Our shit has to go somewhere

A recent New York Times article called our city "the Silicon Valley of Recycling". Apparently our garbage monopoly, the creatively named Recology, is a tourist attraction for waste disposal authorities from all over the world.

“It’s like a modern art installation,” marveled Mauro Battocchi, the Italian consul general here. “So fabulous — the people and machines and objects of our lives all working together.”

Foreign officials and others come here to pick up tips on how to handle their own mushrooming piles of garbage back home. ... One group included Bruno Hug de Larauze, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Brittany, France, who likens Recology to an Uber or Airbnb for waste that shows how technology and capitalism can change the world. Plus, the place is just impressive, Mr. de Larauze said.

“It was the wow effect. It was incredible,” he said of his first visit (he’s been twice), and added with a laugh, “It smelled, let me be frank.”

The article makes no mention of another component part of our waste disposal system: the trashpickers who wander the streets, searching for any bit of metal or other goods that can be sold for pennies to commercial recycling operations.

Friends in San Francisco, Marin, and Oakland can find out a great deal more about the lives of these human cogs in the garbage world at one of these showings. If you can, don't miss this sensitive film.

Ticket links here.