Progress – what is it? Last summer I started thinking about garbage, and since then I see it everywhere, with the same story being repeated over and over again. While walking through a remote, seemingly untouched, tropical beach of Costa Rica we were awe struck to find plastic debris everywhere. Hermit crabs crawled in and around bags of chips, beer bottles, gasoline containers, plastic dolls, and styrofoam blocks. Washed down the river, thrown on the side of the road, or washed up on shore. Progress, everywhere. Heartbreaking stories ensued. In Ethiopia, gentrification and more expensive living has pushed the poor to unlivable city edges, with a garbage landslide killing 113 dump dwellers in March. In April, a methane explosion collapsed a garbage dump in Sri Lanka, burying a residential neighborhood and killing 28 people. Guatemala, China, and Lebanon have recently seen heaps of trash, plastic, and construction debris killing people, and burying homes and beaches. As growth ensues, garbage and progress take lives. I live in one of the most progressive cities in the US, but it’s not that different here. Progress often gentrifies and impoverishes, and the poor scavenge garbage in our streets. It seems normal to everyone around here.