a way for friends to keep up with me, but then I was told by several people recently that they read this every day when they get into the office. 

I'm happy to provide this small window to another world-

*That was a bit of a rant - and a run-on one no less.