Routine Is Garbage

The other night I went to hear a jazz band play. I was tired and my body didn’t want to go, but I knew I needed it. As always, the bright blare of the horns, the grounding heartbeat of the bass and mischief of the rhythm section, the ever-thrilling muted trumpet—just the unapologetic improvisational human noise of it all—uplifted me. Leaving the show, I felt more energized than I had any business feeling on a weeknight. 

Art can do that. By some essential alchemy, art creates new things out of old human feelings. And if art is powerful in musical form, then live music can work actual magic. It has something to do with Louis Armstrong’s advice to “never play a thing the same way twice.” Just about anything that’s repeated too often will eventually tire me, but I will never get tired of hearing “My Blue Heaven” because jazz makes it new. 

You don’t have to like jazz to like novelty. Although both are American, the latter is also probably universal. 

Which brings me to garbage. 

If you’re like me and you think repetition is boring, then you too might have a garbage problem. Or, as in my case, a piles problem. I don’t like doing the same thing every day, and even if I did, municipal waste services are always changing the plan. I find myself constantly asking, what are we supposed to do with all the leftovers of daily life? 

Civilization has always had trouble with trash. In medieval days people could throw their junk right into the street. Apparently that was socially acceptable, or necessary, or both. (Before we judge, I think we should remind ourselves of problems we have yet to sort out, like the apparent irreversibility of Daylight Savings, or extracting shampoo from the bottom of the bottle. Let us not point the finger of condemnation at medieval garbage-chuckers until we can stop polluting our waterways and double-bagging plastic milk jugs at grocery checkouts.)

For some people, garbage is straightforward. Just throw everything in one big bag, tie it closed and walk it to a bin in the alley. Never see or smell or hear from it again, the end. We are intensely jealous of these people. 

For others garbage is gold, thematically speaking. It is influencer-level fodder for articles, books, and blogs that try to outdo each other for positive impact. You can fit your annual household waste into a shoebox? I can fit mine into a thimble.

I applaud the aspirational spirit of the latter, obviously. The Pursuit of Less (capital P, capital L) is the quest of my middle age. At the same time, I agree with you: the person who can fit their garbage into a thimble is clearly a quitter. Why the thimble? You’re so close! Just swallow it!

For most of us, garbage is work. Lots of rinsing and sorting and, for me, piling. Garbage, how do I pile thee? Let me count the ways: 

• Recyclables: Cleaned and blue-binned. Sprinkled with fairy dust and sent trustingly into the world, like letters to Santa.

• The Hush Pile: Don’t open the lid and maybe your children will never ask you what happened to the popsicle-stick boat that failed to float. 

• Mystery plastic: This is the pile where you put the “others.” You know the ones. Their resin ID code (the number inside the chasing arrows) will be the only one not mentioned in your area’s recycling plan. Only a few powerful people hold the secret to unlock this mystery, and they’re not telling. 

• Tinfoil scraps: These you will hoard until they form a big enough ball of aluminum to recycle in the blue bin. 

• Disposable cutlery, beverage lids, produce bags: These are the fruit flies of garbage. No matter how you try to alter conditions, they’ll turn up. You know various remedies but they all require extra steps, usually shipping or driving. Meanwhile, they accumulate in your kitchen or car.

In the age of information, “out of sight, out of mind” doesn’t free us from the bondage of garbage. It never actually did. Knowing this, innovators have been busy tangling with the problem and will continue to do so. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” as my own mother delighted in repeating whenever I told her I needed something new. 

Fortunately, more ways to reduce and reuse are popping up all over. Here are just a few I’ve found close to home:

1. “Fix-it Day.” Just yesterday I got a mailer from the city announcing an event where people can bring small broken appliances to volunteers for repair. Top that!
2. Refill Stations. Just a bikeshare or scooter’s distance from my house are at least two thriving businesses where customers can bring their own containers to replenish household products. Maybe there is something similar near you. 
3. Fresh roasted coffee, package-free. I can walk to a local coffee roaster who will reward me for bringing my own cup and/or my own container for beans. 

When I need a relaxing exercise to fall asleep, I like to visualize the crop of new, sustainable business models. I tried it after the jazz show, but memories of the music kept me awake and humming long after my usual bedtime. Yet strangely I woke up rested, with a rush of spontaneous energy that stayed with me all day. 

Was it sugar, maybe? That day I was like Scrooge waking on Christmas morning, buying up all the pastry in our bakery and skipping around town with that pink box of joy, making deliveries. Very possibly it was residual excitement from my son’s earlier baseball game. The highs, the lows, the agony and ecstasy. The walk-up songs! The unique at-bat rituals. (Excuse me while I kiss the sky.) Then again, it could have been the ever-fresh surprise of March and April. You can have every weather app on the market and still, you will never, ever know what the sky is up to. 

Spring is marvelous, the world is wonderful, and my recent energy comes from all of those things, plus jazz, plus the joy I take in knowing that as long as creative, caring people keep innovating, “Things Are Getting Better,” all the time.
 
Think about this: if Paul Simon is correct, and there are 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, then surely there are ways to brush your teeth without using toothpaste from a tube. I struck out with charcoal tabs, but I’m trying again with peppermint. I’ll let you know how that goes. Meanwhile I leave you with a challenge to try something new, vis-a-vis refuse. I’d love to hear some unique or efficient, or even crazy ideas. You know . . . whatever gets you excited about trash.