Archaeological Angle On Garbage Reveals Social, Cultural And Economic Data
Brazil, in 2022, was responsible for the production of around 82 million tons of garbage, according to data from the Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning and Special Waste Companies . This undoubtedly has an immense impact on the environment and, in common sense, it would be unlikely to get anything out of it, other than recycling. However, there is a probability that a packaging that is discarded today will be an object of study in the future, from an archeological point of view.
“It is possible to think of excavation techniques, interpretation and archaeological analysis that favor a greater understanding of the historical, social, cultural, economic and environmental issues related to solid waste, garbage”, explains Luciana Ziglio, geographer at the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE) at USP and the Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences (IAG) at USP through the USP Susten program.
Methods
To study the solid waste left by a society, several methods can be applied, such as stratification. It does not necessarily need to be carried out in sanitary landfills — which have the function of receiving garbage — and can occur in previously occupied land. In this method, one of the possibilities is the division of layers of the earth: the more distant, the older the archaeological remains.
Luciana also adds other ways of studying these residues: “Examples of techniques that can be used in these studies are many, but one that can be remembered is the analysis of gravimetric compositions; they can be carried out, for example, in sanitary landfills, where quantities of urban solid waste are separated and there the quantity and quality of what was selected is verified“. Gravimetric composition consists of dividing the waste and determining its components, as well as their percentage in a sample. The researcher also adds that the literature can also help in these studies: “It is also possible to think about studies of solid waste through analysis of the literature, which can historically portray social organizations and also including evidence of the generation of solid waste“.
Conclusions
The importance of garbology — a combination of garbage , “garbage” in English, and logia, which means study — is found in several areas, not only in archeology: “The Archeology of Garbage or Archeology of Solid Waste is a field of scientific study of archeology, but also of interest to other scientific fields, such as geography, engineering, history, chemistry and sociology”, says the expert.
Within the so-called Archeology of Garbage, this fundamentality can be related to various pieces of information. “Solid waste reveals society and everything can be discovered through them, they are evidence for many explanations of human groups”, exemplifies the specialist. She adds that social issues, even the not so apparent ones, can be analyzed by this specialty of the archaeological field: “It is a scientific field that has much to be studied and, when thinking about contemporary society, whose solid residue is the result of an exclusion , it is possible to infer stigmatizations such as injustices, inequalities, socially hidden prejudices, but simultaneously materialized in solid urban waste“.
And these analyzes are not limited to contemporaneity, extending even to past societies: “With Garbage Archeology, the present time can be studied or also other eras. It is possible to think about solid waste throughout society, the temporality of society, from antiquity to contemporary times. We know. Thus, it is possible that future generations, when carrying out archeology of garbage in today’s landfills, will find our way of living in society very different”, emphasizes Luciana.