Reflections on Elmhurst's Annual "Spring Clean-Up"

Dear Editor,

I lived out of state the past few years and returned home during Elmhurst’s official trash holiday known officially as the annual “Spring Clean-Up” and colloquially as “Throw All Your Garbage out Day.”  I forgot about this yearly garbage bonanza that allows Elmhurst residents to place at the curb all their unwanted material possessions and rubbish. 

The event normally kicks off when one person in the neighborhood actually reads the Elmhurst bulletins and remembers which day it’s on and all the other neighbors instinctively follow suit.  Material goods are discarded at the curb, collected first by metal recyclers, passing motorists or nearby homeowners.  These people are rudely called “garbage pickers” and gawked at by some, revealing the bitter class distinction unconsciously employed by people who would rather their unwanted goods end up in a landfill then fall into anyone else’s possession.

The “garbage” left out by the curb included and assortment of superfluous material possessions, including luggage, sofas, children’s toys, kitchenware, gardening tools, televisions, computers, bicycles, sporting equipment, clothing, plastic bins, and lumber, among other things.  A question comes to mind, namely, were all the local donation centers closed?  More likely, the idea never formed into the collective mind to consider the actual value of any of these items being willfully discarded.

Of course, people did take advantage of “Spring Clean-Up” and threw out garbage or material possessions that did not work.  Some people undoubtedly used this city service to avoid costly trash stickers.  When the garbage men showed up, most were undoubtedly quite happy when their clutter went packing.

A quick observation I made suggests the highest concentration of valuable goodies left for the wayside were concentrated in Elmhurst’s center, undoubtedly the richest sector of our town.  On Elmhurst’s periphery, the amount of accumulated trash appeared less valuable, undoubtedly connected to the socioeconomic disparity found beyond Elmhurst’s moneyed core.

Although this annual event might be disregarded by some as just another ordinary trash collection, I view “Spring Clean-Up” as emblematic to our society’s larger systemic problems, including our blatant disregard for environmental factors connected with our hyper consumer-based culture; fulfilling short term consumer gratification at the expense of the extraction of natural resources.  When our material items lose their value, we simply throw them away without the slightest hesitation and buy new items that fulfill our needs.  Thus, the cycle continues.  Further, “Spring Clean-Up” exposes the deep-seeded social divisions visible throughout our community involving class and race. Of course, all of this appears quite obvious if we only stop to recognize the social process for what it really is: a reflection of our culture.

Kevin Chrisman