Mr.Bad Trash& Spookydoll

As Is-- Gleaning Fragments

One sees a ragpicker knocking against the walls,
Paying no heed to the spies of the cops, his thralls,
But stumbling like a poet lost in dreams;
He pours his heart out in stupendous schemes.
...
Yes, these people, plagued by household cares,
Bruised by hard work, tormented by their years,
Each bent double by the junk he carries,
The jumbled vomit of enormous Paris,-
--Charles Baudelaire, "The Wine of the Ragpickers"

Benjamin observed the Parisian chiffonier (or ragpicker) at the turn of the century: When the new industrial processes had given refuse a certain value, ragpickers appeared in the cities in larger numbers…The ragpicker fascinated his epoch. The eyes of the first investigators of pauperism were fixed on him with the mute question as to where the limits of human misery lay. (Walter Benjamin Writing on Baudelaire)

Marx lumped the ragpicker in with the lumpenproletariat : decayed roués with dubious means of subsistence and of dubious origin, alongside ruined and adventurous offshoots of the bourgeoisie, were vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, maquereaux, (pimps), brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, ragpickers, knife grinders, tinkers, beggars - in short, the whole indefinite, disintegrated mass, thrown hither and thither.

 

Welcome to As Is-- Start Scrounging

The Goodwill Industries' As-Is is a dump. Literally, it's a dumping ground for all the stuff the thrift store deems unfit for sale. So you find ugly glasses that were wildly overpriced by some clueless new employee, broken bicycles, heaps of shoes, and mountains and mountains of clothes that aren't worth half the price someone paid for them at Ross Dress for Less six months ago. Anything not sold at the end of the day is either thrown in the trash -- the dumpsters are locked at the end of the day, in case you were thinking of diving -- or, in the case of clothing, is pressed into 800-pound bales and shipped to either Mexico, Africa or India.

The customer service techniques seem to have been learned at the knee of a prison guard, judging from the relish with which they create and enforce arbitrary rules. "Get back from that!", screams one, as another hopper full of garments is dumped onto the sorting tables. "Don't touch those clothes until I say so!" When the OK signal is given, flea market vendors descend upon the smelly rags, flinging paint-splattered pants and kids underwear aside, hoping to find something that they can resell. The monetary value given these items, which are one step away from landfill, are determined by weight or whim. Garment prices are fixed at $1.29 per pound for most items, but prices for miscellaneous goods are arbitrarily made up when you bring them to the counter. If you don't like it, you can try to negotiate, but chances are they won't budge, and your merchandise will be chucked out at day`s end.

There is a rhythm to the daily activities. First, at 8 a.m., a rush to the sorting tables when the chain-link gate is rolled back. Then an hour later, the first auction of the bins full of shoes, books, Happy Meal toys, or broken electronics. The winners then begin sorting through their booty in the parking lot, trying to mate shoes, reassemble kitchen appliances, or salvage something saleable from the mess. When the roach coach rolls up and blows its musical horn, employees and shoppers both take a break for some tacos, hamburgers, or chilaquiles. After a cigarette, sorting resumes, more clothes are dumped, and the next round of auctions begin. By now the parking lot is full of pickups overloaded with washing machines and mattresses, separated by piles of rubbish, items rejected as too far gone to realize a profit, and small piles of "valuable" goods. The security guard strolls about, shooing kids off the property while their parents sort, and discouraging scroungers from gleaning anything. By 2 p.m. shopping has ended, and at 3 only the forklifts remain to clear the lot of detritus before the next day's refuse goes on sale.
--Mr.BadTrash

inside As Is

Men sort trainers outside

The giant bales of clothing rejects, waiting to be shipped overseas

The regulars at the As Is bring laundry baskets and bins to hold their stash. There's an unspoken rule-- you don't dig through anyone else's stash, though the dumpsters outside are fair game if you can avoid being caught by the security guard who is hired to make sure nobody walks off with any trash, so it can safely make it to the dump. Everyone waits in the open warehouse space, where trough-like tables stretch its length. Regularly, workers wheel in pallets of clothing, drapes, sheets and other textiles, and dump them in the troughs. Immediately the women descend, picking through the mess, pulling out what is usable.

I wait with the other women, watching the clothes being dumped. A comforter, filled with chicken feathers has exploded on the descent, filling the place with snowy motes. As we pick through the fresh piles, I keep thinking of that Melville story, The Tartarus of Maids, though, most of the women are not maids. I find a few things hidden amongst the plethora of last year's Gap and Target-- a 70's denim jacket, an embroidered Indian purse, a Victorian petticoat. An older woman, dressed in a rayon skirt and plastic flats, and a tight man's black tee shirt emblazoned with Scooby Doo, digs through the piles across from me. She pulls out this lacy, crocheted shawl, an old, elegant thing, and unfurls it around her shoulders. She looks at me, and winks, aware I'm covetous. She looks so good in it, so much like a Marquez matriarch, that I am happy. And, with that thought, it seems I've lost my mojo, and can't find a thing-- it's all board shorts, stained white jeans and Winnie the Pooh ™ sweats, as far as the eye can see. It's at this moment that the piles and piles detritus, the lint-filled air, overwhelm. The waste is an obscene monument to privilege and manufactured obsolescence. This avalanche of stuff becomes angst making, and I have to take a breather. Then, a woman in an old white olympics tee and acid wash jeans closes in, elbows me out of the way to dig through my patch in the trough. To find stuff, you've got to be able to turn off the chaos, repulsion and anger at the dwarfing river of waste you're digging through, or you'll never find anything.
--Spookydoll

While wondering where this preponderance volume of waste comes from, we found out the following fragmentary facts:

And she said, I pray you, let me glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves: so she came, and hath continued even from the morning until now... (Ruth 2:7)
...
We can't forget many ragpickers today are children in India, Bangladesh, and other impoverished places, who cannot even enjoy the small comforts offered Ruth.

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