Filed under: Justice + Outreach, Society + Media | Tags: environment, homelessness, National Coalition for the Homeless, recycling, urban plunge
I had to put my “going green” thinking cap to the side this week as I had to focus on another issue that is affecting our world: homelessness. This spring break, instead of going to Cancun or the Bahamas, I participated in an “urban plunge“, in which I spent 48 hours homeless on the streets of Washington, D.C. All I had with me was identification, a sleeping bag, and some extra clothing. I panhandled for money, slept on cardboard and newspaper in front of the Martin Luther King, Jr. library and in front of Macy’s, and was looked down upon for not fitting into the norms of society.
How does homelessness connect to the environment? Well one example is that when I was sleeping on the streets, we had to dig through dumpsters to find cardboard and had to use newspaper too as a ‘mattress’. When we woke up in the morning, we stuck all of the cardboard and all of the newspaper in the garbage cans. I remember, with 3 hours of sleep on me, the word “RECYCLING” coming to my mind and the fact that there was no way to recycle any of what we had just used. As we were about to walk away from the garbage, a huge gust of wind came and blew all the newspaper out of the garbage and it all blew into the streets. Nobody attempted to catch the newspaper, including myself.
After glancing over the amount of food various people eat, it really got me thinking about the amount of waste that is consumed in the world. Wealthy families in Japan and the United States spend hundreds of dollars on food a week (which means that more waste is produced through packaging, etc.) as opposed to some countries like Egypt and Ecuador who are spending less than one hundred dollars a week on food. Are these families that are eating less helping the environment?
Does that mean that the homeless are helping the environment? When I panhandled, I picked out a cup from the garbage and used it to collect change. I reused newspaper and cardboard as a mattress. I used cardboard I found on the ground to make a sign about being hungry and needing money for food. So even though the homeless are reusing things that those who have money used, does that help the environment?
Environmentalism and homelessness are both serious issues that our world is facing today. I guess my question is…how much is homelessness impacting our environment and how are they even connected? It makes me exhausted just thinking about it.
-Dena Hart
For more information about the urban plunge, watch this video:
