Human — Garbage

Photo by author

Straight off the bat I need to emphasize that I don’t believe any human being is garbage though I have to hold myself back from expressing that sometimes. I chose that title, however, because the garbage you see in this photo has a human face to it and I hope to explore that through this article.

The dumping of raw sewage in our rivers and onto our beaches is a hot topic at the moment. The water companies are blaming it on power outages and whatever they can come up with but we know full well that the overriding issue is profit. Water was privatised in UK in the 1980s and as the primary goal of a private company is to make a profit it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we, the consumers, don’t come top of the list.

The dumping of waste by corporations is faceless. While shareholders and senior management are benefiting from lack of investment and cutting corners, the bottom line is the bottom line. Some of these bosses should probably be facing fines and worse but corporations will be corporations. Our only recourse is government intervention and the simplest route to achieving that is re-nationalisation. But hey, that’s politics. Let’s get back to humans.

Littering and fly tipping can also appear to be faceless, especially when it comes to fly tipping. Similar to corporate dumping, fly tipping is a business where a disreputable business person offers a disposal service but then dumps the goods in someone else’s back yard, pocketing the profits. However its unlikely that the armchair in this picture was deposited in this fashion in which case its likely to be someone very close to the alley. That would mean they’re littering their own back yard.

Prosecution isn’t the answer to fixing the problem of litter on our streets and in our alleys. Its expensive, intensive and doesn’t tackle the root causes. The irony of this scenario is that what’s foremost in the mind of the perpetrator is ‘out of sight out of mind’. None of us want to be surrounded by our waste and the harder it is to get rid of it the more likely we are to cut corners. But then we all know the benefits of clearing up are obvious when we face it in the morning but less urgent when sleep is our priority.

Sitting in our own mess