Rubbish – The Unwanted Occupant of Available Space

The other day I received the strangest phone call. The new occupant of the former space I worked in, telephoned to inform me that I must return and collect my rubbish. The rubbish itself – a bin full of recyclables mind you, had sat on the pavement ready for collection upon my exit. However, due to the unfortunate and petty interference of those who could not mind their own business, the rubbish bin had been shuffled back and forth, into and out of the property boundaries for the subsequent three weeks. Comprehending the unpredictable nature of the situation, I carefully informed the caller that I would not be returning to collect the rubbish, suggesting she hand her recyclables to the nosey interferents who caused this chaos in the first place.

Currently in my own life, I have a rather daunting accumulation of cardboard rubbish down my side passage. Initially stored for ease of re-packing breakable or awkward objects, art projects, and crafting ventures over the years, the sheer volume outweighed any positive of storing it. Before every bin collection, hours are now devoted to cutting this card into smaller pieces so they may be carried away by the local council clean up. As someone who prides themselves on limiting excess rubbish – shopping at the local markets, returning recyclable containers to farmers and merchants, and composting all household scraps, the sudden overwhelming task of rubbish blocking the flow of chi down my side passage is rather extraordinary.

I recall a favourite episode of Monk – a detective suffering from a long list of anxious and nervous disorders, including an extreme fear of germs; whereby Monk must manage his own rubbish while the garbage workers in San Francisco go on strike. Numerous attempts to rid himself of his rubbish include boxing it up and mailing it to his therapist, and discussing an idea with the Mayor to burn down the entire city and re-build it fresh and clean. Eventually he hires a garbage collection truck himself and begins clearing the rubbish one-bag-at-a-time, until sharing his plans to drive the truck off a cliff into the ocean once it is full. The struggle of this character is very real as his free movement around the city becomes impeded by bags of rubbish on every corner of every street. Whole areas are avoided due to the smell emanating from household waste, as rodents converge on mass to rejoice in an endless buffet of free food.

With little imagination, one can picture the backdrop of cities before rubbish collection became a regular occurrence. In instances of developing countries, this landscape of waste displayed for all to see is still a reality of daily life. And also, when natural disasters strike, any concept of a neat clean street becomes overrun with mounds of debris until life returns to normal. Rubbish, therefore, overtakes occupied space by delineating its own form as a dominant intrusion against any man-made, built environment. Reflecting upon this notion, what would an ordinary landscape become if we integrated ‘rubbish’ into the fabric of our external environment? Would it simply be a hazard, an eyesore, or could it depict a story of how occupants use their spatial surrounds?

One innovative way to survive rubbish overtaking occupied space, is through the managed breakdown of waste. During my travels I have discovered large open-space parklands built over the top of landfill, generating welcoming picnic spaces and 360-degree views in its place. Recycled plastics and materials have built structures such as outdoor pavilions, exhibition spaces, and canopies for concerts, simply by reshaping the material to suit a new purpose. Rubbish has also inspired some of the greatest contemporary artists, interrogating our perception of disused objects that no-longer suit their original aesthetic purpose.

All these influential treatments of rubbish suggest there is value in the essential form of disused ‘waste.’ Similar to nature, it springs up anywhere and everywhere, forcing us the face our own existence by the traces that we leave behind. Rubbish is generally likely to outlive our lifetime, so the breakdown of waste must tolerate its spatial impact on future generations through the informed negotiation of maximising its re-use value. As inhabitants of mother earth, we must rely on each other to second guess whether we reduce, reuse, recycle or recover whatever we may need to dispose of. One decision may enable our old toothbrush to become a part of Tim Noble’s and Sue Webster’s next Shadow Sculptures installation, our empty water bottle to rebuild Rising Moon lantern pavilion in Hong Kong, or plastic found floating in the ocean to produce Parley Ocean Plastic, used in the footwear lining of Adidas shoes by Stella McCartney. One thing is for sure, rubbish has never been a more interesting material once infused with the creative blood of resourceful citizens of the modern world.