Pacific Dump - #PlanetOrPlastic

Pacific Dump

PACIFIC DUMP

The place smells hideous. So bad I can barely see straight. As a man sifts through my paperwork, I wonder how he does it––how he sits there at his desk all day. Is it possible to get used to a smell like this? To block it out of your head?

I remember when this shack was a diner. When I was younger we used to go a lot. They had the best onion rings. At least, I used to think so. It's hard to recall their taste.

The man leans into his cushion. The corner booth. If I were to choose a desk here, I'd pick this one too. No windows. I imagine you can trick yourself in this booth...that if you sit long enough and forget the scent, you can make yourself believe you're a customer waiting on a malt, and things are how they were.

"You want to sort?" he asks.

Well, no. Does anyone want to? But I need the money, so I nod.

"Good. You can start today."

The man leads me to the kitchen. The countertops are covered in various tool and garments. I'm handed a large stack of everything and ordered to change in the storeroom. When I emerge, I look like a chemist, what with the whole hazmat-suit situation. I'd say the outfit is ridiculous, but it's necessary. There is far too much in the Pacific Dump that I don't want coming into contact with me.

Once I'm briefed on which bag holds what, I'm lead to my clean-up area, which is a pile so big, three other sorters work on different ends of it. The work, while tedious, is methodical: Glass in the green bag. Plastic in the blue bag. Food in the white bag. The others around me have bags of different colors, for different waste.

We do our work quietly––perhaps somberly. The fact that we even have to be here, picking up trash, is a product of our mistakes.

The oceans have been gone for years now. Over time it had become quite the dump, and with so many species going extinct, someone decided it'd be best to put the rest out of their misery and drain the oceans fully. So they did. What's left of the oceans is stored in various water towers all across the globe, waiting to be desalinized for drinking.

The Pacific Dump is by far one of the most crowded. That's why so many of us are working––so we can make space for more trash. That's the cycle: We pick up trash, move it somewhere else, refill the dump, and pick it up again.

Though it feels like forever, at some point my shift ends. By then my arms hurt from holding bags, and my back aches from bending over. If I wasn't so short on money, I'd quit. But I can't. This is a reliable job. So long as there's waste, there are sorters.

The cycle goes on.