Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage

by William L. Rathje and Cullen Murphy

Book Overview

It is from the discards of former civilizations that archaeologists have reconstructed most of what we know about the past, and it is through their examination of today's garbage that William Rathje and Cullen Murphy inform us of our present. Rubbish is their witty and erudite investigation into all aspects of the phenomenon of garbage. Rathje and Murphy show what the study of garbage tells us about a population's demographics and buying habits. Along...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816521433
• ISBN13: 9780816521432
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

One of the best books I?ve read this year

This is a fascinating overview of the world of garbology, the science of garbage. The authors begin by describing how the Garbage Project came to be, when students in a 1971 anthropology class at the University of Arizona hit upon studying garbage as a way to study people and culture. The Garbage Project has grown to become one of the leading scientific explorations into garbage, where it comes from, where it goes, and what it does when it gets there. Published results from the Garbage Project have covered such varied topics as changing patterns of meat consumption, using garbage volume to estimate population, and the relative quantities of diapers, newspapers, and plastics in landfills.One of the most valuable contributions of the book is that it provides historical data to put garbage in perspective. Contrary to many people's beliefs, the authors argue that garbage and where to put it is not a new problem at all. They point out that one of the characteristics that make us human is that we create garbage, and we always have, back to the very first time a humanoid discovered how to create tools by chipping flint. To those who worry about our non-biodegradable trash, the authors remind us that the pottery shards of ancient archeological sites are nothing more than the indestructible refuse of yesteryear. And yet others worry about burying our trash in landfills which doesn't allow normal biodegradation to occur, but the authors point out that this also isn't new, describing an archeological dig of a putrid 2,000-year-old buried dump in Italy. Of course, the main message that the authors express is not that garbage is benign, but that the problem isn't new, and that garbage issues have been a concern since the dawn of civilization. They also point out that sanitation issues are even getting better. They give an overview of the history of garbage treatment in the US, from burying it under the kitchen floor, to building dumps, incinerators, and sanitary landfills. They point out that cities in the past weren't as clean as they are now. Cities used to produce mountains of coal dust and horse manure, and garbage would often simply sit on the corner, waiting to be dispersed by scavengers or pigs. They point out that "...ever since governments began facing up to their responsibilities, the story of the garbage problem in the industrialized world has been one of steady amelioration, of bad giving way to less bad and eventually to not quite so bad."Scientists as well as ordinary people have very inaccurate ideas of what's in landfills today and how landfills work. Until the Garbage Project actually studied landfills, many landfill planners believed that trash would biodegrade somehow once it went into the landfill, and that the trash would eventually settle, producing large quantities of methane gas. By drilling into landfills and studying their contents, Garbage Project scientists have found that very little biodegradation actually occurs in

Sheds light on Human Behavior

As someone from a a profession where problem solving is a core ability, I was amazed from chapter to chapter how the members of the Garbage Project went about their endeavors to successful results. They truly show how something so ubiquitous(garbage) can contain so much information about our lives and our behaviors.The men and women involved in this research project open the bag on the realities of this human behavior to shed light on how we act as consumers and as members of society in general. Our political tendencies are also exposed in investigating how groups endeavor to address the issue of solid waste disposal, often to unbelievable results, totally contrary to the desired end goal.I wholeheartedly agree with some other reviewers in that this should be required reading for anyone interested in environmental issues, from the simplest aluminum can collector to the most active environmentalists.This is billed as an archaeology book, but I would call it more accurately an environmental/psycological/science read, never very technical, often entertaining and always eye-opening.

Informative, Fascinating, Easy to Read

Rubbish should be required reading for anybody who things he/she cares about environmentalal issues. Until reading the book, I would have never guessed all the facts--yes, hard, cold facts--documented in its pages. Garbage disposal is the ultimate out-of-sight-out-of-mind issue in our hurried consumer culture. So much of our opinions on garbage comes from an uninformed media (i.e. the ridiculously high estimates of landfill space taken up by disposal diapers). People act, lobby and debate based on knowledge that, as the book shows, is usually false. As wasteful as we are, the authors present interesting comparisons of American families and Mexican families. The results will surprise you, to say the least. Also well presented are rational comments on the always present issue of recycling.In all, this is a fascinating book. Like all great book of this nature, it is scientific but an easy read. Highly recommended!

Excellent Facts about Garbage

Many of the policy decisions about the waste our societies generate are not based on facts. The author and his team took the challenging ( and disgusting) task of going to the actual source, our domestic dumpsters and municipal landfills to do quantitative analysis. Something everybody else has avoided. Many of the assumptions that ecologically concerned people use about things like plastic have no grounds. In our landfills not even carrots decompose! I agree with the previous reviewer, this book should not be out of print.

This book should never have gone out of print.

It isn't common to find a good-for-you book on an important ho-hum subject that reads as deliciously as a mystery novel. Rubbish has it all. The principal author, an archeologist by training and founding advisor of the 20 year old Garbage Project at the University of Arizona, knows it all-- how to use poptops to data strata in landfill cores, where people REALLY get their major appliances and what becomes of them, how things stand in the rag and bone trade, what socioeconomic group is most likely to use the giant economy size, why people throw out MORE of a product during a scarcity scare-- and he writes it right. His style is smooth and anecdotal; his attitudes are calm and practical. Dealing with garbage is a (yuck) touchy subject; we need this book to inform our practices.