PHOTO BY KATIE BARNES / MPW.60 PHOTO BY KATIE BARNES / MPW.60
  • The Real Cycle of Trash
  • By KATIE BARNES
  • The 60th Missouri Photo Workshop / St. James, Mo.
  • Every week, residents of almost every community in the United States carry their trash to the curb, and in a matter of hours it disappears.

    St. James is a small but growing community. From 2000 to 2007 its population increased by 11 percent, and its trash production increased by 25 percent. The city of St. James spends $415,000 per year on trash collection, and last year removed 3,539 tons of trash from the city limits. On average, each resident produces roughly 37 pounds of trash per week.

    Landfills are purposely built out of sight, and trash trucks usually are gone by the early morning.

    It's easy to not worry about trash when you can't ever follow its trail.

    A pair of poster eyes peer out from a heap of trash at the Black Oak landfill in Hartville, MO. The trash of St. James travels one hundred miles every day to this landfill.



  • 1 of 12