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Chapter 8
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Garbology, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Hidden Costs of Waste
Consumerism vs. Conservation
The Power of Individuals
Money and Politics
Summary
Analysis
In 2011 Niki Ulehla was the artist-in-residence at a San Francisco garbage dump, working on trash to create scenes from Dante’s Inferno. The artist program at the dump, run by Deborah Munk, started in 1990 as a novelty but quickly became popular and was widely copied. The timing ended up being perfect, since the year before, California had passed a law mandating that local governments divert half of their waste from landfills. This led to increased popularity in the idea of recycling, which the artist-in-residence programs helped promote.
The whole section about the artist-in-residence program at the San Francisco dump shows that, when given the opportunity, people can actually enjoy learning more about garbage. The point is not literally to solve the trash crisis by turning it into art but instead to get people to rethink waste in general by viewing it in an unfamiliar setting.
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In 2011, a Bay Area waste company called Recology (which supports the artist-in-residence program) had contracts for recycling resources and other waste services in 50 communities across the West Coast. It was one of the 10 largest employee-owned companies in the country and also one of the country’s biggest organic composters (boosted by San Francisco’s decision to accept compost at curbside bins).
The story of Recology complicates the story of the artist-in-residence program. While in some ways the company made a positive impact on the city of San Francisco, in other ways, its need to make a profit restricted what it could do to help the garbage crisis.
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For Recology, recycling is profitable, and at one point, the company got a court injunction to stop independent recyclers from scavenging bins before Recology could pick them up. Recology’s ability to pay for itself was important not only for the company but for the green image of San Francisco itself. In 2010, San Francisco claimed to divert 77 percent of trash from landfills through recycling and composting programs like Recology’s. The city planned for zero waste to landfills by 2020.
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Deborah Munk’s job, which included directing the San Francisco dump artist-in-residence program, was about changing how people thought about waste. Her previous career was as a high-end clothing buyer, where she saw firsthand the consequences of consumer culture. She got involved with the residence program after she had a chance meeting with a former professor who ran it.
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As the artist-in-residence program matured, it expanded out to different kinds of artists, including painters, videographers, musicians, and even puppeteers. New artists often fear that they’ll never find the materials they need at the dump, but they always seem to find a way. Their work shows that plenty of waste isn’t as trashy or useless as it seems.
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