In a different time, I used to watch Ted Talks. I would sit for hours on the edge of my top bunk in my sketch-covered room, and scarf down information like a starving wolf descending on the kill. I would watch a video, then research the topic until I completely understood its nuances and corners: its nooks and crannies.

High school ended, a flawless past summer, and I moved to Boston. I would still watch the talks, but I never Seemed to have the time to fully research and explore the videos. One of the videos I watched in the first months at Northeastern was an eight minute TedCity talk by Robin Nagle. It was entitled What I Discovered in New York City Trash . It fascinated me. I never considered the fate of what I threw away, until I began this dialogue.

Today we visited three waste management plants to the west of Cagliari, near Pula. The first was a paper recycling plant. There we learned how different types of waste paper were sorted, shredded, cleaned, mixed, and then formed into new paper for use. Only about 5% is lost in each recycle process. Not too bad, right? That especially given a single fiber of paper can be recycled up to eight times before the proteins in the fibers denature with age and it begins to decompose.

As walked into the open warehouse, and stared up at the skyscrapers of stacked and packed cardboard and paper, I halted with a jolt. The plant had office and notebook paper strewn about over the concrete; It seemed it to climb the walls in the wind. I looked down past my converse covered toes and my eyes landed on a small piece of notebook paper. In neat, feminine navy ink, her notes stood out in a personal way That I had not expected from such an industrialized location. Robin Nadle's voice echoed in my head, and the intimacy stuck me by surprise. I knew the ink navy woman's birth date. I knew her address. I could read her thoughts and wishes. Here they recycled possessions: thoughts, birthday cards, songs written and accidentally discarded. Here these physical representations of ourselves came to be made ​​new, made ​​clean, like some sanitation baptism in the industrial zone outside Cagliari.

Between the personal existed amounts of vast impersonal. Shredded cereal boxes, fruit containers, newspapers, flyers and glossy colored littered the ground. The waste surprised me. The extent of the waste in our packaging surprised me. Why must we place in cereal boxes, When the physical food resides in a food-grade, sealed plastic bag? Advertising? Shipping? Where did the practice start?

I've become hypersensitive to the composition of what surrounds me. Who designed the composting plant, the waste to energy incineration plant? What will become of them when their purpose is served? The compost was shocking, and I see now the industrialized composting faces challenges in the United States. In Sardinia, it cost 120 euro to process one ton of compost, but it is only sold for 2 Euros per ton. The government provides the necessary and capital resources, the tax breaks and financial whatnot. When I think of the United States, I wonder how we could possibly pitch this to a nation where the environment is still on the back burner. Do we educate? Where do we start?