PREMIUM Garbage

Abstract

Each year the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) releases the Advancing Sustainable Materials Management: Facts and Figures Sheet. Within this document, the EPA records Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generation, recycling, composting, combustion with energy recovery and landfilling. According to this document, the average American produces approximately 4.4 pounds of trash every day, substantially greater than the global average of 2.6 pounds. The population of the United States is nearly 324 million people, that amounts to over 700,000 tons of garbage produced daily, enough to fill around 60,000 garbage trucks. The United States contributes the most amount of waste in the world, but this is not a one nation problem. In 2012 the world generated 2.6 trillion pounds of garbage, the weight of about 7,000 Empire State Buildings. This document provides written support for the thesis exhibition, PREMIUM Garbage. The body of work that was produced for the thesis exhibition provides a visual representation of human waste culture, including the harmful production of the wasteful products like single-use plastics and other disposable materials. The work utilizes these materials as visual elements in the exhibition, artistically representing our waste culture predicament. The work is expressing developing ideas regarding personal understandings of our massive waste problem and the Anthropocene. PREMIUM Garbage is intended to share the harsh reality of human waste culture as well as educate and inform an audience about the problem that has become our most significant legacy: our trash.