mode, the Garbage Project excavated and examined samples of refuse from a ten-year-old “bioreactor” landfill in Sandtown, Delaware, one designed to enhance biodegradation. According to the project’s evaluation, after ten years of burial, the Sandtown refuse exhibits some indications of increased biodegradation but nothing conclusive (Rathje 1999). The next Sandtown dig is scheduled for 2008.

The Garbage Project has also initiated several studies that integrate its fresh and landfill data on hazardous wastes in MSW. The heavy-metal assays of finds are being compared with detailed item-by-item lists (such as two lightbulbs, one drain opener can, two newspapers, etc.) of the refuse identified within each 150 pounds of landfill sampled. The goal is to determine the rate of movement of heavy metals in commodities and inks and other hazardous wastes from refuse into the landfill matrix (Rathje, Hughes, et al. 1992).

Garbage Project Students and Staff

The Garbage Project does not consist of only systematic records compiled by a hands-on sorting of household garbage; it also consists of the sorters and project staff attached to the hands. Although many people find the results of project data studies interesting, most of them also find the sorting process itself revolting. In fact, a few market researchers realized in the 1950s that household refuse contained useful information but after repeated experiments they found they could not pay people to sort refuse. Those hired either quit quickly or kept sloppy records. Who would possibly be willing to rummage through someone else’s smelly trash and keep accurate records of its contents?

The answer is a matter of public record. Rubbish! (Rathje and Murphy 1992b, paperback 1993) contains a list of more than 900 university students and others who sorted refuse for the Garbage Project between 1973 and 1991. The intimate archaeological view these and subsequent sorters have had of the materials that are discarded from households much like their own has provided them with a unique perspective, and while they do not preach to others, they are enthusiastically dedicated to providing everyone possible with the same insights they have drawn from their own hands-on sorting of residential refuse.

In attempting to share results, the Garbage Project has focused most directly on schools, museums, and other avenues of access to students. The rationale is that the archaeology of our own society will mean the most to the young people who can do the most with archaeological insights. Currently, the project is especially proud of two endeavors. The first is the compilation of WRAP (Waste Reduction Alternatives Program) Resource Manual (Dobyns and Hughes 1994), which has been distributed to schools throughout Arizona and the United States. The manual is designed to help both students and teachers learn how their individual behavior can produce significant quantities of garbage and how they can each make changes that will greatly decrease that amount of garbage. The second endeavor resulted in “The Garbage Dilemma,” an interactive video on permanent display in the Hall of Science in American Life at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The video was the product of cooperation among the Garbage Project staff, the Smithsonian’s design staff, and the Chedd-Angier Production Company. Schools and museums—not landfills—provide the kinds of environments where the Garbage Project hopes all of its results will eventually come to reside.

Garbology in the Twenty-first Century

What has set the archaeologists of the Garbage Project apart from other behavioral science researchers is that all of their studies have been grounded in the hands-on sorting of quantifiable bits and pieces of garbage instead of collecting data through interview surveys, government documents, or industry records. In other words, the Garbage Project is studying consumer behavior directly from the material realities that are left behind rather than from self-conscious self-reporting.

The exhaustive level of detail Garbage Project student sorters use to record data has also set the project’s studies apart from other data sources. Many local plans by engineering consultant firms and even by solid waste managers