William Laurens Rathje (July 1, 1945 – May 24, 2012) was an American

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

. He was

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

, with a joint appointment with the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, and was consulting professor of anthropological sciences at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

.University of Arizona, Affiliated Faculty
accessed November 29, 2007 He was the longtime director of the

Tucson Garbage Project The Tucson Garbage Project is an archaeological and sociological study instituted in 1973 by Dr. William Rathje in the city of Tucson in the Southwestern American state of Arizona. This project is sometimes referred to as the "garbology project". ...

, which studied trends in discards by field research in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

, and in

landfills 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 ...

elsewhere, pioneering the field now known as

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 ...

. Rathje received his PhD in anthropology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1971. His academic interests have been archaeology, early civilizations, modern material culture studies, and Mesoamerica. He first became known as director of the National Geographic-sponsored Cozumel Archaeological Project (Harvard/U of Arizona: Feb–June 1973) --which established Cozumel's significance as an Olmec and Mayan port of trade. With his students at the University of Arizona, Rathje began ''Le Projet du Garbàge'' in 1973, sorting waste at Tucson's landfill. Early results showed that Tucson residents discarded 10 per cent of the food they purchased and that middle-income households wasted more food than the poor or wealthy. He received the 1990 Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology from the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

for "his innovative contributions to public understanding of science and its societal impacts by demonstrating with his creative 'Garbage Project' how the scientific method can document problems and identify solutions."AAAS History & Archives
accessed November 29, 2007 Except for several years in the early 2000s, during his tenure at Stanford, Rathje lived in Tucson, Arizona.

Works

*''A Study of Changing Pre-Columbian Commercial Systems,'' with Jeremy A Sabloff and Judith G Connor, Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1975. * Rathje, William
Rubbish!
', The Atlantic Monthly, December 1989 * *''Use Less Stuff: Environmentalism for Who We Really Are,'' with Robert M Lilienfeld, New York: Ballantine Pub. Group, 1998.

Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rathje, William 1945 births 2012 deaths American archaeologists Harvard University alumni University of Arizona faculty Stanford University Department of Anthropology faculty