When I was younger, everything was thrown away into the same garbage can. As a child, it was almost a game on how much I could shove into the can before being told to take the trash out. For some reason, taking out the garbage was the chore that ranked very low on my list of things to do as a child. It was just above mowing the lawn, but tied with cleaning my room.

Now, decades later, after possibly taking out the trash many thousands of times, my methods have evolved. A second trash can emerged on the scene. It was strange at first, but with age comes respect for life and where we all live together, so I decided to do my part to lower the impact of waste on this planet. I learned to recycle.

I became curious one day, at the same time while driving around looking for things to photograph, and found myself at the dump. This time, I was not dropping off bottles of used film chemicals to the friendly people in white haz-mat bunny suits, I made straight for the recycle yard. There stood a wall of compacted cubes, each nearly the size of my car. Dozens of them, soon to be sent into a room with massive amounts of heat, and melted back to the liquid it once came from to be used again.


hasselblad 500cm : Kodak Portra 400VC