Ch.12

In chapter 12, Humes wrote about a family who are name the Johnsons who decided to cut down on holding a lot of stuff. Humes explains their whole life story about how they first had the American dream until they move into an apartment that made the Johnsons realize how they waste and hold so much through out their years. Then Humes mentions that as Béa the mother who becomes the commander of the household decisions,  Béa ends up living with less and makes new strategies on making products for her family. Humes talks about how Béa has limits on grocery shopping, clothes and toys for the kids. Béa explains that people would think that she must of take a lot of time to manage doing this less waste life style but Béa actually has more time than most people. It's annoying when Humes explains about the people would criticize and put rude comments about the Johnsons way of living was delusional. It's interesting how Béa brought up about the American Dream is actually different and that the real meaning to have an American dream is to have financial freedom. Although I believe this life style actually sounds fun to try so people should realize about themselves what they're trying to criticize because the Johnsons are actually helping to waste less and giving tips to others who want to follow.

Ch.11

In Chapter 11, Humes starts off by describing a city that is green, zero emissions, allow bikes to cut in front of cars and ect. This city is at Portland Oregon who even has mayor Sam Adams, who is against waste. It's surprising how Humes mentions about the mayor in Portland would sing on a radio about bringing your own bag as a reminder for Portlanders to bring their reusable shopping bags. Humes catch my attention when he brought up about the test facility in Portland are studying a plasma gasification that can vaporize garbage completely without any trace of ashes. Humes also explain another city Denmark, that has a strategy to build trash burners that can generate power plants for homes that is connected with the plant by ground pipes. It's interesting how Humes said about Denmark's generating plants can help generate over fifty thousand homes for electric and 120,000 or more for heat. Hopefully America would wake up and build plants that can at least produce something for the community and especially ban plastic bags.

Ch10

In chapter 10, a guy name Andy Keller decided to create a bag that can change the economy. He was tired of using grocery bag because it contains a sort of problem. When he discover the amount of plastic bags every where in the dump. He realize he wanted to create a bag that can ban plastic in the future. He wanted a bag that can be folded into a pocket size so people won't get annoyed or forget about it. He called it the Chico Bag that was slowly grew business.  Afterwards, he created a villain for plastic and created a costume that he name The Bag Monster. This help out expand the business and visit it to many schools that kept inviting the Bag Monster. Which this created other plastic bag company mad and try to sue him and take him down. Another company that was being sue by the Lanham Act was the TerraCycle. They were being sue by the Miracle-Gro because of copying of the  company's yellow and green boxes which was really stupid to sue. The Miracle-Gro won and TerraCycle agree to take down their phrase, website, and claiming. This make me realize that the company would do anything to take down small company.

Ch9

In this chapter it talks about how artist can use trash to make art. One of the artist was Niki Uleha. Uleha would go down at the Public Disposal Area to search for parts to create her art. One art that they can't figure was dancing. What surprise me is that the city would put a fine so it can stop the people from stealing the recycle bins from the Recology.  Since that's the way to pay for itself and by stealing recycling from Recology, they stolen an estimate of $2 million to $5 million annually. It's also surprising how the materials that the artist needs is always going to show up at the garbage. So many useful paint gets thrown out that they even offer free paint for locals to pick up because they have plenty enough for artists. It's great that Niki Ulehla uses her puppets to inform the school kids about our trash. Hopefully this can make people relize their throwing good useful products.

The Incinerator as Eye Candy Response

In the article, Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote that we don't longer need "pollution control" since incinerators now contain a series of filters and scrubbers that remove almost all of the offending pollution, and older incinerators that had been retrofitted with the new devices. Rosenthal also said that these incinerators often create heat as well as electricity, sending it in the form of hot water into local areas near it which is really great. It works with the connected pipes that is underneath the surface. Her question "How would you feel about having one of these state-of-the-art plants — lovely or unlovely — in your town, in your neighborhood?" I would say no because if anything goes wrong with the incinerators it will also effect us since its connected to our home. It would be great to have on but it can be quite dangerous for you and the family because it happen anytime.

Ch.8

In this chapter Humes explains the ideas and accomplishments that Bill Rathje made on his life time goal. Well Rathje is the world's first garbologist and had the idea of the Garbage Project. Rathje explain that the Garbage Project is a group of students who do deep analysis of modern waste and do research  with each community's trash. It's surprising that by analyzing people's trash the Garbage Project can predict their behavior. It's weird how the Garbage Project also develop a formula from trash to calculate the relative income and demographics. I also like how they discover the type consumption of different alcohol in each areas which are low-income, middle-income, and upper-income. Although as I read not a lot of people knew about Bill Rathje until Sheli Smith expand his ideas and successfully became viral. But Rathje ideas made it possible and as Smith said " It give us hope for the future."

Ch.7

In chapter 7, Humes discuss about a certain scientist name Sterling who had a vision on smart trash. I think it's really cool about your own trash being aware of themselves. Humes also mentions a group name SENSEable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute that also were interest with Sterlings vision. I was amazed that the Institute decided to use tracking device to notify where our trash goes. Its interesting that people volunteer and use their own regular trash to use as trackers. By using these devices another idea shock me as Humes talks about is the path of our trash that our found revealed a lie to those old assumptions of recycling. Although, groups like these should happen more often since it gets people interested as they understand. This can give us a step forward as we get more peoples attention.