food – To Recycle is Not Enough: Political Economies of Waste

Final Blog Post: Personal Reflection on Waste Rebellions (For 4/27)

2025-04-20 / Ryan P Himmelsbach / Uncategorized / food, throwaway culture, waste, waste rebellions / Leave a Comment

Waste rebellions are acts of resistance that make use of the actual reality of discarded items to challenge oppressive systems and question the dominant social order. Understanding that waste streams often reflect and worsen existing social inequalities, these acts turn trash from something we overlook into something that actively creates change. Think about the example […]

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Waste tracking #10

2025-04-13 / Jeilyn E Martinez / Waste tracking / food, waste / Leave a Comment

In this week’s image, I see more food waste than I normally do. There are remnants of leftovers and some kind of takeout container. This makes me think about my other friends who have a specific bin for composting and how their familiar practices vary from mine. I do think that cultural background and family

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Waste Tracking #7

2025-03-24 / Jeilyn E Martinez / Waste tracking / cleaning, food, waste / Leave a Comment

In this week’s waste tracking image, I took a picture from my family’s house again. The main things I see are playa bowl containers and small paper and cardboard items. My household consists of five women, and I feel that we use a lot of paper towels when being in the kitchen. I think many

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Waste Tracking #6

2025-03-16 / Jeilyn E Martinez / Waste tracking / food, ideology / Leave a Comment

For this week, I took a picture of my family’s trash again. In the trash, I noticed a lot of little scraps and different letters from the mail. There’s also takeout and some food packaging that is clearly visible. A big takeaway for this week is the fact that my family still receives letters and

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Waste Tracking #5

2025-03-09 / Jeilyn E Martinez / Waste tracking / food, waste / Leave a Comment

This week I took a picture of my family‘s trashcan since I’ve been home for spring break. Initially, looking at the photo one can see that this is a larger trashcan, and most of the items inside that I could see have plastic parts. I also see multiple different packaging items that have been thrown

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Individual Responsibility

2025-02-20 / Jeff D Jeffries / Care, repair, responsibility / food, history, inequality / Leave a Comment

A personal theory I have about why there is so much waste in the world has to do with human psychology. People love convenience and ease, and the fewer barriers to entry you can provide for people make your product more profitable. For example, the packaging and preservatives in food allow it to last longer

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On Freeganism

2025-02-17 / Kellen M Davis / Food waste, freegans, dumpster diving / food, food waste, freegans / Leave a Comment

I was very intrigued by the freegan approach to environmentalism. Prior to this reading, I had not encountered this school of thought before, yet it makes sense. More mainstream veganism still relies on the capitalist logic of exploitation and domination that Freegans seek to escape. However, is it even possible to exist completely outside the

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Reflection on Freeganism and Dumpster Diving

2025-02-16 / Ryan P Himmelsbach / Food waste, freegans, dumpster diving / dumpster diving, food, food waste, freegans / Leave a Comment

Before this week, I never thought of “freeganism” as a particular ideology or lifestyle with valid reasons behind it; rather, I tended to look at “dumpster diving” as simply a gross and disgusting practice since it involves searching through trash, which can be quite unsanitary and possibly dangerous due to sharp objects, broken glass, and

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Waste Tracking #3

2025-02-16 / Jeilyn E Martinez / Waste tracking / food, foodwaste / Leave a Comment

This weekend I stayed home longer than normal. Sometimes when I stay home it results in my family ordering food. In the photo, you can see how we used the Wingstop bag to hold other items we wanted to throw away. Similarly to what we have been discussing this week, we can take note that

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Compost or Trash? Personal reflection on food waste

2025-02-16 / Lillian S Corbitt / Food waste, freegans, dumpster diving / compost, food, foodwaste / Leave a Comment

Growing up on a small farm, we didn’t waste a lot of food– as we’d cycle it around a lot. If we had food we weren’t going to eat because it was old or because we just weren’t going to finish it, we’d just throw it in the compost or in with the chickens to

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