The SUV Full of Trash

...174 days to go...

The Nissan Rogue crossover SUV was stuffed to the roof with garbage.

Not metaphorically stuffed. Actually, physically packed so full that the driver couldn’t see out the rear window. Cardboard boxes flattened and stacked. Plastic wrap wadded into bags. Mountains of individual packaging from tuna canisters, Nutella packs, and granola bars. Enough waste to fill the entire cargo area of a medium-sized SUV, with a recycling-bin-sized container left over that I volunteered to haul to the dump on my way home.

This wasn’t from a party or a home renovation project. This was from one hour of volunteer work with Seattle Homeless Outreach, preparing backpacks for people living on the street.

The Assembly Line of Waste

Here’s what we did that afternoon: We broke down Costco-size quantities of everything you might need on the street and reassembled it into individually-sized portions to go in inexpensive vinyl backpacks.

Hats. Gloves. Hygiene kits. Chapstick. Hand wipes. Tissues. Granola bars. Nutella packs. Ritz crackers. Oranges. Sleeping bags. Jackets. Tents. Bottles of water.

For an hour, about a dozen volunteers worked an assembly line. Open the bulk package. Distribute the contents into individual backpacks. Throw away the packaging. Repeat.

The generosity of the donations and the efficiency of the volunteers were both admirable. But what struck me was the sheer volume of packaging waste we were generating.

Reams of cardboard from bulk boxes. Plastic wrap by the armful. Vast quantities of individual packaging—every six-pack of socks had its own plastic wrapper, every pair of gloves came in a sealed bag, every tuna canister sat in its own plastic cradle.

By the end of the hour, we’d assembled over 250 backpacks. And we’d generated enough waste to fill an SUV.

Not an Argument Against Giving

Let me be clear: I’m not saying we shouldn’t be providing this stuff. Of course we should. People living on the street desperately need warm clothing, food, water, and basic hygiene supplies. Seattle Homeless Outreach does vital work, and I’m grateful to be part of it.

My point is simpler and sadder: It would be so much more efficient if we just housed these people.

The Economics I Already Knew

I already know—and I suspect most people know—that having a homeless population is economically wasteful. I’ve written before about how a single night in a homeless shelter costs between $100-150. That’s $3,000-4,500 per month. Easily enough for a pretty nice apartment, even in a high-cost city like Seattle.

We spend more money NOT solving homelessness than it would cost to actually house people. That fact alone should be enough to change our policies.

But watching that SUV fill up with garbage made me realize we’re wasting more than just money.

What Housing Would Actually Change

If those 250 people had homes, they wouldn’t need those backpacks at all. Or rather, they’d need one decent backpack that might last them a few years, not a cheap vinyl one that will fall apart in a few weeks.

They’d have a place to put a decent pair of gloves that would last more than one season. A coat they could hang in a closet instead of stuffing into a damp backpack every morning. A drawer for socks that wouldn’t get soaked and thrown away.

They’d have a kitchen where they could cook actual meals—nutritious food that doesn’t come wrapped in three layers of plastic. They could buy a head of lettuce, a bag of rice, a dozen eggs. Things that feed you without filling a landfill.

They’d have a bathroom with a shower, eliminating the need for individually-wrapped hygiene wipes. A medicine cabinet for chapstick and toothpaste. A towel that hangs on a rack instead of staying damp in a plastic bag.

The Hidden Environmental Cost

We talk a lot about the human cost of homelessness—the trauma, the health consequences, the loss of dignity. We talk some about the economic cost.

But we rarely talk about the environmental cost.

Every week, outreach teams across Seattle distribute thousands of these supply packages. Multiply that by every city in America. Multiply it by 52 weeks a year. The packaging waste is staggering.

And it’s not just the packaging. It’s the inefficiency of the entire system. Manufacturing thousands of cheap tents that will last a few months instead of providing permanent shelter. Distributing single-use everything instead of giving people access to reusable items. Trucking supplies around the city instead of simply paying rent.

It’s wasteful in every possible dimension: economically, environmentally, and humanely.

Just One More Sad Reality

As I drove to the dump with my cargo area full of cardboard and plastic, I kept thinking about how absurd the whole thing was.

We live in a society wealthy enough to mass-produce and distribute thousands of supply packages every week. We have volunteers willing to spend their Saturday afternoons assembling backpacks. We have donors generous enough to fund it all.

But we can’t quite manage to just help these people find and keep apartments.

So instead, we create this elaborate, expensive, wasteful system that sort of helps people survive on the street but doesn’t actually get them off the street. And in the process, we generate SUV-loads of garbage.

I’m not criticizing the outreach workers or the volunteers or the donors. We’re all doing what we can within a broken system.

I’m just pointing out that the system is broken in more ways than we usually count.

Homelessness wastes money. It wastes human potential. It wastes dignity.

And apparently, it also wastes SUV-loads of packaging