What does the trash talk about?
We are celebrating the tenth anniversary of the publication of the Encyclical “Laudato Si”. It was on the Solemnity of Pentecost in 2015 that Pope Francis, among many other new developments, called on human beings to awaken to an “ integral ecology ” combined with the imperative need to “ protect our common home ”, emphasizing the principle that everything is interconnected and that our relationship with God is also established through our relationship with the Earth. Let this chronicle serve as a reminder of that papal letter that awakened humanity. Has it really awakened?
We all know this and have heard it often. Laudato Si’ makes us see how “ concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and inner peace are inseparable .” We lack a sense of responsibility and a practical ethics of action in the vain illusion that ecological problems can be resolved in the arenas of political decisions – international, national or local – even though we can read in the heart of the encyclical paragraphs that challenge us to think about our “ ecology of daily life ” expressed “ in our bedrooms, in our homes, in our workplaces and in our neighbourhoods ”. It is there that much can happen, where much happens and where much can contribute to an “ integral ecology lived with joy and authenticity ”.
I topped this article with the question “What is the trash talking about?”. You can see why.
Yes, garbage speaks. Garbage says a lot. It is always talking, especially in these times. And it speaks, sometimes, in such a way that, if we heard its sobs of life, it would rob us of sleep and peace. Yes, garbage speaks by sobbing human sobs. These sobs are often all too human. If they are! But, distracted from life, we become deaf to its voice.
In the twenty-first paragraph of “Laudato Si’” we read: “ The Earth, our home, seems to be turning into an immense garbage dump .” Pope Francis lists a wide variety of waste, including hazardous waste, medical waste, electronic and industrial waste, and highly toxic and radioactive waste. And we could sadly add the waste of war. But let us focus on household waste. It is this waste that speaks most about us and the lives we lead in our daily lives.
Yes, garbage speaks and even uses mathematical language. And it tells us about the amount of tons that are produced in the world's big cities. And it tells us about the percentage of garbage that each citizen of the world, or of a country or a city, takes in. The world's garbage becomes a world of garbage. And the world of garbage is a library that needs to be read and treated.
Trash produced in our homes and trash produced on our streets. Trash produced on our streets and trash produced in our neighborhood. Trash produced in our neighborhood and trash produced in our city. Trash produced in our city and trash produced in our country. Trash produced in our country and trash produced in the neighboring country. Trash produced in the neighboring country and trash produced on the European continent. Trash produced on the European continent and trash produced on other continents. And all over the Earth and in the universe beyond. With the trash from here and the trash from there, the trash of the world is transformed into a world of trash. And the world of trash is out there, on the earth, in the rivers and in the seas. And in space. Trash that we close our eyes to, only opening when a problem arises with the urban sanitation workers and the trash ends up on our street or at our doorstep.
Humans that we are, we are waste producers. It is important to learn how to manage it.
As humans, from a civilization that has been going on for millennia, we are a consumer society and a wasteful society, but also a society of imbalances that leaves traces scattered throughout the corners of the planet that any one of us can be an archaeologist, observing, describing, interpreting and inferring from these clues that are the waste we produce. Inferring and changing habits, small or large habits, that we live every day.
In times past, not yet the era of current consumerism, in the village where I was born, as probably in most villages at the time, there were not even bins for rubbish. Everything was used. Everything was integrated into the life cycle. Except for a few intractable leftovers, all rubbish entered the life cycle. The daily household rubbish, if it was not for the chickens, was for the pigs or cattle. And even the bones and spines had a specific destination. The former were awaited to satisfy the appetites of the dogs, either from the house or from a neighbour, and the spines were the delicacy awaited by the cats. If they were not good for the domestic animals, they were used to ferment the straw that would feed the home gardens or the fields of summer potatoes and winter turnips of the subsistence agriculture of Beira, which was also the place where the rye crops were baked in the communal oven after being religiously prepared at home by the delicate hands of the wife and mother.
It was when I was still very young, one of the first times I spent the night in Lisbon, that I saw for the first time a poor man, in the early hours of the morning, taking out of the garbage container something he thought might be useful to him. Everything seemed to be done to the sound of the unnerving noise of a tram that, in the meantime, had woken me from my sleep and called me to the window. He rummaged and rummaged, and every now and then he took out a bag, a box or a package. He cautiously opened it and examined it. Then he put it away or put it back in the container. My youth was then even more wounded by my country. And the wound has been bleeding to this day. From the window on the second floor I read the garbage on that street. And down below a poor man did his, without imagining that anyone was watching him. With the greatest silence possible I closed the window. I felt like a kind of spy on the behavior of a poor person, seen from the height of a building covered in morning shade that still lacked direct sunlight. I sat up in bed thinking about the injustices of the human world and the meaning of garbage. Today I would think more about the meaning of our garbage dumps visited by children and mothers looking for some comfort in life, as the media has sometimes shown us. Far away or there, very close, in a corner of the village.
Every now and then, we wake up to the reality of the waste we produce. All it takes is for us to come across a strike by the “Urban Hygiene Workers”. We then become very upset. With the workers or with the municipal services, but we do not always take the opportunity to read the messages about the accumulated waste.
There is much to discover about everything that is found beyond rubbish: data, phenomena, and the states of the citizens who emit it, who are the producers of rubbish. Rubbish says a lot about the civic-mindedness of citizens: the production of rubbish, the treatment we give it and the content with which we fill the bins in the streets, neighbourhoods and cities. Each bin is a portrait of the social life of those who live there and of the civic-mindedness of the citizen. There is no need to say anything else or mention the person who parks their car, opens the door and dumps the cigarette butts they have filled the ashtray with into the street.
We are at the doorstep of rivers and the ocean. Holidays in calm waters or rough waters, salt water or fresh water. Holidays for those who can enjoy them. And the beaches are already being prepared so that holidaymakers can keep the sands of the sea or river clean. But there is always trash that prefers to fall asleep to the sound of the waves.
What does garbage talk about? Garbage talks. If we know how to listen to it, garbage is like the prophets. It denounces and announces. It denounces what is and announces what should be. For those who know how to listen to it. The garbage of many, our garbage, if it speaks of a consumer society, also denounces a society of waste, injustice, misery and hunger.
What does garbage talk about, anyway? Yesterday was Children's Day. Children and future generations have the right to inherit a healthy Earth.
Guarda , June 2, 2025
Antonio Salvado Morgado
Jornal A Guarda
