Who Cleans Up After Us?

When we are faced with an issue, one of the biggest barriers to caring about it is perspective. For many people, we are far too busy to go beyond the scope of what is happening in our immediate lives. Which is why many issues reach a state of "Out of sight, out of mind."

But garbage plays a prevalent role in everybody's lives, it plays such a constant role that for many people it simply isn't at the forefront of their minds. But not only that, garbage has become stigmatized in many different ways. And it's no surprise, something that can be smelly, unsightly, cumbersome, and take up a lot of space, garbage is as much of a nuisance as it gets when we're trying to go about our lives.

Garbage has been hiding in plain sight for so long that it is only noticed when it is hindering our lives. But thanks to the effort of many workers, it doesn't hinder our lives nearly as much as it could. That is what led to Robin Nagle to giving this 8-minute Ted talk called "What I discovered in New York City trash"

So as we dive deeper into landfills, think about the people who are working in that environment. We never hear about well managed landfills, but we do hear about them when they're badly managed.