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Garbage, trash (
In urban areas, garbage of all kinds is collected and treated as
Garbage, trash (American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
), rubbish (British English
British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...
), or refuse is waste
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor Value (economics), economic value. A wast ...
material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, or toxic waste products. Garbage is commonly sorted and classified into kinds of material suitable for specific kinds of disposal.
Terminology
The word ''garbage'' originally meant chickengiblets
Giblets is a culinary term for the edible offal of a fowl, typically including the Heart#Food, heart, gizzard, Liver (food), liver, and other organs.
A whole bird from a butcher is often packaged with the giblets, sometimes sealed in a bag wi ...
and other entrails, as can be seen in the 15th century Boke of Kokery, which has a recipe for ''Garbage''.
What constitutes garbage is highly subjective, with some individuals or societies tending to discard things that others find useful or restorable. The words garbage, refuse, rubbish, trash, and waste are generally treated as interchangeable when used to describe "substances or objects which the holder discards or intends or is required to discard". Some of these terms have historic distinctions that are no longer present. In the 1880s, material to be disposed of was divided into four general categories: ashes (derived from the burning of coal or wood), garbage, rubbish, and street-sweepings.James Ciment, ''Social Issues in America: An Encyclopedia'' (2015), p. 1844-45. This scheme of categorization reduced some of these terms to more specific concepts:
The distinction between terms used to describe wet and dry discarded material "was important in the days when cities slopped garbage to pigs, and needed to have the wet material separated from the dry", but has since dissipated.William L. Rathje, Cullen Murphy, ''Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage'' (2001), p. 9.
Treatment
In urban areas, garbage of all kinds is collected and treated as municipal solid waste
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the American English, United States and rubbish in British English, Britain, is a List of waste types, waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. ...
; garbage that is discarded in ways that cause it to end up in the environment, rather than in containers or facilities designed to receive garbage, is considered litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The waste is objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles, but ...
. Litter is a form of garbage that has been improperly disposed of, and which therefore enters the environment. Notably, however, only a small fraction of garbage that is generated becomes litter, with the vast majority being disposed of in ways intended to secure it from entering the environment.
History
Humans have been creating garbage throughout history, beginning with bone fragments left over from using animal parts and stone fragments discarded from toolmaking.Simon Davis, "By their garbage shall they be known", ''New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a popular science magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organ ...
'' (November 17, 1983), p. 506-515. The degree to which groups of early humans began engaging in agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...
can be estimated by examining the type and quality of animal bones in their garbage. Garbage from prehistoric or pre-civilization humans was often collected into mounds called midden
A midden is an old dump for domestic waste. It may consist of animal bones, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human oc ...
s, which might contain things such as "a mix of discarded food, charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
, shell tools, and broken pottery".
See also
*Garbology
Garbology is the study of modern refuse and trash as well as the use of trash cans, compactors and various types of trash can liners. It is a major source of information on the nature and changing patterns in modern refuse, and thereby, human so ...
(study of modern refuse and trash)
* Landfill
A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...
* Garbage truck
A garbage truck is a truck specially designed to collect municipal solid waste and transport it to a list of solid waste treatment technologies, solid waste treatment facility, such as a landfill, materials recovery facility, recycling center ...
References
{{reflist Waste