The concept of waste now and in the past

"The history of waste mirrors that of the societies that produced it and their relationship with the environment and the resources they mobilized" (Barles 2014).

The collection of human and animal waste was first addressed by the Romans through their creation of the cloaca maxima, a sewer system built in the city of Rome to address the clean up of polluted urban spaces discharging the latrines of the city directly into the Tiber river. Later on, this expanded and evolved throughout Europe for example as pit privies in the Middle Ages which were underground reservoirs of urban waste. The inaccurate disposal of human and animal waste as well as disorganization of the urbanities led to an increase in urban pollution. The problem with European cities at the time was the unpaved streets which resulted in formation of putrid mud elevating the surface level through dumping of waste and rubbish and therefore decreasing the health status of urban areas. This led to the rise of the concept of salubrity which started to be addressed to a firmer extent in the 1700s as a cause for rising morbidity and mortality (Barles 2014). With an increasing awareness of the relationship of human health with its environment, political and scientific communities started to establish a stricter regime of waste and urban spaces management  (Barles 2014).


In 1770-1860s industrialization and urbanisation created a increasing demand for food resources which led researchers to identify human and animal excrements as potential fertilizers for a higher yield production. Not only the latter, waste was seen as an opportunity for profitability and re-utilization for example in the case of bones gelatine for glue factories, dry bones as animal charcoal or small bones for matches (Barles 2014). From the 1870s onwards "the doctrine that the recycling of by-products is a condition of industrialization, food production and salubrity, was undermined by the mobility of new resources and raw materials" (Barles 2014).  Animal and human waste become an expensive and difficult good to source and re-use and they become substituted by new materials such as plastics or nitrogen as a new fertilizers (Barles 2014). This shift created some contradictions in the pre-existing waste management cycle based on the recycling of animal industry by products (which contributed also as a source of tax revenue on municipal savings) and required a change in the perceived economic model (Barles 2014).  This gave the rise to current trashcans where all kinds of waste is gathered and incineration plants leading to an increasing disinterest to recovery. The reason behind this change are different, for example the increase in the volume of garbage rather than its density (packaging) which filled up garbage vehicles faster therefore leading to the development of waste management techniques towards a fast and low cost disposal. The uselessness of human excreta led to a transformation on the perception of waste with its new definition of "déchet" = burden.

With the rise of consumer culture, waste is identified as a by-product of mass production in relation to its need to over produce in order to satisfy increasing demand therefore further distancing itself from a recycling mindset. 

It was only from 1970s onwards that citizens and scientists alike started to denounce the pollution crisis as a consequence to detrimental environmental conditions.

Until recently, it has been assumed that the concept of waste is unanimous, however with a re-definition of the latter we would be able to change the waste management operations towards more sustainable practices. Waste should not be seen as a non-value adding activity, however it should be perceived to a broader extent to obvious and less obvious waste in order to incorporate a more extensive scope to the mechanisms of waste reduction (Thuerer 2017).


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) pp.199–226.

Thuerer, Matthias (2017), On the meaning of 'Waste': review and definition, Production planning & control (0953-7287), 28 (3), p. 244

Thuerer, Matthias (2017), On the meaning of 'Waste': review and definition", Production planning & control (0953-7287), 28 (3), p. 244.


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