Today, or rather, last weekend, Hartford smelled like trash.
You can’t smell that through this photo. This looks like everything is just fine.
This was taken during the food truck festival, days before the trash incinerator was officially closed. In recent years there have been days when the fumes from piled up, rotting garbage reached Asylum Hill.
The coverage leading up to and announcing the end of the trash incinerator always rubbed me the wrong way. There was so much “towns need to think about where their trash will go,” a sentiment that makes me want to scream. What gross privilege to not have had to think about it until the city that had conveniently been dumped on and in was no longer an option. Just wheel it to the curb and let it be someone else’s problem. Out of smell, out of mind.
We get lots of education about recycling, but reducing waste should be (and should have been) the focus. Food waste is the big one, but all waste. Look at the sheer amount of bulky waste lining curbs.
I know it’s an anti-capitalist message, asking people to rethink how much stuff to buy, but we shouldn’t be making our waste everyone else’s problem.