Garbage

Every day each American produces 4.8 pounds of garbage. Where does it all go? Ira talks with Robin Nagle, a anthropology professor at New York University who's been studying garbage,and says that most of us want garbage to be invisible. Which, usually, it is. (4 minutes)

There are squatters who've built entire neighborhoods on top of rotting trash heaps in Mexico. They scavenge in the garbage piles for their living. Author Luis Urrea worked in one of these neighborhoods many years ago. He goes back to visit a friend who still lives there, in a small house with six teenage girls (three daughters, three nieces.) This is just fine with Luis's fourteen-year-old son, who goes with him. Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including By the Lake of Sleeping Children: The Secret Life of the Mexican Border and Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border. His story was produced by Barbara Ferry, with help from Sandy Tolan, Alan Weisman and Deborah Begel. It's part of the series "Border Stories" from Homelands Productions, which gets funds from The Ford Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (19 minutes)