A Conversation with William Rathje
Author(s): Matthew R. Lane
Source: Anthropology Now , Vol. 3, No. 1 (April 2011), pp. 78-83
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5816/anthropologynow.3.1.0078
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms
Taylor & Francis, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Anthropology Now
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
conversations Hispanics did not drink much milk, and
they do. They thought the most household
cleaning products and the most expensive
A Conversation with ones were in the wealthier neighborhoods.
William Rathje They picked out two households in each
neighborhood and they picked out four
Matthew R. Lane garbage bags to go through. They found that
low-income people bought more childhood
education items and cleaning products. The
W illiam Rathje, professor emeritus of
anthropology at the University of Ari-
zona, has been described as “Garbology’s
students suggested that maybe the people
had the stereotype that their homes were
not as clean as they should be and that their
High Priest.” Rathje founded and was the children were not educated the way that
long-time director of the Garbage Project in they should be. Maybe low-income people
Tucson, Arizona, where he led archaeologi- were making up for that.
cal studies of modern refuse. Dr. Rathje is Shortly after this work by the students, A.
currently editing a new book, The Encyclo- J. Weberman published a cover story in Es-
pedia of Consumption and Waste: The So- quire on garbage and what it says about
cial Science of Garbage. you. I put these two things together: the stu-
dents’ projects and the results from Weber-
How did the anthropology of garbage be- man. I thought this is a really interesting
gin? topic. As an archaeologist I always felt like
a second-class citizen within the discipline
When I arrived at the University of Arizona, of anthropology. Normally cultural anthro-
I had never taught a course. So all of a sud- pologists spend their time asking people
den there I was teaching introductory ar- about what they do, and I thought I would
chaeology. What I figured was that the best like to have archeology add a material com-
way for students to learn about archaeology ponent to modern society that we could
was to learn about the relationship between compare to contemporary interview sur-
behavior and artifacts. And the best place to veys. That data would show archaeology as
observe that, where they understand it, is in an important way to find out whether there
the society around them. So their term pa- really were differences between what peo-
per was to go out into Tucson and study ple said they consumed and threw away
some relationship between behavior and and what they actually consumed and
material culture threw away based upon all of the packaging
Two students—independently—came up and other material components. So that’s
with the idea of taking garbage from a high- how it started.
income neighborhood and a low-income
neighborhood and comparing it. They broke What was the next step to launching your
a lot of their own stereotypes. They thought own work on garbage?
78 anthropology NOW Volume 3 • Number 1 • April 2011
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
We started with fresh garbage from house- down because they’re full. So it was volume
holds. After we had been doing that for fif- that was one of the key variables. What we
teen years, I began hearing from friends that found in our studies was that fast food pack-
archaeologists were saying behind my back aging was about .05 of 1 percent of the
that this isn’t really archaeology because landfill; styrofoam was about 0.08 percent
there’s no dirt. There’s no digging. It’s sociol- by volume in the landfill; and disposable di-
ogy. It’s nutrition. It’s consumption patterns. apers were between 1.2 and 1.8 percent. So
But it’s not archaeology. So at that point I if you put all three together it’s less than 3
went to my friend Wilson and told him that I percent of what is in a landfill. So I wrote the
want to dig up a landfill. He said, “Bill, New York Times and said, “Hey you guys.
you’re out of your mind! That’s nuts. Land- This is not what’s filling up landfills.” Before
fills are dangerous. How are you going to we dug landfills archaeologists had said to
dig them? How are you going to sort these me, “This is not archaeology.” When I went
things out?” And I said, “Wilson, you’re my on television, people complained, saying:
man to do that.” About two months later he he’s a garbologist. When we started provid-
came back and said that there are these ma- ing information about what was in the land-
chines, bucket augers, that dig wells into fills, I actually received letters and phone
landfills, and we can get the garbage that calls from anthropologists saying “Why
was brought up from the well and sample it don’t you say what you really are, an ar-
every ten feet and then take it back to our chaeologist.” So this made me feel like part
sorting area and go through it. We dug into of the community again.
the first landfill in 1987 in Tucson, and it
was interesting. We started digging in land- You commented that, “What people have
fills and gathered tremendous amounts of owned—and thrown away—can speak
information because we could still get the more eloquently, informatively, and truth-
packaging, brand, and price. fully about the lives they lead than they
About two months after the first dig—and themselves ever may.”
by that time we had done three—a New
York Times editor wrote an editorial about I thought the people would be too sensitive
styrofoam, disposable diapers, and fast food about their garbage. But, in fact, most peo-
filling up landfills. And what we found when ple were more than willing to let us go
we started doing landfills by volume and through their garbage knowing that it was
weight is that landfills are not closing down their garbage. Here’s an irony for you: we
because they’re too heavy. They’re closing had to go through the university’s human
subjects committee and get the people
whose garbage we sorted to sign the consent
form that their garbage could be sorted. We
That’s nuts.
would sort their garbage for five weeks, and
Landfills are dangerous.
then we would interview them in the middle
of those five weeks. The interviews usually
Matthew R. Lane A Conversation with William Rathje 79
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
asked how much do you normally consume filling up the landfills, but they aren’t be-
in a day or week of something or other. So cause of what the industry calls lightweight-
we had a long-term kind of sample of the ing, which simply means making the plastic
garbage. What was amazing to me was what a lot thinner and trying to make it stronger.
people said: “Fine. We threw it away, didn’t As for plastics, yes we ought to be con-
we?” I think it was because they did not re- cerned about them, and we ought to recycle
ally realize all of the stuff that was in the as many of them as we can, but they’re not
garbage. We always kept them anonymous. the biggest contributor of landfill volume.
The irony is the only way to track down the It’s paper. There is so much newspaper in
individual households where we sorted the landfills. About 18 percent of a landfill is
garbage in the interview survey was on the newspaper that is eminently recyclable. It’s
forms that they signed for the human sub- important to either get curbside recycling or
jects’ committee that are stored in the ar- get people to drive their recycling to a recy-
chaeology department. People underreport, cling center, or get Boy Scouts or church
and we have done this study four times. Peo- groups to have a recycling drive for newspa-
ple underreport the amount of beer con- per. All that stuff works real well in getting
sumed in their household by at least 40 per- newspaper out of the waste stream.
cent. They underreport how much prepared It’s really important to me that people
food they are consuming. need to be garbage literate. Just having recy-
cled arrows on the box does not mean that
What is the relationship between contem- it’s made out of the type of paper you want
porary consumption patterns and the mate- to buy. Lots of recycled paper is the scrap at
rial record as evidenced in landfills today? a paper mill that is cut off when the paper is
turned into boxes. That scrap is just shov-
Well, the garbage in landfills is definitely eled back into the tank where the paper is
changing. The fastest growing item in land- made and it’s called recycled paper. What
fills is paper. Paper’s gone from 40 percent you want to look for is post-consumer recy-
to over 50 percent, and it continues to grow. cled percent. That will tell you how much of
Today, people are talking about computers a particular box is made out of paper that
making us a paperless society. Well, the was made into a consumer product, which
problem is that when you get a computer was bought, used, and then turned back
you usually get a printer. So the individual into a recycling center.
household becomes a small publishing Not very much biodegrades in a landfill
house. Lots of people are afraid that com- and certainly not plastic. Any archaeologist
puters will crash and they will lose what’s knows that to biodegrade things, you have
on the hard disk so they make an extra copy. fluid, usually water, and you have move-
Another thing that’s happened is that ment of that fluid, and, as with contempo-
plastics have increased from about 7 or 8 rary landfills, you don’t have either fluid or
percent in 1973 to about 16–18 percent to- movement and not much biodegradation is
day. Lots of people think that plastics are happening. About half of all yard waste and
80 anthropology NOW Volume 3 • Number 1 • April 2011
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
food waste will biodegrade in the first fifteen
years of burial, but then after that it seems to The Garbage Parkinson’s Law is
stabilize and not much changes in it. Paper
that garbage expands to fill up
doesn’t biodegrade very much at all. In fact
the space that’s provided for it.
it biodegrades very little. We have newspa-
pers from 1948 that are still readable. We
don’t know a lot about landfills because
they have only been around for a short time. society today is that on one side a lot of
The first one, if I am not mistaken, was de- communities have recycling programs,
veloped at the University of Illinois in 1911. blue-box programs where you put your re-
However, they weren’t used extensively un- cyclables, at the same time so that garbage
til after WWII. Before that most garbage was can be picked up efficiently and mechani-
either dumped in open dumps—stuff would cally. They usually use 90-gallon plastic
biodegrade or it would catch on fire be- containers rather than the old 60-gallon gal-
cause it turns into methane gas—or it would vanized steel containers. What’s happened
be incinerated. And that was one of the rea- in Tucson, at least, and in Phoenix and in a
sons after WWII, you know how the Army few other cities we looked at, is that when
likes to standardize things, that the people in you give people more room to put their
charge of waste decided that landfills were garbage they generate more garbage to fill
the best thing to do, because you couldn’t up their containers. So it’s sort of an irony
build little incinerators everywhere. At the that in one sense we’re recycling to reduce
end of WWII thousands of GIs came back our garbage, but in the other instance, we’re
home, literally, knowing how to build land- intentionally increasing garbage that’s
fills. Landfills really took off when these thrown away by the use of these large con-
guys came back. Incinerators generate a lot tainers. Now cities like Seattle have contain-
of soot, and people, obviously, do not like ers that are small, and you pay to get a 40-
that very much. And the end result was that gallon container for x and if you get a
landfills came into vogue. That was what the 60-gallon container you pay x plus some-
majority used for disposal of the majority of thing else. I think you are probably familiar
their waste. with what’s called the Seattle Stomp: they
smash the garbage with their foot to put it in
Could you speak a little bit about what you the smallest can that they can. Personally, I
and your team have referred to as Parkin- think that’s the direction we should be going
son’s Law of Garbage? in, and there are ways to mechanize the
pickup of the smaller containers, but I think
The original law by Northcot Parkinson was using the 90-gallon containers as a way to
that work expands and fills up the time pick up garbage in a mechanized way right
that’s given to do it. The Garbage Parkinson’s now is the wrong way to go.
Law is that garbage expands to fill up the
space that’s provided for it. The irony in our MSNBC’s recent special on garbage did a
Matthew R. Lane A Conversation with William Rathje 81
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
good job of capturing that we, as an Ameri- China is? People getting hit by thrown
can public, really do not know what is hap- garbage in the street. The reason being that
pening to the garbage in this country. The garbage collection, at least in China’s big
phrase “out of sight, out of mind” relates to cities, is by way of flatbed trucks. The trucks
this when thinking of garbage. drive around playing music, almost like ice
cream trucks, and the noise signals to peo-
I think garbage is “in sight out of mind.” We ple to bring their garbage out. So people
see garbage all the time but we don’t think come from out of their homes and throw the
about it. We don’t think of where it goes. garbage onto the flatbed. So people throw-
But I do think it’s a good consciousness-rais- ing garbage get hit by other garbage thrown
ing thing about showing more about where by people around them.
the garbage goes. The journalist in the spe- In many areas of Mexico City garbage is
cial was standing on the landfill for the first not picked up in containers at the house or
time, and he said, “Hey, this thing is kind of the apartments. The garbage is brought out
squishy.” And I remember thinking that the to a sort of a cul-de-sac on the street and
first time I went on a landfill too. But you dumped there. And then, after the dogs have
know what they can’t get across in a visual picked over it, a garbage truck comes along,
manner so easily is that when you walk on a and the garbage is shoveled onto the truck.
landfill, and one of those compactors or a During our work in Mexico we participated
garbage truck or anything drives within a in what was called The Garbage Expo. They
hundred feet of you, the whole thing feels built this huge tent and designed the inside
like you are standing on Jello. The whole of the tent like a maze with a path and they
thing shakes. I mean it really shakes and had all sorts of information about garbage
part of the compaction process is to have and how to recycle, in short how to cut
the heavy machinery vehicles driving on the down on garbage. They also have some of
landfill to help compact the landfill. These the best recycling in the world in Mexico
machines serve as man’s compactor. City at the dumps, where they have literally
thousands of pigs, and the garbage trucks
Do you see garbage and waste politics be- come in, and the pigs literally stampede to
coming more and more pressing issues for the garbage trucks where they get their
the global community? food. Then the peperadores, the scavengers,
have their recycling lines: one of them will
The garbage problem in China is going to do plastic, one will do metal, one will do
require a tremendous amount of work to glass. They’re very, very, very conscious of
bring it up to the state of the art that even privacy and their cut of the garbage. In fact,
we have. I am not saying that what we have there was a march of 10,000 people in
is the best around, but I can certainly say downtown Mexico City back in the 1980s
that China has to do a tremendous amount complaining about the garbage being di-
of work to get anywhere around us. Do you verted to new peperadores. During our re-
know what the most common injury in search we got to go inside one of the
82 anthropology NOW Volume 3 • Number 1 • April 2011
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
dumps. They would not allow us to take pic- not being recycled at anything like the rate
tures. But they allowed us in to see what it’s that would make a dent in the garbage that
like. There is this image in Mexico that the needs to be disposed of. So I think that the
peperadores are filthy and covered in world needs a change, but I think it’s going
garbage, and they live in garbage, and that’s to take a long time, and I hope it’s not ar-
just not the case. These guys have apart- chaeological time. It’s going to be a long
ments or homes and they clean up every time before there’s a significant decrease in
day when they go home, and then the next the amount that we actually throw away.
day they go back to the landfill, and then We may actually recycle a lot more than we
they go back home. have, but there’s still going to be a lot more
garbage thrown out. Source reduction is re-
Do you foresee a change in the way that we ally the major thing that people should be
consume and get rid of waste into some- concerned about today. That means buying
thing the global community will have to ad- with less packaging: for example, buying
dress together? concentrated orange juice in a small can
that’s frozen, over orange juice in a gallon
Let me answer by saying that one of the jug. Also, doing other things, for example, I
things I find most interesting about garbage, don’t know if you’ve noticed, packaging on
and how much garbage there is, is recorded most deodorants is pretty incredible: they
as what I call the percentage paradox. Be- put it in a box. It’s not as if I could tell you
cause of what’s going on in our society to- every product you should buy, but if people
day, the percentages of the amount of mate- think about the packaging when they’re
rial we recycle are going up. We’re buying a product—if they think about what
recycling say 30–35 percent of our waste as they’re going to throw away as a result of
an estimate. And, we can feel proud of that, buying the item—I think that will make a
but the percentage of the garbage that we huge difference. It’s going to take time and
make is going up even faster. So 35 percent garbage literacy. It’s just going to be awhile.
of 100 is 35. However, 35 percent of 140 is
not even 30. The end result is that we do
have to make this a global issue. In the Matthew R. Lane is a graduate student in anthro-
United States it has to be an issue; it has to pology at the University of California, Irvine. His
be an issue here as you saw in the garbage work centers on the commodification of post-
special. Plastics are being made all over the consumptive waste, scrap metal in particular, in
world in very large quantities, and they are Chicago, Los Angeles, and India.
Matthew R. Lane A Conversation with William Rathje 83
This content downloaded from
168.176.5.118 on Sun, 04 Apr 2021 23:09:18 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
