Are dumpster divers really society's catfish?

The next time you're looking at an aquarium, take a look at what's sucking up the slime on the aquarium floor. Chances are you'll see a catfish. Solitary and homely, catfish are all too happy to hoover up the filth that falls beneath all the beautiful fish.

Maybe catfish and dumpster divers serve the same kind of purpose.

People are lazy. We're happy to recycle as long as we have blue bins placed at our doors. We seperate plastics from glass and cardboard from newspaper. We rinse out tin cans and milk cartons. We do these chores mainly because the bins are left behind if it's not done right. Surprisingly, recyclables still end up going out with regular garbage. Even return-for-deposits like juice boxes, water bottles, pop cans--these things also make their way into Smithrites. This is where society's catfish come in.

Dumpster divers feed on our laziness. They dig into our stinking garbage because we throw away good money. On any given day, divers know there's plenty of return-for-deposits thrown out with the trash. They also know there's brand new shoes, unused household items, and working appliances hidden inside garbage bags. They know these things about us because they are us--we can't hide from them. Dumpster divers not only make a few bucks off of our waste, but also rescue our landfills from being overrun with recyclable goods that would otherwise sit in plastic pergutory.

What I learned: Maybe I've been judging dumpster divers too harshly. By merit of what they do for society, divers could even be acknowledged as a form of waste managment. Of course there's rotton apples in any barrel, and not all divers are working in society's best interest. However, many divers are interested in simply living off the spoils of other people' s "garbage." These divers will contuniue to thrive until we learn to flip our own reusables. But for now, as long as divers leave their goldmines as tidy as they found them, I say our tank can use the catfish.*

* This blog post is dedicated to catfish and divers everywhere. I would also like to acknowledge my inspiration for this post: an unnamed catfish that lives in the aquarium at ABC Restaurant on Lougheed Hwy, Coquitlam.