Don’t mind the mess
Asárotos òikos or “unswept floor” was a home decor trend in classical antiquity. Roman and Greek artists were hired to create trompe-l’oeil mosaics meant to look like a massive feast had taken place, remnants of which were left scattered here and there on the floor.
Shown here is part of Heraclitus’ work, once part of a dining room floor in a Roman villa, now on display at the Vatican Museum.
One man’s trash…
Tom Deininger is an artist who uses assemblage to create mind-boggling shape shifting sculptures out of waste material. This is definite proof that trash vs treasure is only question of perspective.
What’s the word?
Garbage – Refers to wet food waste or kitchen scraps that can rot.
Litter – Trash that has been thrown away outdoors or in public spaces.
Junk – Old, broken or useless items that someone holds on to, just in case.
Debris – Broken pieces of scattered materials like remnants of construction, demolition or post-disaster.
Jetsam – Cargo or equipment thrown on purpose off a ship in distress, usually to keep the boat from sinking.
Once upon a time
Suuuuper old domestic trash dumps, are called “middens”.
Often found near coasts, these traces of settlements past contain various remains such as shells, animal bones, handmade tools, ceramics and beads among other things. Some South African middens are more than 120 000 years old!
Archaeologists now study these remnants to learn about ancient civilizations’ diets, habits and culture, animal migration patterns.
“Kitchen midden at Elizabeth Island, Strait of Magellan as excavated by the Albatross party with the Albatross at anchor”, date 1888 – Archival Photographer Stefan Claesson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Champagne problems
Did you know high-end designer “bins” are a thing. Both hand-crafted in Italy, Giobagnara offers a model with customizable leather inserts (3,355 USD) while Devon & Devon presents a cube pedal-operated waste basket (4,155 USD).
Trash flash
The global trash bag market is expected to reach 12.9 billion USD in 2026.
We. Are. Gagged.
Don’t yuck my yum
Feeling adventurous? Give “freeganism” a try!
Adepts sometimes practice dumpster diving, where they scavenge food items that have been discarded by grocery stores but are still perfectly edible.
Oftentimes these are thrown out because they are nearing or just over their expiration date, or the package is damaged and considered undesirable.
Just make sure you read up on local laws beforehand so you don’t end up feasting on jail cuisine instead, yikes.
On top of the world
You might have heard that Everest has been dubbed “the world’s highest garbage dump”. Abandoned tents, human waste, gear, food wrappers and oxygen canisters keep piling up year after year…
Deeply depressing but there are some good news regarding the removal of what’s being left behind :
Heavy-lift drones are now being used to airlift tons of trash away from the camps!
As far as the eye can’t see
Curious about space trash? Check out this cool real-time interactive map of all man-made objects and remnants that are orbiting the earth as we speak.
This tool built by the University of Texas tracks satellites (active and inactive), rocket bodies, debris and uncategorized objects. You can even click on each dot to get more info such as the country it was launched from and the items’ orbital speed.
Fun story : An “uncategorized object” I was frantically clicking on to further my investigation turned out to be unidentified surface crud on my laptop screen. Mkay.
Click here to view the map
Garbage olympics are a thing
Well, almost.
Invented in 2008, Spogomi (from the Japanese supōtsu for sport and gomi for trash/litter) has teams competing to pick up the most trash in a specific area within a time limit.
Once the time is up, findings are sorted and points are awarded based on the nature of the items, cigarette butts being the most valued.
The most recent Spogomi World Cup took place in 2025. A whopping 8 502 participants from 34 countries gathered a total 22.5 tons of litter over all of the qualifying rounds. That’s approximately the weight of three and a half elephants!
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