The Concept of Waste: Past and Present

Prior to the 15th century, waste first represented devastated or forsaken land, and then a lack of economy or prudence, before assuming its current meaning (Barles 2014). An interesting case study is found however in the Aztecs, who established and operated an efficient, zero-waste regime with high recycling rates of both nutrients and pollutants from the 1300s to at least the 1500s (Medina 2014), suggesting that waste was at times also viewed as a useful tool or resource.

Pre-industrial conceptions linked waste to the dross of cities, and physicians in the 18th century held that “urban excess mortality was due to the cumulative effects of a contaminated ground saturated with putrefying waste and of the human and animal density” (Barles 2014:204). Thus waste was further vilified both as undesirable input and output.

In the late 1700s, following a period of scarcity of agricultural manure, human and non-human animal waste and food waste became its replacement (Barles 2014), potentially influencing public perception of its utility. The linear nature of the waste cycle receded as more humans discovered a(nother) viable use for waste. This was however short-lived – by the late 1800s, waste lost its usefulness as fertilizer given fewer animals in cities, enhanced refuse collection techniques, as well as the rise of new forms of waste such as packaging waste (Barles 2014). In all probability, the unprecedented mass production and transportation of consumer and industrial products contributed to an overwhelming volume of waste.

After the first World War, urban waste resumed its connotations as material to be thrown away or set aside, as landfills grew in size and number (Barles 2014). In the 1960s and 1970s, particularly given the immense amounts of waste to be handled and the growing occurrence of mishaps sustained from interaction with harmful waste, waste became an ugly word signifying the transgressions and nihilism of consumerism (Barles 2014). Public reactions in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl incident is one of most evocative of the sentiments of the time.

In the present day, the current definition of the concept of waste as materia is that which is unwanted, discarded, filthy and/or disgusting (Barles 2014); sub-optimal in time, capacity, quality, quantity, or value (Thürer et al 2017); a difficulty that is to be resolved and regulated (Evans et al 2012). We can therefore observe a trend of rejection, pessimism, and repulsion toward waste insofar as it is deemed useless both in beauty and application.

In the best case scenario, we observe waste with apathy and from a great distance. Aesthetically as well as intellectually, waste has been situated in the periphery of our inquiries and priorities (Evans et al 2012). The presumption of uselessness then co-occurs with the perceived need to be removed from human observation and/or processed into objects of anthropogenic utility (Evans et al 2012).

Recent decades have shed more nuanced light on waste as a phenomenon intersecting various contexts, nexuses, and understandings (Evans et al 2012), and today, the waste narrative is often accompanied by escalating awareness of the finitude of Earth's resources and the need to recycle waste and nip its production at the bud (Barles 2014).

References:-

• Barles, S. (2014). ‘History of waste management and the social and cultural representations of waste’ in Agnoletti, M. and S.N. Seneri (eds.) The basic environmental history. (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 2014) pp.199–226.

• Evans, D., H. Campbell and A. Murcott. (2012). ‘A brief pre-history of food waste and the social sciences’, The Sociological Review 60(S2) 2012, pp.5–26.

• Medina, M. (2014). ‘The Aztecs of Mexico: A Zero Waste Society’. 21 April 2014.. https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/the-aztecs-of-mexico-a-zero-waste-society

• Thürer, M., I. Tomašević and M. Stevenson. (2017). ‘On the meaning of ‘waste’: review and definition’, Production Planning & Control 28(3) 2017, pp.244–255.