Waste Not, Want Not
SIRHAL, MAUREEN
Waste Not, Want Not Susan Strasser digs her way through the trash of history. by Maureen Sirhal Trash is not exactly fodder for a page-turning book. Why would anyone want to delve into the bowels...
...Ironically, Strasser points out, trash can be viewed as a measure of our advancement: The more we create, the better our standard of living...
...People still buy used products for repair and reuse...
...A multimedia industry—including Home Depots, cable networks such as Home & Garden Television, and the Bob Vila and Martha Stewart empires— has boomed over the last decade, playing on the notion that one man's trash can be another man's treasure...
...But in the same way those late night TV documentaries suck in viewers with a mix of melodrama and fact, so historian Susan Strasser entertains, for her Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash is more than a laundry list of the mundane chores associated with trash in America over the last two centuries...
...When items could finally be trashed, they were simply thrown into the streets, or out the back windows and doors...
...Economic growth freed Americans from the burdens of a century ago when trash picking was necessary, while tightening the gap between middle-class America and the rich—a divide that until the twentieth century was far more pronounced in daily life...
...The ranks of manufacturers, advertisers, and home economists soon began to preach the benefits of disposable products...
...But that is the price to pay for progress...
...Clothes were worn until they wore out and then dissected for rags...
...And how a society that once criticized the act of disposal now encourages it...
...The distinction is that people refurbish as a hobby rather than by necessity...
...The major shift, Strasser laments, came when manufacturers adopted the notion that objects should become outdated and trashed, even if they functioned perfectly...
...This does not make for a picturesque life...
...intended for 'purging the streets and alleys of accumulated filth and garbage...
...The ability to dispose of an item simply because it was outdated lent more people the distinction of a leisured lifestyle...
...The environment is indeed a concern, as is the growing problems of where to put trash...
...People began to buy as much for styling and modernizing as they did out of necessity...
...Vincent de Paul Society became vital organizations for both the waste trade and for poorer citizens...
...Since most products were not available for general consumption, each household was responsible for providing for its own...
...In fact, these practices enabled the institution-alization of charitable networks, long before government welfare...
...Through her rich details, Strasser documents how American culture shifted from waste consciousness to Maureen Sirhal is editorial assistant at Policy Review...
...Strasser—who previously penned Never Done: A History of American Housework and Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market—paints a vibrant portrait of domestic culture before the advent of trash collections...
...This trade in used goods," writes Strasser, "amounted to a system for reuse and recycling that provided crucial domestic sources of raw materials for early industrialism...
...Americans' willingness to discard and acquire—something inimical to nineteenth-century mentalities—ushered in an era that made improved technologies marketable...
...But the old saving mentalities have not entirely disappeared...
...But Strasser succeeds in proving that "matters deemed inconsequential are often significant...
...Women boiled food scraps into soup or fed it to animals...
...As a result, collecting and scavenging became an industry...
...Why would anyone want to delve into the bowels of history to discover how people recycled dirty rags...
...Groups like Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and the St...
...As she brings her history to the present day, she pays significant attention to the rise in garbage over the years, replacing the systematic reuse of every single household item...
...Objects served a variety of functions after their primary use...
...Yet Strasser downplays the benefits made possible in the cultural shift...
...Grease, for example, was valued as an ingredient for making soaps and candles...
...city council," writes Strasser, "set aside fifteen hundred dollars during the summer of 1837...
...Wastebaskets were actually rare in households where refuse could be burned for fuel or sold to peddlers and where much of the clothing and everyday objects were still handmade by women who might put any scrap to good use...
...And planned obsolescence did not mean that everything ended up in the trash...
...Diseases spread, and with public health a growing concern by the late 1800s, progressive policy advocates and leading home economists lobbied for refuse practices that would promote better hygiene...
...The garbage problem made municipal intervention a necessity...
...The Washington D.C...
...But for all the guilt laid at the consumers' feet by environmental activists, the ability to create trash symbolizes the improved standard of living everyone enjoys...
...Americans now spend millions on an industry devoted to the "art" of restoring and making new or stylish what once might have been trash...
...Long before government agencies peddled recycling for the benefit of Mother Earth, Americans recycled everything for personal survival...
...And yet, it is precisely the shift to consumerism that enabled environ-mentalism to become a political priority...
...consumer consciousness...
...Itinerant peddlers journeyed across the country, collecting broken household goods, repairing them and trading or selling their inventory to rural and city folk...
...In a society where time is money, few would sacrifice disposables in order to return to the days of saving grease to make candles...
...Strasser notes that individuals will endure some inconvenience for a perceived public benefit...
...Certainly it is progress that would not have occurred so quickly if not for the willingness of Americans to toss away what they don't need anymore...
...Strasser seems to mourn the loss of the wasteless culture...
...Disposable paper products promoted cleanliness, and public service announcements and pamphlets paved the way for their demand...
...Trash, we are to understand, has played a significant role in the rise of consumer culture and the "planned obsolescence" that now propels the economy...
...Things that were luxuries a century ago are now considered necessities...
...The notion that one can quickly and easily dispose of unwanted items, either because they had outlived their usefulness or become outdated, gave rise to consumer demand, translating into an increase in manufactured products...
...The same progressives who once advocated disposing refuse (for health's sake) have evolved into a different voice, now critical of consumer America's waste-making mentality...
...Yet Strasser downplays the benefits middle-class America enjoyed as a result of the trend...
...And any leftovers were saved for their trade-in value...
Vol. 5 • October 1999 • No. 6
