ILLUSTRATIONS BY LISA HANAWALT
Humans create an atrocious amount of waste. According to a 2008 report by the EPA, every American produces about five pounds of garbage a day. That’s right, on average each one of us fucking slobs throws away more than 1,800 pounds of crap every year, which is then collected by garbagemen, compacted in the back of smelly trucks, and left to rot in some giant pile of putrescence on the edge of town. But what about the stuff that’s too dangerous, illegal, or logistically impossible to be thrown away like normal trash? We conducted some research and spoke with disposers of various bric-a-brac to find out.
AMPUTATED APPENDAGES
After a body part is sawed off a human being, lab technicians analyze it to make sure there was a legitimate reason for its removal and to cover doctors’ asses from malpractice suits. Then the hunk of meat gets bagged up, dropped in a biohazard bin, and officially becomes medical waste (a category that includes HIV-infected blood, scalpels, diapers soaked in infectious urine, and placentas). The next step is sterilization, which happens inside a special pressurized oven or bleach bath. In New York, whatever’s left is hauled to a landfill or incinerated. Anyone caught casually throwing a piece of a person into a dumpster is subject to a $2,500 fine, so either way, it costs you an arm and a leg.
OLD MONEY
Local banks send torn and worn bills to the Federal Reserve, where they are shredded. Most of the cash shreds are hauled to the dump, but some are sold to tourists. Two things are very sad about this situation: 1) people take time out of their lives to tour the headquarters of the institution that dictates the arbitrary value of green paper, and 2) they are able to purchase scraps of said paper in bags that are printed with the words “Real Money.”
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