I knew they were wrong, but I had not heard about #Ophiuchus yet.

What kinds of objects are in your regular waste stream? Are there any you’ve been able to shift away from?

I carry reusable utensils now but employees hand out single use ones with orders as a requirement of their job.
I have shifted away from protein powder and no longer use disposable mouth guards.
The floss containers keep on coming though as the lower waste alternatives are still catching up.

This last autobiographical waste study of the year is a collection of limited use plastics related to the mouth and its health or the health of the body it feeds.

This piece raises a (plexi)glass to created-to-be-single-use resealable bags, more commonly known for helping transport school lunches and keeping leftovers sealed up tight. It is a clean and idealized version of them all piled up as opposed to how they end up piled up in landfills. Shiny ftw.

Many years later, the items are no longer bagged after having survived transport, and I am I have large plastic bags of the smaller resealable ones. I try to come up with ways to reuse them, knowing at the end of the day that they will outlive me, as will the plastic items I was so concerned about.

I own a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff made out of plastic, actually.
Years ago, I did not know how to preserve much of this stuff when I moved. I did not have a lot of money or time. I turned to the classic single-use preservation tool of the resealable plastic bag at an embarrassing scale.

Two things I do know:
The Linn County Landfill is forecast to be at capacity and close eight years earlier than expected
And many plastics are not recycled because it is cheaper to make more instead, and $ is the concern above all.
No cap.

Linn County Landfill article: khak.com/linn-county-...

Even if one tries to decrease their waste output, is it truly possible to completely do so without systemic change at the level of those producing goods? And even where there has been change at that level, is it enough to make a difference?

This series additionally focuses on a similar ongoing point of interest: the question of when to resist situations greater than ourselves that we may disagree with and when to accept the futility of doing so within the structure of the place and time that we currently live.

The constant interplay in life of the things we can and cannot control continues to interest me.

As was the case in previous pieces and in the next ones in the works, ALL CAPS consists of elements that I controlled (the color palette of lids chosen, the size of the constructed plexi box) and an element of randomness: how the objects are arranged within the box.

This piece follows EnCapsulated from the end of last year. It is composed of lids of containers of products that my household purchases regularly. As is very often the case, the containers themselves were made of broadly recyclable plastic numbers (♽1 or ♽2), and the caps were not.

I remember when I was 13 or so my head hurt and one of my parents told me it was probably because I’d been reading too much
So I can relate to this. 💙

Why Mr. Beast 😭

I am not asserting that the current status of things is healthy or ok. I do really wish history was actually taught in schools though. 🙂
On that note, here is a lovely AP article: apnews.com/article/10a3...

I found this source image a lovely reminder of how screen scares are not new and that kids have been looking at some form of them or another for decades. Heck, even when the radio was rolled out there was panic over people’s attention being given to it.

One thing that’s gotten a lot of attention for years is how much time people of all ages look at screens. Children are the demographic that have the most concern raised though.