Garbology Analyzing Artifacts Human Beings Are Curious

Garbology

Analyzing Artifacts

Human beings are curious creatures. We experience interactions, form relationships, maintain habitats, and we always leave traces of things we need and like. One of the things that best mirrors a human's life is found in his or her waste, for instance, and just as a criminal investigator forages through a crime scene to develop hypotheses about a criminal's behavior, so can an individual forage through trash and find out a multitude of artifacts that can pinpoint an individual's habits quite specifically.

Yet garbage is not only important in its ability to say so much about a person and his or her life, but is also important because of the fact that garbage, if not properly sorted and categorized, and actually harm the environment. There are many landfills around the country, for instance, that have a great problem with environmental pollution, which mainly stems from unfiltered garbage.

Methodology

The following analysis aims to describe, categorize, and analyze various artifacts found in a family's trash. This is, then, a smaller scope of the above-presented problem, but it can be a start. The methodology for this study was to simply choose a trash can and inspect it in a sanitary way, regardless of the content believed to be in this can. The can is to be emptied completely, and the garbage placed in paper and plastic bags. One of the first things learned through this experiment was the importance of carefully categorizing artifacts, so as to organize them in a logical manner in order to make sense of the subsequent mess created. The system developed for this exercise was based on five categories. These included:

-Category 1: any type of food, whether human or otherwise (i.e. pet food);

-Category 2: types of packaging related to food and non-food items;

-Category 3: any paper products;

-Category 4: personal hygiene products for both sexes;

-Category 5: beauty products and other items not analyzed in Categories 1 through 5.

Categorization

The next section of this paper will describe some of the things found in each category through the table created below.

Category 1

Category 2

Category 3

Category 4

Category 5

Meats

Metal cans

Envelopes

Soaps and soap based agents (i.e. detergents)

Lotions and ointments

Canned and packaged foods

Cardboard/plastic packaging (such as for frozen foods)

Various sheets of paper (printed)

Razors

Cleaning products

Category 1

Category 2

Category 3

Category 4

Category 5

Vegetables/fruits

Various sized plastic containers

Toilet paper/paper towels

Feminine products

Wilted flowers

Pet foods

Glass

Newspapers

Make-up products

Threads and strings

Sauces

Rubber products

Magazines

Personal care containers (i.e. acne cream container)

Pet waste

Analysis

The examples given in the above table form only a quarter of the full picture of habits that set this family apart from all others. From the simple categorization of a few of the items found above, one can clearly see patterns in this particular family's waste. For instance, one knows that there are at least one man and one woman living in this house, as well as a pet (most likely a cat since the trash contained pet waste). Furthermore, the articles found above delineate certain habits in both the male and female of the household, as well as point to specifics such as how healthy their diet is. To further examined this the paper asks six questions, all answered below:

1. Who produces the trash?

Answer: from the analysis of this particular bin, it was concluded that at least one male and one female, as well as a cat produced this trash. However, due to little evidence, it was hard to conclude whether more than two persons produce this trash. The quantity of garbage was quite small, which further added to the assumption, but there was no truth found.

2. What behaviors produced the trash?

Answer: just as in any family, there are routine behaviors that produces certain types and amounts of garbage. In this particular instance, because of a variety in foodstuffs, especially in the fruits and vegetables found, as well as the various kinds of meat, cooking can be assumed to have been undertaken in a large amount. Furthermore, because of some rubber gloves found, as well as some cleaning product containers, one can assume that this family did a lot of cleaning as well. Lastly, it is important that newspapers and magazines, as well as printed documents were found, which prove that this family is quite well educated, given the variety of items found.

3. How many people produced the trash?

Answer: this question was undertaken above, and it was determined that at least two people produced this waste, and at most three people. Furthermore, it was determined that a cat also produced some of the waste.

4. How long did it take them to produce it?

Answer: the time frame of this particular question can be assumed based on the basic trash patterns and trash pick-up days. Thus, in seeing that a relatively low amount of trash accumulated from one pick up day to another, one can assume that a few people produced very little trash.

5. Can you tell anything about employment, hobbies, interests?

Answer: this is an important question that has a clear answer. The entire scope of this analysis was to find the answer to this question, in fact, and given the various artifacts found in the garbage, the answer is clear. Firstly, these individuals have quite some time and one can assume that they may be students, given the amount of food consumed, as well as the variety in the diet. Most working people would rely upon eating out more, as well as buying pre-prepared meals.

The hobbies of these individuals are very politically oriented, as the magazines they had were oriented in political and socio-economic events. Hobbies could also include cooking, given the amounts of foodstuff found. Thus, from this short analysis, one can get a clear picture of what this family may like to do.