Virgin Eyes: Like a Rebel

“Look at them! They're digging through the trash!”

Like a rebel?

Yep. Two Georgia Tech grads, digging through the trash. Have we gone mad?!?

Not at all! My friend Lawrence and I chose to make a difference, however small, to impact our surroundings for the better. In digging through the trash, we not only saved two full bags of recyclables from the landfill, we took a stand – setting an example for those around us. We absolutely must have the mindset that we are in no way above digging through the trash to save valuable resources for Mother Nature. If we don't take care of her, who will?

This past weekend, 70,000 people descended upon Zilker Park in Austin, TX to celebrate live music at the Austin City Limits Festival. To responsibly handle the waste from all those people eating and drinking, The Rock & Recycle initiative invited volunteers to help divert waste from the landfills by educating and promoting recycling and composting among ACL festival goers. Anyone interested in helping out could pick up a large, green recycling bag and fill it up with cans, plastic bottles, and water cartons from around the park. In return, you get the satisfaction of helping divert precious resources from the landfill (as well as a very cool, eco-friendly t-shirt … “the only t-shirt you can’t buy” at ACL :)

So, how did Lawrence and I go about filling up our recycling bags? We did it one bag at a time, and took different approaches for each.

Here’s a snapshot of my thought stream for the first bag:

At first, you hesitate. Tentatively walk up to the trashcan. Become super conscious that people all around you are going about their business as usual. This is so wired!! Look down into the bin, see if there’s anything in there. At first, secretly hope there’s nothing there so you can walk away pretending like nothing happened. Digging through the trash?? For the first dive, gingerly pick up the plastic bottle in the trash with two fingers and your pinky popped up, like it’s a foreign object. A couple of bottles and cans later, walk away from the trash can with your recycling bag in one hand and holding your other hand away from your body, making huge efforts to not let it touch any other part of you. It’s so dirty! It’s probably super contaminated!

After a couple trash cans, your perspective does a complete 180. It doesn't feel so weird.

Now, you're saving plastic and cans. Saving them from a nearly permanent burial underneath huge mounds of other stuff with little hope of seeing the light of day again.

Ah ha! There’s a technique to it! Get the surface findings first, be sure to collect the recyclables that you can see on the top of the other trash. Then go around the perimeter and pull up the sides of the trash bag and give it a little shake. Usually you'll strike gold when you do this. It’ll reveal other recyclables underneath the other trash.

The comrade with other trash diggers is great. They’re hard to miss – lugging a huge green bag around with you does make you stand out.

The unexpected amount of gratitude and thank-yous we get is awesome! One guy even did a funny prayer and bow for us (... he may or may not have been slightly intoxicated).

Turning in the full green bag is so satisfying. Just think – otherwise, all that material would have stayed in the trash… on to the landfill and pretty much ending its useful life as material. It may only be one bag at this point, but one bag helps make a really big pile. And, not to mention, everyone that saw us in the process of digging through the trash might just think twice about what they’re throwing away next time.

Now. Where's that Purell? J

For the next bag, we took a totally different approach. Cleaner, too. We walked through the AMD stage crowd while The Skins were playing and picked up cans and plastic bottles from the ground around people’s feet. People would offer their used stuff when the saw us coming with our big green bag. There was some competition, too. Other Rock & Recyclers were out and about in the same area. In the afternoon the program seemed to have gotten popular.

No more digging through the trash can - we have moved up in the world to picking trash up off the ground!! It doesn't seem to take as long. The better spots are where the crowd is tightly packed.... fewer volunteers are hitting up these spots. They’re probably less aggressive and don’t want to push through people, but I say let’s go for it! Toward the end we found an area in the middle of the crowd that no one had been to for a while and before we knew it the bag was full. It felt kind of bad to have to leave stuff laying on the ground, and to turn people away offering us their trash :( Sorry guys......

We will be back!!