Tag Archives: environement

San Miguel de Allende

“As Long as You’re Buying…”: Mexico and the Endless Fast Fashion Loop

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By Estefanía Camacho

The other day I read someone saying that their excess clothes and plastic didn’t really count as fast fashion if they didn’t throw them away. In a way, they had a point — but it also completely ignores how we got here in the first place. This year I wrote a feature piece about what fast fashion is, where and how it started, and what we can actually do about it. That helped me understand the whole know-how behind it.

Buying clothes and simply not throwing them out is not really the answer. Even Marcelo Claure, the global vice president of the Chinese ultra fast-fashion company, told El Universal that they manufacture only 100 to 200 units of each product and then increase production depending on sales. Claure also confirmed that Mexico and Brazil are among its top five global markets, after the United States.

If you’re unsure what fast fashion means to this day, it’s basically when companies copy high-fashion designs and reproduce them on a massive scale, at low cost, using mainly outsourced labor — all within 15 days or even less.

The impact of imports on Mexico’s textile industry
This is true in the United Kingdom and in Mexico. Everything depends on how each country regulates the entry — and the disposal — of imported goods, especially in industries it could produce itself. So with lax rules for textile imports, it’s not surprising that the national industry has declined, just as it has in countries in the Global South like Chile, Ghana, or Kenya.

Mexico’s INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography) documented this in May 2024: between 1995 and 2000, the textile and clothing industry’s GDP grew an average of 6.5% per year, boosted by NAFTA. But in 2001 — the year China joined the World Trade Organization — that momentum dropped sharply and stayed low for the next decade.

Recently, while researching autonomous vehicle manufacturing, I realized something funny: the cars aren’t even on the roads yet, and developers are already planning how they’ll be disposed of at least a century from now. Meanwhile, the textile industry — especially fast fashion — never thought this way about clothes. Even the cement industry has disposal solutions.

Measures against fast fashion: tariffs and environmental proposals
In Mexico, digital access is still uneven, but you’ll still find second-hand shops almost anywhere with a sign that says, “We take Shein orders here.”

At the end of 2024, President Claudia Sheinbaum announced a temporary 35% tariff on textile imports from countries without free trade agreements. On the surface, it looks like part of a larger tariff war with China, but internally it also affects how Shein orders arrive in Mexico.

This basically ends the tax loophole that allowed imports under $50 USD to skip duties.
Rafael Zaga, president of the National Chamber of the Textile Industry, told Forbes that the Mexican textile sector loses $3.2 billion per year due to imports from online platforms like Shein. China is the main origin of Mexico’s textile imports (35.4%), followed by the United States (24.6%).

Mexico City: new practices for collecting textile waste
Denmark, for example, collects clothing directly from people’s homes and sends it to companies that sort what can be reused or recycled — but only after an awareness campaign that teaches households how to prepare the textiles. It’s still a very new system: it only began in July 2023.

Mexico City recently joined other regions working to properly collect textile waste. In September 2025, Mexico City’s Congress approved changes to the Solid Waste Law to officially recognize textile waste. It also authorized the Ministry of the Environment to create agreements with the industry to promote collection, treatment, recycling, reuse, and finally the disposal of textile waste. And, just like Denmark, it plans to promote collection programs through awareness campaigns on proper sorting.

In Europe, a person bought an average of 6 kilos of new clothes per year in 2020. And in Mexico City alone, 3.7 billion tons of textile waste are discarded each year, including bedding and curtains.

But these proposals will also need to consider the problems that other Global North countries have already faced with parts of this process. For example, the sorting phase requires workers who specialize in this job, and these tasks are usually done by nonprofits or private companies with their own interests because it’s minimized.

Europe sends much of its textile waste to sorting centers located in countries with lower labor costs, mainly in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. And that matters because the better this sorting process is, the more opportunities there are for reuse, resale, and recycling, but if this specialized work depends on underpaid workers, it might not be as useful or advantageous as we urgently need it to be.

Fast fashion, fast rewind
The term fast fashion is basically the same age as Taylor Swift — it was coined by a journalist in New York in 1989, when Zara opened its first store in that city and outside Spain for the first time. So, if you think about it that way, reversing this practice is not impossible; it’s not like we’ve been overconsuming for centuries.

The woman online who said she wasn’t contributing to pollution as long as she didn’t throw clothes away wasn’t totally wrong: wearing an item as many times as possible is the first solution given when trying to tackle this situation. The problem is that fast-fashion materials are lower quality so the cycle continues, lasts less, and even pollutes when washed.

But that doesn’t mean the garment can’t get a second life. You can repurpose it, mend it, redesign it, or give it another cycle. And if you’re part of the group that uses their clothes 37% less before discarding them, consider selling them on digital platforms or donating them if they’re still in good condition.

And if you finally decide the item is trash — even after waiting for it to cross the ocean, accumulate CO₂ emissions by air, sea, and land — then, before tossing it with everything else, check for local textile recycling centers or ask your waste collector if you can separate it.
Meanwhile, we’re also waiting for governments to adopt stronger measures, like the ones proposed in France, which would require fast-fashion companies to display environmental disclaimers on their websites or set a limit on how many new items they can upload per day, as well as their marketing.

In Mexico –where we don’t need a lot of justifications to keep on partying– we know this famous phrase first told by rancheras singer Vicente Fernández: “Mientras sigan aplaudiendo, yo sigo cantando” which means “as long as you keep clapping, I’ll keep singing”. It reminds me of the fast fashion cycle and how it sometimes feels like companies think exactly like Chente: “as long as you keep buying, I’ll keep producing.”

Estefanía Camacho is a freelance Mexican journalist working across media and digital magazines. She is a specialist in gender, SMEs, economics, and business.

Huatulco, San Miguel de Allende

How America’s Closets (And Sometimes Runways) End Up in Mexico’s Markets

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By Kary Vannice—

Whenever I travel to a new town in Mexico, the very first thing I look for is the local tianguis market. Some people go straight to the beach or the zócalo, but I make a beeline to the used clothing stalls. There is something irresistible about those long rows of tarps and huge piles of clothing, each one holding the possibility of an unexpected treasure.

Over the years, I have found everything from soft cashmere sweaters for eighty pesos to high-end dresses like Prada and Kate Spade with the original tags still attached for under ten dollars. And every time it happens, I feel the same spark of excitement and disbelief. How did this piece, so clearly meant for a very different kind of clientele, end up here amongst the street tacos, veggies, and chingaderas?

To me, it feels like fashion magic. But what feels like magic is actually part of a far bigger story, one that starts far from Mexico’s markets and reveals a great deal about the way clothing moves around the globe.

Most people in the United States believe that when they donate clothing, it ends up hanging neatly in a thrift store, ready for a new owner. The truth is very different. Only a tiny fraction is ever resold in the U.S. More than half is bundled, compressed and shipped out of the country. Mexico happens to be one of the main destinations.

Every year, the United States exports millions of tons of used clothing. Much of it from discount retailers, thrift stores or big box stores. But you can also find unsold inventory from more upscale stores, last season’s corporate clear outs and even brand samples that never make it onto the market. A well-used T-shirt from Walmart and a designer sale sample can all end up in the same enormous stream of “fashion waste”.

Arriving in Mexico as tightly wrapped bundles known as “pacas” and sold as “Ropa Americana”, they look a lot like plastic hay bales stuffed to bursting with mostly used (but sometimes new) clothing. Vendors buy them unopened, relying on codes stamped on the plastic to guess what might be inside. A paca can hold anything from children’s sweatshirts to high quality outdoor jackets to a dress from a designer brand that never made it past the showroom. And for many families, these bales are not just bundles of clothing. They are income, opportunity and a monthly gamble they hope will pay off.

Once something enters this bulk resale circuit, it follows its own path. A single sample blouse worn once for a catalog shoot can travel thousands of kilometers and eventually land in a street market in Oaxaca, Queretaro, or Mexico City.

The Mexican tianguis shopping experience reveals something important about fashion and culture. And that is, this humble community marketplace treats all clothing the same. In the United States fashion is organized by price, privilege, and status. Here, everything becomes just another piece of clothing again. A four-thousand-dollar designer suit jacket can be found under a faded tank top from Target. Here, the fashion hierarchy completely breaks down and a shirt is simply a shirt.

This unseen migration of clothing from the US to Mexico also reflects a bigger picture. Clothing doesn’t just disappear when one person is done wearing it. It continues its journey. It moves between countries, homes, economies, and cultures. What one society considers used or outdated becomes valuable in another context and community.

In our world, discarded clothing operates as a global supply chain of waste, resale, redistribution, and revaluation. It serves as a reminder that, in fashion, value is fluid, movement is constant, and our world is far more interconnected than it appears. Here in Mexico, the tianguis culture gives us a front-row seat to something most people never see, how global waste becomes local value, and how communities creatively reshape what the world throws away into income, opportunity, and economy.

Kary Vannice is a writer and energetic healer who explores the intersections of culture, consciousness, and daily life in Mexico.

Huatulco

Bring Your Own Bottle: A Small Choice with a Big Impact

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By Alicia Flores

When you come to Mexico on vacation, one of the easiest and most meaningful ways you can reduce your environmental impact is by bringing your own reusable water bottle. It may seem like a small gesture, but it can make a big difference.

Across Mexico’s coastlines, discarded single-use plastic bottles are one of the most common forms of litter. Many travelers, trying to stay hydrated, accept dozens of small water bottles throughout their stay—on excursions, in hotel rooms, and at restaurants. Unfortunately, most of these bottles end up in landfills or, worse, in the ocean.

By bringing your own bottle, you can help shift this pattern. Most restaurants, cafés, and hotels are happy to refill your bottle with purified drinking water if you simply ask. In fact, many properties now have refill stations or large garrafones (19-liter jugs) available for guests.If you’re staying at a large resort, do your part by politely declining small plastic bottles whenever possible. Instead, ask where you can refill your own. The more guests who make this simple request, the more hotels will prioritize refill options in the future.

Traveling responsibly doesn’t mean giving up comfort—it means being thoughtful about the small daily choices that add up. Bringing your own bottle is a simple way to stay hydrated, save money, and help protect the beautiful landscapes you came to enjoy.

Bottled water waste: The average traveler staying one week at an all-inclusive resort can easily go through 30–40 small plastic bottles of water. Multiply that by hundreds of guests, and a single hotel can generate thousands of bottles per week.

Global picture: An estimated 1 million plastic bottles are sold every minute worldwide, and less than 30% are recycled.

Ocean impact: Every year, 8 million tons of plastic enter the ocean—much of it from disposable food and drink packaging.

Refillable wins: A single reusable bottle can replace hundreds of disposables each year.

Travel Tip: If you plan to order takeout or eat on the beach, consider packing a reusable food container (a simple Tupperware works perfectly). Many local restaurants will happily pack your meal into your own container if you ask—it reduces waste and keeps your food fresher on the go.

Huatulco

Immigrants: Alcatraz, Agapanthus, and Sugarcane

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By Julie Etra

Did you know that the calla lilies and agapanthus, common flowers found in many Mexican markets (and a mainstay at our own Mercado Orgánico Huatulco [aka MOH]) are originally from South Africa? Well, neither did I. In Mexico, they grow in the Sierra Madre del Sur and other temperate climates. Sugarcane, also commonly cultivated in multiple regions of Mexico, is also an immigrant, but with a much longer and more complex history.

The Calla Lily

Calla and arum lilies are both scientifically identified as Zantedeschia aethiopica – arum lilies are larger, calla lilies boast multiple colors. In Nahuatl, they are called huacalxochitl, while the Spanish name is alcatraz, a word derived from the Arabic Spanish used in southern Spain (the Moors ruled Spain in progressively smaller areas, ending up with only the southern part known as Al-Andalus, now Andalusia, from 711 to 1492).

How the word alcatraz came to name the calla lily is debatable; apparently when an 18th-century Spanish explorer sailing up the Pacific to what is now California reached San Francisco Bay, he found callas growing on one of the islands in the bay – and the bay was full of pelicans (alcatraz also means “pelican”). Through a series of cartographic mishaps, the originally unnamed island came to be named La isla de los alcatraces, which transferred to the calla lilies. Callas can be spread by bird-dropped seeds, which is most likely how they got to both San Francisco and Mexico. On the other hand, explorers who had reached South Africa had brought them back to Europe a couple of centuries earlier, so they could have been introduced to Mexico by the Spanish. The trail went cold as I tried to figure out the route of the alcatraz through Europe, and ultimately Spain, for its eventual export to Mexico. Who was responsible for its spread? Was it the Portuguese? The Dutch? Other European traders? Was it ever cultivated in Spain, and if so, where?

In Mexico it grows prolifically in temperate climates on the periphery of oak pine woodlands. In Oaxaca it is commonly cultivated around San José del Pacifico. The white, trumpet-shaped “petal” of the flower is actually a “spathe,” or bract (modified leaf); the flower is the central yellow “spadix,” or phallic-appearing spike covered with tiny flowers.

Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist, had a particular fascination with white calla and arum lilies. He included them in both paintings and murals as a symbol of both purity and sensuality. Some critics believe he used callas to represent the “abundance of life and death” in indigenous life. However, the calla also appears in pre-Hispanic art. Given that it is not native to Mexico, how do we explain that? There are 700+ members of the Araceae family, all displaying the same spathe-and-spadix form; Mexico has 41 species, 26 of them native. Most probably the “flowers” portrayed in ceramics, sculptures, and other works of early art are the calla’s native relatives.

Agapanthus

Agapanthus, called agapando in Spanish, is derived from the Greek – agape meaning “love,” and anthos meaning “flower.” The purple flowers are clustered in an umbel-like form at the end of the stem, accompanied with fleshy leaves.

Like the alcatraz, it most likely followed a similar route from Africa to Europe, first arriving there at the end of the 17th century, possibly returning with Dutch traders. Europeans – in this case the Portuguese – first happened on the Capetown area in 1488, while searching for a sea route to the Orient in lieu of the dangerous and costly overland Silk Road. The Dutch, renowned flower breeders, settled Capetown in 1652, but numerous European traders followed. By 1679, the agapando had reached Europe by a returning trading ship; it loves to grow around the Mediterranean Sea (some countries have declared it an invasive species), so it made its way to Spain and thence to Mexico.

The cut flower trade is a multibillion-dollar industry; Mexican “ornamental plants and flowers” – also the name of Mexico’s overall trade association – were valued at $1.8 billion USD in 2021. The majority of production is located in the states of México, Puebla, Morelos, and Veracruz. There are about 25,500 producers of ornamental plants and flowers, providing 188,000 permanent and about 50,000 permanent jobs. More than a million jobs are indirectly related to the ornamental sector of Mexico’s economy.

Mexico is unique in that it produces cut flowers under natural conditions in open fields, as well as under controlled – usually in greenhouses – conditions. Both agapanthus and calla lilies are field-grown, which may be why they are not in the top 10 flowers produced for export (in 2007, they were about 13th and 14th on the list).
The Ornamental Plants and Flowers association will be hosting its international exposition, La Feria Especializada en Horti-Floricultura, Viverismo, Paisajismo, y Diseño Floral, September 13-15, 2022, in Mexico City at the Centro Citibanamex.

Sugarcane

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) is in the grass family. It arrived in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1522, brought from Cuba by Hernán Cortés. By 1524, there were already sugarcane plantations along the shores of the Tepengo River in Santiago Tuxtla, Veracruz. Although the origins remain unclear, it most likely is a native of New Guinea. It arrived in Persia (Iran) around 500 CE, spread throughout North Asia, traveled to Egypt and North Africa, and from there on to southern Europe. In around 755 CE, it arrived in southern Spain and the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. From Spain (or the Canary Islands) it migrated to Cuba in 1493. Its cultivation continued expanding into Central and South America. In Mexico, Veracruz was the ideal environment for sugarcane cultivation, given its soils, hydrology, and climate. Sugarcane spread rapidly throughout Mexico from 1550 to 1600, particularly in the states of Michoacán and Jalisco, around Puebla, and Cuernavaca and Cuautla in the state of México.

It rapidly became an important export, along with gold, silver, chocolate, and cochineal (the red dye created from insects that cluster on cactus), almost entirely to the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Early production was very labor intensive using basically slave labor, indentured servitude known as the encomienda system (explicit slavery was outlawed by the Catholic church). Production evolved into haciendas or large plantations, and production surpassed that of cotton, a Mexican native. By the 18th century over 300 sugarcane farms were supplying the sugar mills and factories.

According to the Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural (Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development), as of August 31, 2021, there were 49 sugarcane processing facilities in Mexico, producing over 5.7 million tons of refined sugar, an increase of over 8% percent from previous years. Approximately 738,146 tons were exported to the United States in 2021.

The state of Veracruz leads national production at 35% of the total, followed by 14% in Jalisco and 8% in San Luis Potosí. More than 826,000 hectares are under cultivation. Refined sugar is produced by crushing the sugarcane stems, heating the juice, filtering and crystalizing the juices, and finally centrifuging the liquid to further the purification process.

In addition to refined sugar, Mexico produces a type of unrefined sugar called piloncillo, which is also found elsewhere in Latin America under different names including panela, panocha, chancaca, and rapadura. Cone shaped, piloncillo is a solid form of sucrose derived from boiling and evaporating sugarcane juice. It is available in virtually every Mexican food market. Moscabado or mascobo is a type of Mexican sugar that resembles the brown sugar sold in the U.S. and Canada. It is a partially refined sugar with a strong molasses content and flavor, and dark brown in color. It used to be hard to find in Huatulco, but is consistently stocked at the Colorín market located on the south side of Calle Colorín between Rosa Laurel on the west and Chacah on the east.

Huatulco

An Eye on the Women of The Eye

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Julie Etra has drawn on her professional background in environmental sciences to write many articles about Mexican plants and animals, ever since the second issue of The Eye was published. Julie was born, raised and educated in New Rochelle, New York. When she was still in junior high, the New Rochelle high school building completely burned down, so her high school classes were held in temporary barracks. She then studied in real classrooms at the University of Colorado in Boulder, earning a BA degree in Environmental Biology, followed by completing an MS degree in Soil and Crop Science at the Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Continuing her westward trek, Julie worked for the U.S. Forest Service in South Lake Tahoe, California, for three years and then decided to start her own business, Tahoe Native Plants. One of her USFS projects involved restoration of land at a community college, and it was there in 1985 that she met her future husband who was also working on the project as a general engineering contractor. In 1990, Julie and Larry decided to buy land in Washoe County, Nevada (near Reno), and build their own home. Living in a 14′ travel trailer that was freezing in the winter and boiling in the summer until their construction was completed, they finally moved into their home, where they still live when not in Mexico. Once settled in Nevada, Julie moved her office to Reno and changed the name of her company to Western Botanical Services, Inc. She has continuously provided botanical surveys and soil analysis as a contractor to private engineering and landscape architecture companies and public entities overseeing implementation of erosion control and land restoration projects. Her business was incorporated in 1994.

Julie is avid about music, plays the piano, and listens to “almost everything.” She also enjoys playing tennis, swimming, gardening and, like the other writers for The Eye, constantly reads books, magazines, and newspapers. Julie first visited Mexico in 1977, where in Cozumel she was certified for scuba diving. In 1988, she and Larry began spending 3 months each year in Baja Sur. They visited Huatulco in 2007 and in 2008, decided to spend the winter here and built a home in Conejos. They also are extensive travelers and, with the exception of Antarctica, have visited every continent; Julie’s favorite is (subSaharan) Africa. Julie has two step-kids from Larry’s previous marriage and two grandkids with whom they stay in close contact.

The first articles Julie published in the Eye focused on corn – three articles on corn – until our editor suggested she might explore other topics and something less technical. The Eye article she enjoyed writing most described her travels with Larry and their puppy during COVID – “It was fun!”

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Recycling in Mexico:One Person’s Garbage is …

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By Julie Etra

This is not a typical discussion of recycling of aluminum, PET containers, cardboard, paper, foam, plastic, etc. For the basics on that, you can look back at my 2014 article in The Eye:
(https://theeyehuatulco.com/2014/04/01/recycling-in-huatulco/). In Huatulco, recycling of these items by the Federal government via FONATUR is standard and in our neighborhood, Conejos, we get pick up three times a week (although the garbage is no longer sorted).

Used plastic bottles
Look around town and the surrounding communities and you will see all types of flowers and herbs grown in re-used bleach and detergent bottles. Instead of a clay cazuela, shattered in the June earthquake, I now have an indestructible sawed-off plastic bottle birdbath, thanks to my buddies Mick and Maggie (the kiskadees also thank you). Hold on to your 5-gallon paint buckets, there is no Home Depot here, and you won’t find empty buckets to purchase at the paint stores.

Corn
Let’s start with recycled corn components, primarily used in folk art. Corn husks, known as totomoxtle in Nahuatl and hojas de maíz in Spanish, husks are used in handicrafts and furniture. They primarily come from one region of the State of Jalisco, Jala, and from a particular variety of corn named for the location (maíz de Jala). This variety of corn is well-known for the large size of the stalk as well as the cob and is, or at least has been, genetically distinct. It can grow up to five meters in height and prefers a very fertile soil and humid climate. Common handicrafts include dolls, flowers, and furniture. Look for the flowers at the organic market (MOH, or Mercado Orgánico de Huatulco) on Saturday in Santa Cruz. A cooking tip: I like to leave the husks on the cobs, sprinkling them with a little bit of chili powder, tying the husks, and steaming them over the grill.

Multi-Media
My friend Irais says that, due to COVID, she is home-schooling her 5-year-old daughter Sofia. Their current school project is to fill in a drawing of “Adelita” using recycled and/or natural products to instill appreciation of both materials in young children. What a concept! Adelita represents the women soldiers who participated in the Mexican Revolution, typically shown with a bandolier (bandolera or cartuchera in Spanish) across her chest (there is also a famous song or corrido “La Adelita”). So, Sofia is using totomoxtle for the skirt and part of the sombrero, the seed of the tabachin or flamboyan (royal poinciana) tree for the bullets, beans for her toes, petals for her blouse, and corn silks for the braids. Her skin is colored with the native red clay; this is a work in progress. And for Día de los Muertos, the children were similarly tasked with making a mask out of natural materials. Sofia (and her mom) chose the petals of marigolds, known as cempasúchil in Spanish (cempohualxochitl in Nahuatl), the flower of the dead, a Mexican endemic, thus teaching the children horticulture while instilling traditions.

Coconuts
In between the outer green shell of the coconut fruit and its hard internal shell is found a fibrous husk. This material is used in a variety of common products, including door mats, hanging planters, paint brushes, mattresses, furniture stuffing. It is also used in horticulture. I work in erosion control, and this material, also known as coir, is woven into nettings, blankets, and mats to help stabilize erodible soils, in combination with vegetation. Coir is an excellent byproduct of coconut cultivation, where the primary products are the coconut meat, milk, and oil. Coir has historically been produced in India and Sri Lanka. More recently Mexico has begun processing this versatile material in Cihuatlán, Jalisco, as Fibredust™, a growth medium that can substitute for peat moss, which is an extracted, non-sustainable, environmentally harmful resource. The Fibredust™ parent company produces the same product in Sri Lanka and India, but chose Cihuatlán due to the abundance of plantations in the vicinity, and convenience of container shipping from the nearby port of Manzanillo. The material is superior as a growth medium due to its water retention and associated slow-release properties.

The coconut shell, or concha de coco, can be sanded, carved, and polished and used as ornamental bowls, light fixtures, inlay, jewelry, etc.

Palm fronds

Let’s not forget these. If they fall off or are harvested, they are what makes a palapa a palapa, after all!

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Garbology

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By Randy Jackson

My father-in-law was one of those people who liked garbage dumps for the treasures they held. There is a family photo of him in a suit, checking things out at a dump while on his way to his daughter’s wedding. Garbage dumps have changed somewhat over the years, but I’m sure there is still a lot of good stuff that ends up in a landfill.

There are mountains of stuff going to landfills every day. Mexico, according to Wikipedia, sends 95% of its waste to landfills. For Canada, it’s 72% and the US 54%. Too much, way too much, as we all know – but is there anything good about piles of garbage besides the odd treasure? Well, there is Garbology and Archeology, or what we can learn about ourselves and our society from studying garbage.

A. J. Weberman has been credited with the invention of the term “Garbology.” Weberman billed himself as the world’s leading Dylanologist (also his invented term). In his intense study of Bob Dylan and his music, Weberman collected and studied Dylan’s garbage and labeled the study Garbology. He claimed Dylan’s garbage revealed real insights into Dylan as a human being, an artist, and a family man. Weberman goes so far as to claim his work led to Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature. However, knowing that Bob Dylan once beat up Weberman on the streets of New York, I’m not sure that Dylan sees Weberman as being that influential.

Weberman, an odd eccentric even to this day, was onto something; You can learn a lot about someone from their garbage. The term Garbology has since been taken up by a Harvard-trained anthropologist, William Rathje (1945-2012). Rathje’s work led to Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (Harper Collins 2001), co-authored with Cullen Murphy. The book is based on Rathje’s ongoing Garbage Project with the University of Arizona.

Rathje saw the Garbage Project as a combined study of archeology and sociology. A 1992 New York Times review of the book was aptly titled “We are what we throw away.” The review essentially expresses what Weberman said about going through Bob Dylan’s trash. One example cited in Rathje’s book was that of alcohol consumption. Rathje found that people drank 40% – 60% more alcohol than they reported they consumed. Among numerous other findings, Rathje found that people from poorer neighbourhoods more often choose smaller portions of name brand merchandise rather than larger quantities of the less expensive no-name or generic brands.

Rathje’s garbage project has also done some myth-busting about what is actually in landfills – substantially more recyclable paper than fast food containers, for example. His study also found that landfills are dry and oxygen-starved places that tend to mummify rather than biodegrade material. One way Rathje’s team dated material in landfills was simply to read the perfectly preserved newspapers buried at the level they were studying. To this day, the Garbage Project studies landfills across the US (in Toronto and Mexico City as well) going back to trash levels from the 1950’s. Even trash layers from past decades show that organic material is only partially biodegraded.

Archeologists and anthropologists go farther back in time in their study of trash sites. In these disciplines, trash sites are called “middens” (the word comes from the ancient Danish for “dung heap”). Midden later became the scientific word used for a kitchen mound or shell heap. Middens are the cornerstones of how archeologists and anthropologists piece together their knowledge of ancient peoples.

As an example, at Yucu Dzaa, a late postclassic (ca. 12th to early 16th centuries) Mixtec capital on the coast of Oaxaca, excavations of middens revealed numerous aspects of cultural life including levels of prosperity between households – indicating socio economic classes. Materials from other parts of Mexico indicate distant trading. Non self-sufficiency in food preparation indicates existence of local markets for goods.

Worldwide, ancient trash heaps have been central in our understanding of our history. The East Chisenbury midden, for example, provided information on the transition between the Bronze and Iron ages in England. Ancient middens in Japan have demonstrated evidence of extensive trade networks. In Egypt, at a place called Oxyrhynchus, a substantial midden contained large quantities of papyrus texts. This site held so much important information that scholars have commented that this midden would have been comparable to finding the ancient library of Alexandria. Among the many texts excavated at Oxyrhynchus was the gospel of St Thomas, discovered in 1945.

One thing they don’t tell you at the dealership when you buy a pickup truck, is that you will be hauling something to the dump (just as surely as you will be moving someone’s couch with it). As a truck owner, I’ve learned that modern landfills are dramatic places to visit. There are swirling flocks of crying gulls or, as in Huatulco, charging troupes of zopilotes (vultures). Monster machines roam at high speeds with huge iron wheels crushing everything in their wake. There is a tapestry of colors from all manner of things discarded. And there’s that acrid smell. It’s that smell and the rush of the crushing machines, I think, that seems to evoke haste among us trash deliverers. I’ve always felt in a rush to empty out the back of the truck as quickly as possible, jump in the cab, and speed off – thus leaving behind some of the evidence of our lives for garbologists or archeologists to study one day – no time to look for treasures, as my father-in-law would have done.