Trash the History Books
In his short story Die Kunde von den Bäumen, the late German author Wolfgang Hilbig used trash to explore memory and everyday life in the German Democratic Republic. While this exploration was more metaphorical and metonymic than literal, it does raise an interesting question: can the history of man be recorded through that which he discards? Are the bin-scavenging vagrants of our society, in fact, historians in disguise?
It is a perplexing mystery to resolve, for it is difficult for us to ruffle through the rubbish of centuries past. And while we could theorise what this trash might comprise, this is circular logic. Many archeological digs have, however, sifted through the detritus of our ancestors and studied the myriad of mess.
Across the world, archeologists have discovered the details of past civilisations by sorting through the trash. Patterns of society, cultural diets, attire, social functions and other pertinent aspects of our past have been revealed in the rubbish. Indeed, that which was worth keeping is probably stored in a museum somewhere; it’s the leftovers, the broken bits, the used that tell us the rest of the story.
So, trash can tell us quite a bit. This takes us to our next question: What will future historians be able to deduce about today’s world by studying our rubbish bins?
I think the most revealing aspect of today’s waste is the sheer volume of it. The United Nations and other agencies estimate worldwide annual waste production at more than 1 billion tons, and some estimates go as high as 1.3 billion. The US leads the world waste production charts, with the average American producing 4.5 pounds of waste every day. The US thus manages to produce a quarter of the world's waste despite the fact that its population of 300 million is less than 5% of the world's population, according to 2005 estimates. This is not only an indicator of the human population growth, but shows how wasteful Western culture can be.
One of the main components of today’s global waste is packaging. This can come in many shapes or forms, from plastic and foil bags to cardboard and Styrofoam containers. Most packaging is discarded soon after its constituents are consumed and many forms of packaging are difficult or impossible to recycle. The UK produced an estimated 9.3 million tons of waste packaging in 2001. This is another indication of the tremendous wastefulness that has integrated itself into society.
Today’s world has a new rubbish dump: the atmosphere. The air is full of pollutants and our contribution has grown increasingly since the Industrial Revolution. In May of last year a US report stated that world carbon dioxide levels were at the highest in 650 000 years. This could lead to global warming, climate change and worldwide biodiversity loss.
Think about it, the next time you throw something in the bin. It might just end up on a future historian’s desk.
Chris McPetrie
It is a perplexing mystery to resolve, for it is difficult for us to ruffle through the rubbish of centuries past. And while we could theorise what this trash might comprise, this is circular logic. Many archeological digs have, however, sifted through the detritus of our ancestors and studied the myriad of mess.
Across the world, archeologists have discovered the details of past civilisations by sorting through the trash. Patterns of society, cultural diets, attire, social functions and other pertinent aspects of our past have been revealed in the rubbish. Indeed, that which was worth keeping is probably stored in a museum somewhere; it’s the leftovers, the broken bits, the used that tell us the rest of the story.
So, trash can tell us quite a bit. This takes us to our next question: What will future historians be able to deduce about today’s world by studying our rubbish bins?
I think the most revealing aspect of today’s waste is the sheer volume of it. The United Nations and other agencies estimate worldwide annual waste production at more than 1 billion tons, and some estimates go as high as 1.3 billion. The US leads the world waste production charts, with the average American producing 4.5 pounds of waste every day. The US thus manages to produce a quarter of the world's waste despite the fact that its population of 300 million is less than 5% of the world's population, according to 2005 estimates. This is not only an indicator of the human population growth, but shows how wasteful Western culture can be.
One of the main components of today’s global waste is packaging. This can come in many shapes or forms, from plastic and foil bags to cardboard and Styrofoam containers. Most packaging is discarded soon after its constituents are consumed and many forms of packaging are difficult or impossible to recycle. The UK produced an estimated 9.3 million tons of waste packaging in 2001. This is another indication of the tremendous wastefulness that has integrated itself into society.
Today’s world has a new rubbish dump: the atmosphere. The air is full of pollutants and our contribution has grown increasingly since the Industrial Revolution. In May of last year a US report stated that world carbon dioxide levels were at the highest in 650 000 years. This could lead to global warming, climate change and worldwide biodiversity loss.
Think about it, the next time you throw something in the bin. It might just end up on a future historian’s desk.
Chris McPetrie
Tags: culture, sub_saharan_africa
Replies to This Article
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Permalink Reply by ISBangkok on -
I agree with your ideas. However, I do not fully understand how studying our trash will help future historians to understand our world today. The only things historians would be able to study is the amount of things we waste by throwing them away, which you stated in your article. However, no one would throw away important things which historians would be able to actually use to study our lives today because they would just be studying trash...which is useless. And also, if a historian 1000 years from now studies our trash, there would be nothing to study because the trash would have probably decomposed already. However, I still think this is a well written article. Good job.
Christine, from ISB
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Permalink Reply by Chris McPetrie on -
Thank you for the feedback; it’s nice to finally get some. The idea of future historians studying today’s trash is hypothetical, but as I have said waste is a very good indicator of an entity’s operations. For example, most green audits and carbon footprint mitigation processes investigate the waste production of the facility in question and use this information in determining how efficient or wasteful it is. I have for the last year been involved in conducting a green audit of my school, Bishops – the report of which I plan to post on Student News Action Network soon – and creating an accompanying retrofit plan, and waste was a huge part of the process. In my article, I extrapolated from this concept and applied it, hypothetically, on a global scale.
Like I said in my article, the most revealing aspect of today’s trash is its volume; I could have perhaps illustrated this point better. I have done subsequent research into The Great Pacific Garbage Patch – a rubbish dump twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific Ocean – and this would have been an interesting inclusion in my article.
You pointed out that future historians would not be able to study our trash, as it would have decomposed; this is not so, as a huge part of today’s waste is plastic, which does not decompose. This is what makes it so terrible.
Thanks again for reading my article and commenting; I hope I cleared up those issues for you.
Chris McPetrie
Bishops
Cape Town, South Africa
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Permalink Reply by Elisa Wiseman on -
I like your style of writing in this article. The last line definitely left an impression on me, as the reader.
Elisa - WIS (:
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Permalink Reply by Chris McPetrie on
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Thank you :)
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