The Nation: Truth in Garbage

Having made a career of reconstructing long-dead civilizations from random remains, Archaeologist William L. Rathje hit on an idea: Why not use kindred techniques to study a modern culture? So for about four years Rathje and his students at the University of Arizona have held classes at the Tucson Sanitation Division's maintenance yard.

Wearing surgical masks and rubber gloves, they meticulously analyze the garbage thrown out by a representative sample of Tucson households.

Rathje's course—known on campus as Garbageology or Le Projet du Garbage—has produced some intriguing findings. The average Tucson family throws out about 10% of the food that it buys—enough to feed about 4,000 people. Middle-income families waste more food than either the rich or poor. Low-income people eat as much meat as those who are better off but consume proportionately more vitamins, liquor and bread. During the beef shortage of 1973, householders threw away about 9% of the beef they bought, perhaps because they were purchasing unfamiliar cuts or unusually large quantities.

Among other artifacts, the student "diggers" found false teeth, a diamond ring, a pair of silver-studded motorcycle boots, and a package of birth control pills with only one missing. The meaning of these finds is far from clear, but Rathje is eager to extend his research.

Says he: "A good question is whether people elsewhere waste as much as the people in Tucson."