Trash Talk: A Garbology of the University of Victoria

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 understand our relationship with everyday objects is through a common daily nexus: garbage. We applied what we learned about the approaches to human-object relationships via a garbology project where we collected waste from multiple locations on our university’s campus. We sought to answer the following: ‘Are people at UVic sorting their waste correctly?’, ‘why do people throw away what they do?’, and ‘what percentage of trash is related to COVID PPE?’ Kharis and I chose to answer the first two with our research, leading to our group’s research question:

‘Are anthropology students cognizant of and diligent in properly sorting their waste due to subjects like garbology, sustainability, human practices and behaviors, and recycling being covered and discussed in anthropology courses, tutorials, and labs?’

As anthropology students ourselves, we thought so. Our research gave us a more complex answer.

Material Data 

Our material data collection was focused within the Anthropology and Archaeology sections of the B-wing of the Cornett Building.

Two of the bins we sampled from: Plastic, Metal, and Paper Containers bin and Clean Paper and Paper Packaging bin in B-Wing of Cornett Photo Credit: Kharis Hedges

The material collected from the Clean Paper and Paper Packaging bins and Plastic, Metal, and Paper Containers bins yielded interesting results; UVic Anthropology students are much better sorters than we expected. We found that 96.1% of the materials in the Clean Paper and Paper Packaging bins were correctly sorted, and 73.3% was correctly sorted for the Plastic, Metal, and Paper Containers bins. Our material data sample size was 213 items, with 154 from the Paper bins and 59 from the Containers bins. These findings appeared to corroborate our hypothesis that Anthropology students were more cognizant of their recycling and waste-sorting habits. We realized our hypothesis did not compare Anthropology students to other students, so we compared our work to I Have a tRash, another group in our class also focusing their research on a specific building and department: Fine Arts.

The logo for UVic’s Anthropology Department Photo Credit: University of Victoria

The logo for UVic’s Fine Arts Department Photo Credit: University of Victoria

Ethnographic Surveys

The next stage of our project was to conduct surveys with students from our collection areas in an effort to compare what waste students discarded and what ideas they had on waste-sorting. We surveyed six undergraduate students and two staff members from the Anthropology, Linguistics, and Political Science departments, with six associated solely with the Anthropology department. The majority of participants said they were familiar with general recycling practices and UVic policies, and gave themselves an average score of 8.6 (out of 10) on how well they sort their waste – closely mirroring our material collection data. I Have a tRash surveyed seven Fine Arts students and all ranked themselves, on average, 7 out of 10 in their waste sorting skills. Both participant groups rated themselves highly in terms of their knowledge of the variety of bins. I Have a tRash reported 95.8% of Clean Paper and Paper Packaging material as properly sorted and 65% of Plastic, Paper, and Metal Container waste as properly sorted in their material data. These percentages roughly match our own.

Analysis

The material data and ethnographic surveys we collected provided us with an interesting dilemma: students associated with Anthropology and Fine Arts had similar rates of correct sorting and similar scores when rating their sorting habits. Bin types available in the Fine Arts and Cornett buildings, the difference in sample size between our two groups, and other factors could contribute to our hypothesis just barely being proven correct. Overall, this similarity in waste disposal habits demonstrated that waste-sorting practices at UVic are entangled with students’ relationships with their departments’ buildings, the objects they are discarding, the availability of certain bin types, and the clarity in bin signage.

Sort-It-Out Guidelines for Paper bin and Containers bin, with easy-to-miss “Unacceptable” items featured below Photo Credit: https://www.uvic.ca/sustainability/topics/waste/sort-it-out-stations/index.php

Conclusion 

Our research sheds light on the waste-sorting practices of UVic Anthropology and Fine Arts students and demonstrates that while students have a general understanding of UVic’s policies, they struggle in sorting items that are not obvious on bin signage. Oke and Kruijsen discuss the idea that “recycling information should be designed and presented to make recycling more attractive/convenient” and as students ourselves, we wholeheartedly believe this could contribute significantly to minimizing the percentage of incorrectly sorted objects (Oke and Kruijsen 2016). This could manifest in signs with UVic-specific items and a campus-wide digital map, similar to the one Cornell University implemented in 2019. Our project also reminded us of the dynamic nature of research: our hypothesis evolved during our project, our material data and survey results challenged our assumptions of waste-sorting at UVic, and we understood our course material more comprehensively.

Cornell Campus Sustainability Map:

 http://<iframe src=”https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=1ZG5ElBMeQ_JLWFmxBPglkrcWHPQ&ehbc=2E312F” width=”640″ height=”480″></iframe>

References Cited

Oke, Adekunle., Kruijsen, Joanneke.

2016           The Importance of Specific Recycling Information in Designing a Waste Management Scheme – Special Issue “Public Policy Directions for Recycling, Waste Management, Resource Recovery and Circular Economy 2016”. https://www.mdpi.com/2313-4321/1/2/271/htm

Kharis Hedges (they/she) is a third year student majoring in Anthropology at the University of Victoria. They are interested in cultural and social anthropology and want to focus on religion, archaeology, and cultural and social traditions. They have archival experience from working with apartheid era objects from South Africa and did a research project involving her chosen object. She is excited to apply skills from this class to her future endeavours.

Eleanor Shippen (she/her) is a third year student at the University of Victoria majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Museum Studies. Her interests and experiences range in the fields of public history, student leadership, and heritage interpretation. She has had the opportunities to create an archive, interpret history at a museum, and serve as a peer mentor for university students. She is excited to apply the knowledge from this class and this project to her career.