When Trash Becomes Feral: Understanding Human Influence in the Anthropocene Essay

Human Influence and Feral Systems

Long-distance conquest, administration, and investment for economic creation in the last 500 years have all left their mark on the world. The infrastructures of those projects that actively modify the land, water, and air achieve more than their proponents would want to admit. A wide range of living and non-living things can be housed in infrastructures (Sugarman, 2021).

These actions are considered feral in Feral Atlas because they occur within human-sponsored efforts yet are not governed by humans. Daily life is an interspecies effort since every significant event in human history involves more than just humans. Therefore, the situation increases the need for collective action from different stakeholders.

Previous Knowledge About the Object

The Anthropocene has become a symbol of universal loss and dread in modern society. The magnitude of the environmental problem, including phenomena like pandemics, extinctions, hurricanes, and wildfires, can be discouraging and make it hard to understand the point in taking action. Garbage continues to be one of the most significant health hazards for many people. As the global population grows, more trash accumulates and follows a given procedure and processes to reach its final destination. The trash undergoes different paths from when humans dispose of it to reaching its destination.

Reading Analysis

The key events and processes addressed are consuming products and their disposal, which seems to end the long journey. The first event is where purchases made are always discarded, and the motherboards and tires enjoy a second, lucrative life across oceans in impoverished nations and former colonial powers long after they are forgotten. The other event or process is where trash is deconstructed for functional and sellable parts at a specific facility, think Ghana, the Philippines, or China (Sugarman, 2021).

People do not talk about where the rubbish disposed of by humans goes after being discarded inappropriately. The concept that a far-off scavenger may dig through and destroy it is about as likely as a purgatory ship stranded in the South Pacific waiting for someone to start breaking it apart. Use these manufactured field recordings to imagine someone disassembling the smashed phone, even if they appear as small as people and phones.

My chosen feral entity is trash, which has continued to have an environmental effect due to the human population explosion and activities. I continue to ask questions about the journey of trash until it reaches its final destination worldwide. The journey begins after getting rid of the things that are often bought and are at the end of the line for the products. It, therefore, identifies that the trash disposed of goes through a series of processes and stages that enable it to reach the final destination. In the article, the garbage can is identified as an object used as the first step in the global movement of waste from consumables

The chosen entity corresponds to acceleration as the Anthropocene detonator, as it offers a fresh perspective on the accumulation of marine debris dominating the foreground. At the same time, the debris can be above the ocean surface. There is nowhere to go to escape the oppression, as the ecosystem provides a lethal environment hiding behind the heap of trash in plain sight. The disclosure of nowhere characterizes the Great Acceleration to flee, and the landscape exemplifies how pervasive the feeling of confinement and even captivity has become. Dreaming of a good life brought about by the incredible acceleration has led to the reward of toxic waste, thereby introducing the redesign task, rendering a lack of certainty in moving forward.

The Atlas entity additionally corresponds to Dump as the chosen tipper. While trash removal is nothing new, the specific impacts of dumping, as described by Feral Atlas, are a novel and devastating outcome of the Anthropocene. Not only has garbage gotten bigger and heavier, but the human population has ballooned over the past 500 years. In Feral Atlas, DUMP is characterized by the feral repercussions that arise when toxicity and social and environmental prejudice collide, as depicted in the article that raises concern over waste management practices.

The feral qualities identified in my feral object include the trash’s legacy effects. These environmental effects will likely persist long after they have been actively present. Feral Atlas refers to the metabolic and environmental impacts that change organisms and ecosystems through time, known as the Legacy Effects of feral quality. One cause of lasting impacts is POCs or persistent organic pollutants, which tend to have long and devastating environmental effects. In the case of trash and waste disposal, the object has a continuous environmental effect that might pose other environmental changes and modifications.

Things Learned About the Feral Trash Entity

From this feral entity, it can be clearly depicted that the planet’s transformation has resulted from human activities that led to the development of things beyond human control. The new biologies, in which ecology, evolution, and development are generated together, draw attention to biological histories of cross-species interactions, and science studies teach about seeking new forms of imagination beyond culture and nature. What surprised me was that the trash has been transformed and nurtured by humans’ infrastructural projects and has assumed the trajectories to go beyond human control. Industrial waste products damage ecosystems and metabolisms, threatening the planet’s ability to support life. Therefore, waste or trash products must be emphasized in any discussion of the Anthropocene.

Ways Humans and Nonhumans Are Entangled

Given that the current problem contradicts much of what has come, humanists and scientists must establish new ways of working together to make sense of it. No living being, human or otherwise, could endure life’s hardships without the help of the many other beings who are essential to survival. Two separate but related scientific and non-scientific findings have given some approach to traction (Sugarman, 2021).

Negative consequences of human-made infrastructure can be seen in initiatives involving environmental waste like trash, and, therefore, must be considered. In the past 500 years, the planet has been transformed by ecological transformation projects facilitated by long-distance conquest. The global increase in trash begins with rising human consumption beyond what is needed to support infrastructure. Humans and nonhumans are entangled in these ways to help create the natural habitat.

Artistic Components in the Feral Entity

The artistic component present in my feral entity includes images and background audio that portray the trash and sounds made on a dumpsite. The picture in the entity shows the presence of pigs and abandoned vehicles in a dumpsite. It shows how trash affects both animals and the environment. There is also a sound effect in the background that depicts the sounds of salvaged vehicles at a dump site.

These artistic components directly affect how I perceive trash and its impact on human and nonhuman components across the globe. The sound effects and the use of pictures help create a thematic feature that expresses more about the disposal mechanism in the article. This, therefore, emphasizes the damage to human and nonhuman objects.

Feral Entity Connection with Course Reading

The course reading stresses gentrification and environmental justice and uniquely contributes to ongoing arguments about urban sustainability. Instead, it strives to look at the past, the claims, falsehoods, and legislation surrounding the concept (Checker, 2021). Furthermore, it focuses on its mythic interpretations and practical repercussions in everyday contexts. This coursework additionally visualizes assumptions in sustainability as it identifies ways to advocate for sustainable daily activities. However, there needs to be more knowledge regarding applying the concept in the real world, particularly concerning the collection and disposal of rubbish.

The course reading aligns with the article’s primary concerns, which stress the paradox surrounding trash and waste that end up in third-world countries. Despite this apparent contradiction, urban areas are vital to the planet’s continued survival (Checker, 2021). Cities worldwide try to deal with the negative impacts of population increase, pollution, climate change, and garbage disposal.

Urban sustainability has become a rallying cry for those who believe a better future is possible. However, there needs to be more information about the idea’s implementation in the real world, especially regarding garbage collection and disposal questions. The feral entity emphasizes the fundamental assumptions underlying sustainability interpretations while illuminating the various and incongruous ways individuals perceive, adopt, support, and reject sustainability in their day-to-day activities.

Academic Articles About the Feral Entity

The Great Acceleration of contemporary industrial ecological disturbance has resulted in the proliferation of waste and ruin zones worldwide. Bubandt and Tsing (2018) depict that although some locations are horrifyingly hazardous and others are relatively safe, they are all fascinating examples of nonhuman nature. Weird beliefs, like the determination of European and American elites who thought their construction projects would entirely master nature and leave no loose ends, might be revealed if an investigation of the physical records is conducted. By examining deserted locations, there could be a life that survived and thrived on human-made infrastructures, as an investigation into the strange human ability to adapt to biological deprivation and chemical poisoning conditions.

There is a need for a rambling trip into the inanimate world of litter, where every piece of trash has its own story of motion and flow, its river tale. Nordstrom & Somerville (2020) argue that those stories focus on humanity’s dark and twisted sides. Some pieces of trash have their printed writing on them, while other pieces of trash have brand names that betray their international connections and traffic. The email exchanges my Australian friend and I had about the Nepean River and the one I had in Memphis, Tennessee, made me think of the worldwide materiality of litter. Bodies of garbage, rivers, people, and theoretical bodies take physical form through exchanging words, photos, videos, poetry, and letters.

How the Reading Has Explored the Broader Feral Atlas World

The reading in the article has explored the broader Atlas world in the way human beings perceive the ecological world. The Anthropocene affects the entire planet, yet it is not a uniform occurrence. Plantations, suburbia, and plastic ocean gyres are only some examples of emerging new biological zones.

One must pay attention to what is happening in those patches to understand the dynamics that generate the Anthropocene. Even the Feral Atlas acknowledges the value of planetary-scale modeling and big-data analysis. It argues that these approaches are insufficient and that a closer look at those anthropogenic ecological zones is necessary.

References

Bubandt, N., & Tsing, A. (2018). Feral dynamics of post-industrial ruin: An introduction. Journal of Ethnobiology, 38(1), 1-7. Web.

Checker, M. (2021). Environmental justice and gentrification in New York City. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 63(2), 16-27. Web.

Nordstrom, S., & Somerville, M. (2020). Waste as the Artful Excess of Natural Selection. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, 19(3), 6. Web.

Sugarman. (2021). The garbage can is a vessel carrying your spent consumables on the first leg of a global voyage. Web.