There Is No Away: Tracking Waste Across Morocco

We tend to think of waste as something that disappears the moment it leaves our hands, a final act, a clean separation. But as Joshua Reno writes in Waste Away, “there is no ‘away’ to throw things to. ” What we call “away” is not an absence, but a place, one that is inhabited, managed, and lived in. Waste does not vanish. It is moved, sorted, buried, burned, and carried across landscapes that remain largely invisible to those who produce it. It becomes part of other people’s daily realities, shaping environments, bodies, and routines. What we forget is not the material itself, but its continuity, its persistence beyond the moment of disposal. This research attempts to follow that continuity across Morocco, examining what happens after the act of throwing away and returning attention to the spaces, systems, and lives that exist within what we choose not to see.