The collection and disposal of waste is ancient, but has become a crucial issue in a relatively recent time, as far as quantity to recuperate, recovery of resources to deal with, novelty and variety of materials to destroy and disposal techniques at hand. It is known that a consumer society produces an extraordinary quantity of scrap and it is now clear there is urgency of change in disposal management. The entire path, from the production and the reuse, up to the elimination, should be subject to particular attention and considered as one only reality. Moreover we shouldn't throw anything away, because there is no one ‘way’, since materials can change form but not disappear. Each item has a story. Its life is linked to raw materials and energy used to design, produce, distribute, use and discard. Starting from its ‘end’ its 'adventure' of rejection begins. Waste is first collected, then according to the type; it can be recycled to recover materials or burned in incinerators to produce electricity and heat. Only residues, which cannot be otherwise recovered, go to the dumps. These are sites far from our common ‘wanting to see’, they give us back unpleasant images, hostile and sometimes even catastrophic... just think of the illicit trafficking of electronical waste that from industrialized countries reaches, for example, the African coasts where, every day, electronic waste is imported, accumulated in open-air landfills, and that are reason for sustenance for millions of dispossessed who, in a continuous rummaging, try to recycle the garbage of the opulent West. We could probably say that from scrap material we can retrieve construction elements not only of objects but of new urban landscapes as well and in this case of real ‘landfill cities’. Moreover, waste appears to be like a river flooding our planet. Under the push of globalization, our planet is becoming a gigantic waste global dump with an enormous quantity and variety of slag. After all, despite our reluctance regarding this, in my opinion we are essentially what we are throwing away and what we don't want, and we can actually say ‘we refuse, therefore we are’, as a modern variant of the famous Cartesian phrase ‘cogito, ergo sum’ and to which we are called to respond.
Shadow spaces… Territorial Reserve
Dalzero, Silvia
2021-01-01
Abstract
The collection and disposal of waste is ancient, but has become a crucial issue in a relatively recent time, as far as quantity to recuperate, recovery of resources to deal with, novelty and variety of materials to destroy and disposal techniques at hand. It is known that a consumer society produces an extraordinary quantity of scrap and it is now clear there is urgency of change in disposal management. The entire path, from the production and the reuse, up to the elimination, should be subject to particular attention and considered as one only reality. Moreover we shouldn't throw anything away, because there is no one ‘way’, since materials can change form but not disappear. Each item has a story. Its life is linked to raw materials and energy used to design, produce, distribute, use and discard. Starting from its ‘end’ its 'adventure' of rejection begins. Waste is first collected, then according to the type; it can be recycled to recover materials or burned in incinerators to produce electricity and heat. Only residues, which cannot be otherwise recovered, go to the dumps. These are sites far from our common ‘wanting to see’, they give us back unpleasant images, hostile and sometimes even catastrophic... just think of the illicit trafficking of electronical waste that from industrialized countries reaches, for example, the African coasts where, every day, electronic waste is imported, accumulated in open-air landfills, and that are reason for sustenance for millions of dispossessed who, in a continuous rummaging, try to recycle the garbage of the opulent West. We could probably say that from scrap material we can retrieve construction elements not only of objects but of new urban landscapes as well and in this case of real ‘landfill cities’. Moreover, waste appears to be like a river flooding our planet. Under the push of globalization, our planet is becoming a gigantic waste global dump with an enormous quantity and variety of slag. After all, despite our reluctance regarding this, in my opinion we are essentially what we are throwing away and what we don't want, and we can actually say ‘we refuse, therefore we are’, as a modern variant of the famous Cartesian phrase ‘cogito, ergo sum’ and to which we are called to respond.
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