Tracking Trash in the SENSEable City

The Place: MIT, Cambridge MA
The Day: Today

Some people associate with trash wherever they go. But where does all that trash go? I decided to find out. I’m Joe Tuesday, I’m a resource cop. Been following Melissa McGinnis as she associates with trash everywhere she goes. Real trash I mean, coffee cups, wrappers, bottles, cans, old appliances and other junk. I decided to tail Melissa as she headed for the ivory towers of MIT
in Cambridge MA, on the upscale shores of the Charles River.

I found her conspiring with a clean cut kid named Jennifer who works at the lab. And Jennifer was spilling the beans about trash. Seems we know a lot about where our stuff comes from - supply chains and product life cycle and a lot of fancy talk that a flea bitten flatfoot like me finds hard to follow. We know how the products we use get to us. But what’s next? But the real question that Jennifer and her gang wanted to know is: Where does all the stuff go when we’re done with it? Can we follow the “de-supply” chain as shadowy characters in some MRF take stuff apart, recycle it, burn it or just give it a quick burial in some anonymous landfill?

Jennifer had done a lot of my work for me. She was already working to put together a list of suspects to follow. The usual trash - coffee cups, recyclable, the odd refrigerator or small appliance. Like me and millions of others, she wanted to know if it ended up in the landfill, if recyclables really get recycled,
or if stuff gets shipped to foreign operatives and offshore operations in other countries.

Working on a budget, they decide to put a tag on trash. A diabolical little device called a cell phone. This addictive little baby sends a text message every five minutes or so, 24/7. Kind of like my teenage daughter. They encase this thing in foam so it won’t get compacted and will stick with the trash it’s tailing. I wonder if I cold encase my daughter’s iPhone in foam - might save me some money.
Anyway, the gang at MIT got Waste Management in Seattle to play along with their little scheme. Now they’ve got hundreds of these tags out there sending beck valuable tips on where your trash is. They’re gonna start programs in NYC and London too, where some real big trash action is. We’re gonna stay on this story like a politician on a big donor, so keep your peepers right here, kid. We’ll give you the hot tips and the real down low info as soon as we get it in our hot little hands. Until then this is Joe Tuesday saying,” Keep your trash off the streets, and get it back to work”!

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