Waste, Capitalism and Organizing for Climate Justice

While we know that there are more impactful individual climate interventions than recycling, we also know that waste is a ubiquitous challenge in our increasingly single use, consumerist culture. It's also a frustrating daily reality for households that have little space to store it or time to properly dispose of it. 

Capitalizing on this common challenge, our waste workshops in Toronto Community Housing buildings were specifically designed to be fun, fast and accessible. By setting up a waste sorting game during the after-school/after work rush home in the lobby, we were able to engage residents in quick lessons about composting, recycling, hazardous waste and garbage and create a sense of agency and competency around a topic that often feels overwhelming. 

The sorting activity was set up every evening for 5 consecutive days in order to capture as many residents as possible as well as to reinforce and augment learnings each day.  By repeating the sorting activity day after day, families were able to track their learnings and also compete with neighbours. This sense of community connection and camaraderie persisted long after the workshops ended as evidenced by increased compost and recycling volumes. 

An unintended by product of the workshops were deeper conversations about the origins and nature of waste, trends in consumerism, the role of capitalism and colonialism as it relates to waste and more broadly the climate crisis and finally the recognition of the need to act individually but also collectively for systems change.