Trans TrashUnderstanding waste streams

  The MIT Media Lab “The Other Festival” and this activity were cancelled. More info and participants web page. Updated April 8th 2013 We are working on the logistics for the Picturing 2 tons of waste installation. I’ve made an initial draft of how we want to proceed with the rearrangement of waste. The first [...]

Once in a while, the Recycling Department of the Cambridge Department of Public Works organizes a volunteer sorting of waste. A city truck collects a sampling of trash of residential buildings from a specific neighborhood. Trash gets sorted into different categories (cardboard, fibers, commingled, rigid plastics) and other trash to calculate the amount of waste [...]

In the third meeting of the Waste reading group at MIT we will be talking about “waste pickers”. Everyone is welcome! When: Monday, November 26, 9-10:30am, Where: E14-240 (Media Lab, second floor). MIT. Cambridge, MA. USA Moderated by Lucía Fernández + Pablo Rey This is the list of readings: The report of the global meeting of [...]

Tonight an interesting film Garbage Dreams. When: Mon, February 2nd 2012. 6:30–8:30 pm Where: Building 32 Room 123. MIT. Cambridge. MA Organized by: International Development Initiative, IDEAS Global Challenge, Global Poverty Initiative Do not miss it. Garbage Dreams follows 3 teenage boys born into the trash trade and growing up in the world’s largest garbage [...]

Now that Trans Trash is over, we would like to meet and talk informally about waste, rubbish, refuse… issues with all the “trash people” we’ve been meeting last months. It will be happening this Wednesday Nov 16 at 7pm in the bar Miracle of Science. The idea is to get in touch and get to know what trash related issues [...]

Here is the result of the first flight with the kite over the Saugus ash landfill: You can check it on line and download the geo Tiff version-   Jeff Warren managed to stitch all the photos together. We have nearly all the surface of the landfill covered. Thanks to all the people that came [...]

We had a great time last Monday at the ash Saugus landfill, where all of Cambridge’s trash goes after being burnt in the nearside incinerator plant. Jeff did an amazing job organizing all the gear necessary and posting the two flights, the second of which was with an infrared camera, on MapMill.  We didn’t need to use [...]

Randi Mail (Director of Recycling Cambridge Dept of Public Works) sends us this Cambridge map “Donate your Stuff” that will help us complete our on going research map. Help us and post the locations you find interesting. Research map: meipi.org/cambridgewaste Document PDF: Donate your stuff. Cambridge Map.

Image: Grassrootsmapping. Download the illustrated guides. We are organizing with Jeff (Grassrootmapping and PLOTS) and some people from Harvard GSD a visit to the landfill where the ashes of Cambridge waste is deposited. What is seems to be an old quarry: the Landfill Wheelabrator Saugus Inc. Ash Landfill. Cambridge’s Trash is burnt in the waste incinerator plant beside it. [...]