Garbage is the waste and discarded items of society. Archeologists obsessively dig up is historic or prehistoric
garbage – the useless, broken, and unwanted. Yet, these digs tell us a great deal about the society in
which the items were used. Countless inferences can be made from whatis discarded, how itis discarded,
where it is discarded, and why. Was it broken, used, consumed, or unwanted? These same questions and
answers have as much to tell us about modern societies. Whatis discarded and thrown away? Is it broken,
or merely unwanted? Has it been consumed, or was it past it’s “shelf-life”? Along with this archaeological
inferability goes the notion of the society in which it is discarded. Is it a modern “developed” society?
Using datasets available from the United Nations and World Bank detailing waste generation, economic
development, population, and land area, this paper will argue that waste generation is not only a product
of the society in which it is based, but also profoundly affected by the rate and the way at which the
society has approached modernity. Countries will likely always produce waste, but what becomes waste,
and how much, is a product of the particular society and the technology they have to eliminate it.