Luces Encendidas #5: Desechables/Throwaways
Nothing scars over a bleeding heart like the peculiar needs of a mass-care situation. The exigencies of speed, convenience, safety, space, and turnover for food and hygiene require just a massive flow of single-use items, from gloves to clamshells to water bottles. It very quickly becomes part of the background radiation of the experience: On Day 1, my fellow new arrivals and I made surprised comments on the lack of visible recycling bins in our hotel.* Two weeks in, we’re all chucking Dasani bottles in the trash a few times a day.
*[That is, of course, more a Texas Thing than anything attributable to the shelter’s operations, but it at least gives you a level-set of where we’re coming from.]
Water is by far the most visible source of garbage here. Even if there were potable running water in the shelter,** the prospect of sourcing and cleaning (and inevitably replacing) reusable cups for the 2,000 kids*** and various staff members would require dedicated coordination. As it is, we have a constant stream of pallets of water bottles being brought in, ripped open, passed around, drunk, and discarded. (Because the indoor bathrooms aren’t built for thousands of people to use for their daily hygiene, a sizable proportion of the kids grab a bottle of water to go outside and brush their teeth with each morning.) I do not know the actual figures (nor do I have any idea if it’s all bought or donated) but it would not surprise me in the least to hear that this facility goes through 10,000 bottles of water a day. (Interesting research question: Would the Spurs’ arena next door move more or fewer bottles on any given game day. I don’t know!)
**[The water here simply isn’t good for drinking, and not just in the shelter. I gave up on drinking from the tap in my hotel after a couple of days since I developed a sore throat from it that lasted until I stopped. (Pro tip: the fitness center is usually a good place to refill reusable bottles since the water there is always filtered.)]
***[I’ve been puzzling over how best to refer to the young people we’re caring for here. Everyone generally says “the kids” (or “muchachos” when they’re being addressed directly during our morning announcements). The daily bulletin in the Command Center (where I go solely to get hot water for my tea) always reports “UCs,” i.e., unaccompanied children. But there’s no consensus on a descriptor, like “residents” or “asylum-seekers” or “guests,” and it seems like a real gap in the conversation.]
The clamshells are also a thing of wonder. All the meals are prepared in another facility since the kitchen in this building is only equipped for heat-and-serve snacks. (Remember, it’s just an expo center.) These meals are all pre-portioned into plastic clamshells, piled onto serving trays, and wheeled into the kitchen in 20 portable warming ovens for us# to unload and serve everyone, along with disposable sporks, condiments, and drinks, three times a day. Because we’re remaining COVID conscious, the cavernous cafeteria only has 450 seats; the pods (those groups of 20–30 kids) line up, get meals, are escorted to a section of the cafeteria, and given 15 minutes to eat, so the tables can then be turned over for the next pods to eat at. (It has to be that fast to get everyone served in under two hours.) Two thousands clamshells (plus single-serving juice bottles, milk half-pints, etc., go right into the trash.
#[I spent a couple of days this week working in the cafeteria and personally being the one to unload the trays, which means repeatedly reaching deep into a hot oven to carefully balance a tray with up to 18 clamshells stacked on it, while being very careful to not singe my arms in the process. In conclusion, pay every food service worker more money than they ask for. It’s not enough.]
Then of course there are all the hygienic disposables: gloves, masks, the various items the on-site medical clinics (yes, plural) use to sanitize and treat the kids, along with COVID tests for everyone (every three days!). Nothing surprising there.
I found myself trying to catalog all this not for any moral approbation ##— emergency and transitional services generate waste; it’s just a fact of this world — but to marvel at the logistics required for it all. In one sense, this is structurally a very “green” enterprise: This shelter didn’t require any new construction (which is famously energy-intensive) but was able to take advantage of a malleable space that already existed and was not in use. This facility can (fingers crossed) soon be “reset” for whatever next need comes along. It’s just all the ancillary needs, the items at the personal scale, that require so much coordination and consumption.
##[I didn’t have the skill or opportunity to incorporate it more deftly, but John Oliver’s recent show on plastic recycling campaigns as largely feel-good bullshit has been on my mind a fair amount lately.]
