For the Love of Useless Junk, Adventure

A trash odyssey sorts it out

Are you a pack rat? Do you collect piles and piles of things that have no real purpose, other than to sit in their proper places and be yours? Sometimes people form sentimental attachments to their things that no garage sale can remedy. Once they run out of room in their homes, some even go to the expense of renting a storage unit for their useless junk. Some people are beyond hope, spending more money on trinkets than their budget can easily bear. Payday loans and cash advances become a part of their daily li ves, but for the wrong reasons.

If you’re in this situation, it could be that your possessions own you, rather than the reverse.  If you aren’t able to get it in check yourself, I suggest professional help. However, one of the benefits of being a purveyor of useless junk is that Karen Hawes might pay you a visit. She is a self-proclaimed “trashtronaut.”

Blasting off for adventure

Jeff Richardson of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that the 40-year-old Hawes decided it was the right time in her life to embrace trash. In an effort to see all the trash this nation has to offer, she opted to begin a great journey. Alaska, her state of birth, would be the jumping off  point into a filthy world of fascinating, useless junk.

So she loaded up her Honda Element and struck out north from California. This was in May. For the next 10 months, Hawes will explore dumpsters, landfills and salvage yards in order to learn about people and the things they leave behind. The journey will span two continents, ending in Argentina. Will that be in Maria Belen Chapur’s yard? Perhaps Mark Sanford left his sanity there. If so, a trashtronaut can find it. ... click here to read the rest of the article titled "For the Love of Useless Junk, Adventure"