Trash Talk: A Garbology of the University of Victoria
Trash Talks – But what does it say?
University of Victoria campus. Source: University of Victoria.
Since the beginning of time, humans have generated waste, whether it be the carcasses of the animals they hunted and then feasted upon or, in more contemporary times, last year’s smartphone model. But the usefulness of these things doesn’t just end at the point of discard. Our garbage — humanity’s garbage — has stories to tell. And archaeologists have been studying these stories, listenting to what they have to say about human behaviour, culture and society.
What stories can the trash and other types of refuse discarded at the University of Victoria (UVic) reveal? To answer this question, the class of Anthropology 392 conducted a garbology of campus waste. Merriam-Webster defines garbology as the study of modern culture though the anlaysis of what is thrown away, i.e. garbage. Garbology, pioneered by Bill Rathje in the 1970s, uses archaeological methods to analyze trash and glean insights into the UVic community and institutional policies. Drawing from cultural anthropology, the class also conducted surveys to learn about habits and attitudes regarding waste disposal. The blog posts on this website present each research team’s key findings. We welcome you to read and comment.
“gar-bol-o-gy |
\ gär-ˈbä-lə-jē \
Office recyling. Source: University of Victoria.
You may also like…
Garbology of UVic Anthropology Students: A Can-Do Attitude from the Can’tnadians
Introduction UVic's ANTH 392 ‘Things: Exploring Material Cultures’ asked us to use archaeological and theoretical frameworks to explore why humans use objects in certain ways, what objects we use, and why we give those objects meaning. One of the best ways to...
Waste disposal, sustainability, and COVID PPE
What can we learn about UVic’s trash sorting habits and the efficiency of provided disposal stations? When we decided to take this course, we had no idea how impactful and informative the term project would be. The idea of sorting through campus...
Trash Pandas
Introduction Trash is something that everyone produces, whether we are aware of it or not. However the question is, why do people throw away what they do and are they doing so correctly? Those are the questions we aim to answer as a class at the University of Victoria...
0 Comments