Garbology

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A public works employee analyzing collected recycling as part of a waste characterisation exercise Greenville Public Works, ECVC Recycling Sorting facility - 09.jpg
A public works employee analyzing collected recycling as part of a waste characterisation exercise

Garbology is the study of modern garbage, including waste management and use of landfills, with goals including improving understanding of culture and reducing environmental issues. As an academic discipline, part of anthropology and archeology, garbology was pioneered by William Rathje at the University of Arizona in 1973. The Tucson Garbage Project studied the contents of residential waste and people's perceptions of waste, including identifying misconceptions about the contents of landfills. As an informal term in environmental science education, garbology includes conducting waste characterisation activities.

Contents

Garbology (or "binology" in British English) also refers to searching for information in trash as part of an investigation, such as searches conducted by journalists, private investigators, and hackers. This practice was first called garbology by writer A. J. Weberman in 1971. It is also called "trashing" or information diving. When conducted by law enforcement or intelligence agencies, it may be called a "trash cover", "trash pull", or "garbage pull".

Garbology is sometimes used as a humorous term for waste management itself, with refuse workers called garbologists, first seen in the 1960s. [1] [2] : 196 

Archeology

Context

When conducted with archeological methods, garbology is a form of contemporary archeology and behavioural archaeology. [3] [4] [5] The studies of garbage and archaeology overlap because trash is a rich source of information about people and culture. [6] Ancient garbage in middens and other deposits sometimes contain information available in no other way, such as food remains, pollen traces from plants, and broken tools. For those who did not leave buildings, writing, tombs, trade goods, or pottery, refuse is a key source of information.

Garbology research is followed by industries wishing to demonstrate that discards originating with their products are (or are not) important in the trash stream, and by municipalities wishing to learn whether some parts of the trash they collect has any salable value. [7]

Work at the University of Arizona

In the context of growing concerns about urban garbage and landfills in the United States in the early 1970s, University of Arizona archeology professor William Rathje became interested in comparing people's statements and behaviors related to garbage. [4] He was inspired by student projects that studied local garbage as part of material culture, along with seeing an article by Weberman about "garbology". [8] The Tucson Garbage Project began in 1973 with surveys of household garbage and later expanded to include landfill excavation in 1987. [9] [10] Rathje published a book about garbage in 1992, Rubbish! The Archeology of Garbage, which included observations from the Tucson Garbage Project. [11] [12]

For example, Rathje and collaborators found that Americans had several misconceptions about the contents of municipal landfills. Based on their surveys in the 1980s, people believed that fast food containers, disposable diapers, and polystyrene foam took up at least 40% of the space in landfills, but these materials were under 5% of landfills by volume. [4] On the other hand, landfills had more paper and construction and demolition waste than people expected. [4] [13] Rathje also found that material in landfills biodegrades much more slowly than most people expected. [13]

Garbage is not mathematics. To understand garbage you have to touch it, to feel it, to sort it, to smell it.

— William Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish!: The Archeology of Garbage [12] : 9 

Environmental science

Students at the University of Michigan conducting a waste characterisation study Ross Waste Audit & Education Day (16511488895).jpg
Students at the University of Michigan conducting a waste characterisation study

People teaching environmental science sometimes use the term garbology to refer to studying waste and improving waste management. [14] In 2007, the PAST Foundation developed a science curriculum for middle and high school students about waste reduction, recycling, and composting, inspired by Rathje's work, and named it "Garbology". [15] [16] Garbology activities in schools and universities include waste characterisation, where students sort and analyze a sample of trash from a building. [17] [18] [19] Students evaluate the materials disposed in the trash and identify how much could have been recycled. [20]

Garbology Kids, a series of books written by Sabbithry Persad, teaches children lessons about recycling and reusing materials. [21] [22] The title of the series was inspired by Rathje's work. [23]

In a 2012 book, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash, journalist Edward Humes discussed the state of waste management, ranging from garbage patches in the ocean to municipal efforts to manage trash, such as the Puente Hills Landfill. [24] He estimated that the average US citizen produces 102 tons of refuse in their lifetime. [25] He noted that Portland, Oregon, was considering implementing anaerobic digesters and plasma gasification to efficiently decompose garbage. [26] : 250  He also described the efficiency of waste management in Copenhagen, where a large quantity of garbage is incinerated in waste-to-energy plants and very little ends up in landfills. [26] : 255 

The community of Holden Village uses the term garbology for communal sorting, separating, and disposal of landfill, recycling, and compostable items. Holden hires a full-time "garbologist" who leads groups of community members in waste sorting.[ citation needed ]

Investigative uses

A. J. Weberman popularized the word garbology in 1971 in an Esquire article about his efforts to search through celebrity trash for journalistic information, including Bob Dylan's trash. [27] [28] In this sense, garbology refers to an investigative tool for law enforcement, journalists, corporate espionage, [29] private investigators, [30] [31] paparazzi, [32] activists, historians, [29] and other types of investigations. This not only includes physical sorting of papers from a rubbish bin but also analysis of files found in a computer's recycle bin. [7]

The FBI ran "trash covers" against various organizations deemed subversive in the early 1950s [2] : 152  and has continued to use them for some investigations, such as in 1993 to gather evidence against Aldrich Ames. [33] In the 1990s, the Trinity Foundation found evidence in dumpsters that the organization of the crooked televangelist Robert Tilton discarded prayer requests it received after removing the money inside. [34] Investigator Benjamin Pell sold information gleaned from paperwork in prominent people's garbage to the British press in the 1990s. [35] In British English, this practice is called "binology". [36]

Starting in the mid-1970s and 1980s, phone phreaks and computer hackers used dumpster diving, which they called garbology or "trashing", as a strategy to find system manuals and other information for social engineering and circumventing security measures. [32] Early hackers including the Masters of Deception and Susan Headley used this method to learn about telephony company systems. [32] [37] In Weberman's 1980 book My Life in Garbology, he references Jerry Neil Schneider, who scavenged documents from Pacific Bell dumpsters that helped him fraudulently obtain equipment from the company in the early 1970s. [38]

Passwords, credit card information, and other personal data can be found in trash on paper and hard drives. Protection against unauthorized extraction of information from discarded materials, such as using paper shredders and destroying hard drives before disposal, remains part of physical information security. [32] For example, in the early 2000s, two MIT graduate students were able to obtain credit card information and tax return data from secondhand hard drives due to inadequate data erasure. [39] At electronic waste recycling sites, scam artists may try to extract personal financial information from discarded hard drives [40] for credit card fraud and identity theft.

The Supreme Court found in California v. Greenwood (1988) that warrantless search of garbage set out for disposal was not against the Fourth Amendment, allowing law enforcement use of "trash pulls" and "garbage pulls". [41] For others, unauthorized retrieval of materials from trash is considered trespassing [42] or garbage theft in many jurisdictions.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "garbology". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). 1989.
  2. 1 2 Scanlan, John A. (2005). On Garbage. London: Reaktion Books. ISBN   1-86189-222-5. OCLC   56652219.
  3. ↑ Praet, Estelle; Schofield, John; Tamoria, Raveena M. (January 2024). "Archaeological approaches to plastics and plastic pollution: A critical overview". Cambridge Prisms: Plastics. 2: e32. doi:10.1017/plc.2024.22. ISSN   2755-094X.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Caraher, William R. (March 5, 2024). "Garbology and the Archeology of Trash". The Archaeology of Contemporary America. University Press of Florida. ISBN   978-0-8130-7306-4.
  5. ↑ Reno, Joshua (October 17, 2013). "Waste". In Graves-Brown, Paul; Harrison, Rodney; Piccini, Angela (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World. OUP Oxford. ISBN   978-0-19-166395-6.
  6. ↑ Press, Robert M. (May 13, 1980). "You can tell a lot about a person by looking at his garbage". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN   0882-7729 . Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  7. 1 2 Zimring, Carl A.; Rathje, William L. (2012). "Garbology". Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage. SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/9781452218526.n123. ISBN   978-1-4129-8819-3 . Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  8. ↑ Lane, Matthew R. (2011). "A Conversation with William Rathje". Anthropology Now. 3 (1): 78–83. doi:10.5816/anthropologynow.3.1.0078. ISSN   1942-8200.
  9. ↑ Rybczynski, Witold (July 5, 1992). "We Are What We Throw Away". New York Times . Retrieved January 23, 2009.
  10. ↑ Grimes, William (August 13, 1992). "Seeking the Truth in Refuse". The New York Times. Archived from the original on July 16, 2025. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  11. ↑ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (July 9, 1992). "Books of The Times; Most of What People Say About Trash Is Rubbish". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 14, 2018. Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  12. 1 2 Rathje, William L.; Murphy, Cullen (1992). Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage. University of Arizona Press. ISBN   978-0060166038.
  13. 1 2 Corwin, Miles (July 17, 1993). "The Rotten Truth About Garbage: Stuff in landfills is not biodegrading as fast you think, says an archeologist who digs for pop-top cans instead of pottery shards". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  14. ↑ Murashima, Claire (March 22, 2023). "Garbology is the study of trash. This is why students love it". NPR . Retrieved March 25, 2023.
  15. ↑ Metro High School. "What are Metro High School Students Doing About Garbage?". Metro High School. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved March 18, 2012.
  16. ↑ Rischar, Haley (July 28, 2020). "SWACO awards over $200,000 in grants to community projects". Recycling Today. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  17. ↑ Wheeler, Kaitlin (February 28, 2019). "Fighting for a Zero-Waste Campus at Santa Clara University". Ignatian Solidarity Network. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  18. ↑ Hanna, Arlene (August 2003). "Lessons Learned Through Garbology". The Nebline. 16 (8): 1. Retrieved January 18, 2026– via NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County.
  19. ↑ Molander, Stephanie; Lenihan, Jessica (April 2007). Ways to Waste: The Garbology of Post Consumer Refuse in the UBC Okanagan Cafeteria (PDF) (Report). pp. 22–23. hdl:2429/22870. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
  20. ↑ "Garbology Reveals More Could be Recycled in The Link". Duke Today. April 27, 2011. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  21. ↑ Sondhi, Alicia (March 1, 2011). "Review of Where Do Recyclable Materials Go?". Foreword Reviews. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  22. ↑ Pierson, Suzanne (January 13, 2012). "Operation: Reuse It! (Garbology Kids)". CM: Canadian Review of Materials. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  23. ↑ Lazar, Tara (April 18, 2011). "Interested in Non-Fiction Writing? Take a Lesson from Garbology Kids". Writing for Kids (While Raising Them). Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  24. ↑ "Following Garbage's Long Journey Around The Earth". NPR. April 26, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  25. ↑ "Following our garbage". MPR News. May 17, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  26. 1 2 Humes, Edward (2012). Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash. Avery. ISBN   978-1-58333-434-8.
  27. ↑ Moynihan, Colin (November 12, 2017). "The Answers My Friend, Are Written in This Book". The New York Times.
  28. ↑ Weberman, A. J. (November 1971). "The Art of Garbage Analysis". Esquire. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  29. 1 2 Baraniuk, Chris (May 3, 2022). "Garbology: How to spot patterns in people's waste". BBC. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  30. ↑ Hughes, Kat (September 16, 2008). "City allows scavengers, detectives dominion over trash". Columbia Daily Tribune. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  31. ↑ Fulmer, Scott (April 20, 2018). "Garbology 101: Trash Pull Tips for Private Investigators". Pursuit Magazine. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  32. 1 2 3 4 Gehl, Robert W.; Lawson, Sean T. (March 8, 2022). "Trashing: From Dumpster Diving to Data Dumps". Social Engineering: How Crowdmasters, Phreaks, Hackers, and Trolls Created a New Form of Manipulative Communication. The MIT Press. pp. 69–83. doi:10.7551/mitpress/12984.003.0008. ISBN   978-0-262-36892-6 . Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  33. ↑ Temple-Raston, Dina (December 8, 2019). "Can A Computer Catch A Spy?". NPR. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  34. ↑ Whitley, Glenna (August 3, 2006). "The Cult of Ole". Dallas Observer. Archived from the original on June 17, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  35. ↑ Leonard, Tom (March 22, 2002). "Benji the Binman cleans up". The Telegraph. Retrieved January 18, 2026.
  36. ↑ Halliday, Josh; O'Carroll, Lisa (February 21, 2014). "Phone-hacking trial told of 'bin man' who sold documents to newspapers". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  37. ↑ Gehl, Robert W. "Trashing the Phone Company with Suzy Thunder". Hack_Curio. Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  38. ↑ Weberman, Alan J. (1980). My Life in Garbology. Stonehill. p. 144. ISBN   978-0-88373-096-6.
  39. ↑ Garfinkel, S.L.; Shelat, A. (January 2003). "Remembrance of data passed: a study of disk sanitization practices". IEEE Security & Privacy. 1 (1): 17–27. doi:10.1109/MSECP.2003.1176992. ISSN   1558-4046.
  40. ↑ "Ghana: Digital Dumping Ground". PBS. 2009. Retrieved January 19, 2026.
  41. ↑ Russo, Tanner (November 6, 2019). "Garbage Pulls Under the Physical Trespass Test". Virginia Law Review. 105 (6) – via SSRN.
  42. ↑ Cann, Christopher (December 5, 2025). "Is it legal to dumpster dive? An old, stinky trend goes viral". USA TODAY. Retrieved January 18, 2026.

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