A Lifelong Love of Rubbish : Small Time Blog

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A Lifelong Love of Rubbish

by Bradley Voight on 09/25/12

Believe me, I think it is silly too, but I love trash. The saying one mans trash is another mans treasure is very true and has always forced me to think about what is useless and what we just think is useless. I had to pick up after large crowds of people as a youth nearly every weekend as our family business was a catering/reception hall and park. Inevitably someone would leave something valuable behind nearly every weekend be it a chair, expensive sunglasses, or even cash. 


What struck me most was aluminum cans although I actually never paid attention to them till I was about 17.  I thought it was silly to waste a valuable metal that was so easy to recover from the waste stream. Only 50% of cans make it back the rest just get burried. Later I found out how aluminum is made and it was a real eye opener. It takes a mineral called bauxite and a whole lot of electricity to make aluminum and the byproducts of production include huge amounts of waste liquid that have to be stored in ponds. In 2010 one of these ponds let loose in Hungary. Here is a link to the article http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/europe/07hungary.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www

I'm sure you won't ever love trash like I do and that is ok, but I do wish that you would take a look at the things you throw out a little closer and ask yourself, where in the hell is this going? Will it break down and end up in my water? Who's backyard is this going to end up in? A greater awareness of issues like waste and industrial byproducts would go a long way toward cleaning up our world. NIMBY is what everyone says but they do not realize that a lot of backyards are already in use and theirs just might be the next one on the list of places to build a landfill, a coal ash pond, or a beautiful orange aluminum sludge pond.


Comments (1)

1. Judie said on 9/29/12 - 08:59AM
I absolutely think you should write a book. You are a very good expressionist.


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​$1 billion+ worth of aluminum cans trashed each year in America. 
That's $19 billion thrown away this century!

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