As described in the preface of this work, “waste” is defined as something no longer wanted, something destroyed or broken or damaged beyond repair, and therefore disposed of or simply thrown away because it is no longer functional, no longer needed, and/or no longer wanted. It is important to point out that “waste” is known by many names; many of them are described and discussed in this book. However, before listing the most common types of “waste” it is important to use an example of what waste can be when a product or material is not damaged but instead is necessary to dispose of. Consider, for example, the following factual account of when something treasured or wanted is discarded.
Frontier Mentality
It was one of the most famous trails ever. It was the longest overland trail in North America. In 1843, Americans were encouraged by the U.S. Government to travel the 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri, to their final destination in the Oregon Territory to homestead the land. By settling the land with more Americans than British, Oregon would belong to the United States.
The 2,000-mile trek to Oregon Territory was no walk in the woods; it was a Great Migration of hordes of people traveling in covered wagons over mostly uncharted lands and trails (or so this was the case early on). The seemingly endless lines of prairie schooners snaked their way along the trail for more than six months before they arrived at their destinations.
The pioneers took what they could carry in their wagons. For example, it was not unusual for each wagon to be loaded with food that included: yeast for baking, crackers, cornmeal, bacon, eggs, dried meat, potatoes, rice, beans, and a big barrel of water. They would also take a cow if they had one. Pioneers made their own clothing, so they brought cloth to sew, needles, threads, pins, scissors, and leather to fix worn-out shoes. They had to make their own repairs, so they brought saws, hammers, axes, nails, strings, and knives.
Occasionally, and against the advice of the wagon master, pioneers would also pack away personal treasures—heirlooms such as pianos, family trunks and furniture, mirrors, assorted chinaware, silver, paintings, and other decorative household goods of the day. These items not only took up a lot of space within the wagon but also were clumsy to handle and added extra weight to the wagon.
It usually did not take too many miles before many of those who had packed too much started to drop off or discard various personal treasures along the trail. So many personal property items were discarded along the trail that by the late 1840s it was no longer necessary to follow the tracks of the wagons that had preceded them to follow and stay on the trail. All one needed to do was to follow the strewn and rotting personal treasures (and assorted gravesites) that marked the trail. The parting with their personal treasures must have been heartbreaking to many of the pioneers as they made the difficult trek along the Oregon Trail to their new homesteads in the West.
For decades many have asked what was it that drove or enticed these people to undertake such a perilous adventure into lands unknown. The main draw, of course, was the promise of free land. For others it was freedom from the squalor of eastern city life or the drudgery of farm life in trying to eke out a living on worn-out soils as tenet farmers that drove them to undertake the arduous Western adventure. For others it was the wide-open untamed spaces and the quest for adventure that was the drawing card.
This burning desire to conquer new lands, exploit them, and become rich was like a powerful magnet attracting and aligning the metal filings of their mentalities. This outlook, mode, or way of thought that drove the pioneers to trek across barren, rugged, unforgiving wilderness is commonly called frontier mentality. That is, we live as though we can’t effectively harm the natural world in a significant way because it is so big and we are so little, and if we damage one place, there will always be a new frontier to move to. The reality is that this mode of thought, this frontier mentality, can be summed up today by simply stating that in the United States, there has always been a Western frontier, a place to go to and start over where there are riches just for the taking for hardy spirit and determined worker.
Let’s get back to the pioneers’ trek along the Oregon Trail where they have marked the trail with ruts carved by their wagon wheels and various other signposts provided by their discarded personal goods. Again, after years of traversing the Oregon Trail, wagon train after wagon train discarded goods that dotted the prairie areas for miles. Humans have this tendency; that is, when some object they own is no longer needed or no longer pleases them or has outlived its usefulness they simply discard it—out of sight, out of mind. The pioneers’ frontier mentality about the west being an expanse of wide-open untamed space gave them no qualms about leaving their personal goods to rot along the trail—no qualms about polluting the landscape.
This same frontier mentality—“I no longer want or need it, so I’ll throw it away”—did not stop when the pioneers reached their destinations. The mindset alters a bit, but stops? No. It began with settlements which were almost exclusively built along rivers. The rivers provided a convenient means of disposing the unwanted. Beginning with simple discards such as coffee grounds to more complex items such as white goods (washers, dryers, refrigerators, etc.), to even more complex and persistent chemical compounds and mixtures, the river was the repository of choice for all. The thinking was, of course, that no matter what you threw into the river the running water would purify itself every 10 miles or so. But, when there are several settlements with hundreds or thousands of people up and down the length of the river, the purification capacity of the running water is exhausted. However, even though we are running out of pristine areas to pollute, our throw-away society continues to be strongly influenced by our consumerism and excessive disposal of short-lived items.
