October 14, 2025 • 38 mins
Today Mango and producer Mary are talking trash! Discover how people used to deal with trash (hint: it involved thousands of feral pigs), and why garbology is an actual science that can teach us a lot about ourselves. Plus, we take a look at the most creative modern garbage disposal technologies, from underground tubes to robot sharks to giant anthropomorphic wheels, and dig up some incredible things that were found in the trash.
Meet Baltimore’s Trash Wheel family here!
Got a question you’d like us to answer? A rabbit hole you think we should explore? Pittsburgh travel tips? Email higeniuses@gmail.com or leave us a message at (302) 405-5925.
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Photo of a garbage pile in the Himalayas by Sylwia Bartyzel via Unsplash. Thanks, Sylwia!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary, what's that mango? Do you know?
There are around two hundred cities on Earth that have
trash flying underneath them at speeds of up to forty
three miles per hour. What I know? It sounds totally bizarre,
(00:39):
but it is a very real innovation. It's called a
pneumatic waste collection system and they've been installed in cities
all over the world Stockholm, Soul, Singapore, Dubai, even Disney
World uses one.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Ah. Yes, of course disney World one of my favorite cities. Wait,
so how does this work? Exactly?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So, the systems have these above ground waste inlets, which
kind of look like pipes or mailboxes, but with round
doors that people open to insert trash, and there are
separate ones for recyclables as well. But when an inlet
gets full, a trap door releases its contents into underground
pipes and the trash gets sucked through the pneumatic tubes
(01:19):
to a waste station thanks to the force of these
spinning industrial fans. Isn't that incredible?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's also a very whimsical way to deal with garbage.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
It also feels like the future, and this tech is
actually good for the environment. The company that first built
these tubes, ENVAC, claims that the system can lower the
distance driven by garbage trucks by ninety percent, and this
of course reduces air pollution, diesel emissions, and hardest of all,
especially if you live in a place like New York City,
(01:47):
local traffic, which gets slowed down tremendously by these trucks.
According to locals in Bergen, Norway, which began building a
pneumatic waste collection system in two thousand and seven, it
has also lowered rat sightings.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Well that is a bummer for rat fans though.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Right, yeah, Well rat fans can always come to New
York City to get their fixed I think last. But
these systems are not cheap. Bergen has spent one billion
kroner on the system so far, which is one hundred
million US dollars, and they estimate it'll take another thirty
million dollars to complete it. But the city officials say
they've already saved twenty two million dollars on waste collection
(02:28):
since the system launched, so in time, actually this investment
will pay off.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, you know, that's really good news because one of
the things I learned in my research this week is
that humans generate two billion tons of municipal solid waste
every year. Now, if we packed that amount of garbage
into standard shipping containers and lined them up, it would
wrap around the equator twenty five times. And yeah, no,
(02:55):
it gets worse. Municipal solid waste is expected to rise
to three point eight billion tons annually by twenty fifty.
So today on the show, we're talking trash, what we
can learn from it, why we have so much of it,
and most important, what we can do with it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
(03:35):
Part Time Genius. I'm Mongish Articular, and today I'm here
with super producer Mary Philip Sandy, and over there in
the booth is our pal and producer Dylan Fagan, who's
wearing quite the outfit. He's got a long yellow coat,
red button down, clear tie, yellow pants, and the most
amazing thing is the silver sunglasses he's wearing. There's no
(04:00):
way he can see through those, but obviously I think
he's channeling, right Doc Brown?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Is that right? Very Yeah, that's what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Back to the future as he powers his Delaureate up
with trash to go exactly, he's going back to the future.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know, I wonder if Doc Brown got into podcasts
when he landed in twenty fifteen. I would love to
hear his take on cereal. Actually, I think Doc Brown
would be a reply all fan.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Right, yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, Well, anyway, here we are in twenty twenty five,
and we are still waiting for some of the inventions
back to the future promised. You know, every year I
think this is it, this is the year we finally
get hoverboards, and every year I'm disappointed. But you know what,
using trash to power cars would be even better than
a hoverboard.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, especially since we generate what would you say, two
billion tons a year.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, two billion tons of municipal waste a year. But
that term municipal waste, it only refers to waste generated
by individuals, schools, and businesses. You know, things like food
contain used paper, worn out clothes basically the stuff that
you put out and it gets collected by the garbage truck.
And by the way, I mentioned worn out clothes because
textiles are a huge source of waste. Globally, we throw
(05:13):
away an entire garbage truck's worth of clothing every single second.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That is insane, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
But here's the thing, Mango, all this municipal waste, it's
actually only three to five percent of the total waste
people create every year.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So so where's the rest of the waste coming from?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So the rest includes waste for mining, farming, construction, not
to mention human waste and pollution. Right, all of that,
and when we factor all of that, in the United
States alone creates around twelve billion tons of waste every
single year. But listen, I could give trash statistics for hours.
I'm going to cut myself off. Yeah right, let's go
(05:56):
back to the beginning. I know you looked into this,
so tell me when did people start creating trash?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, so there has always been some level of waste
created by humanity. But I really like the way that
Wilson Hughes, who is former co director of the Garbage
Project at the University of Arizona in Tucson, puts it.
He said, quote, our forefathers created waste with stone chips,
but it didn't become a problem until they settled down
(06:22):
and began living in one place. That's when societies had
to start thinking about what to do with it, which
is fascinating, right, Like you don't think about the evolution
of garbage. But one place our ancestors settled in was
this place called Chattel hu Yuk, which is located in
modern day Turkey. It was a Neolithic settlement and it
dates back to around seventy four hundred to sixty two
(06:45):
hundred BCE. This is one of the earliest cities we
know about, and people tossed waste between their houses until
those houses merged together, and then they built structures on
top of that waste, and this practice continued for generations.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
That's really I guess that's feasible if your waste isn't
mostly made up of like fast food wrappers and industrial
chemicals like ours. Yeah, yeah, okay, So when did people
actually start doing something to dispose of the trash other
than just throwing it out the door?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You know, I had the same question.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It turns out people started burying their waste as early
as three thousand BCE, so we know the Minoan people
who lived in the city of Naussus on Crete did this,
and in five hundred BCE, Athens actually created this law
that waste had to be disposed of at least a
mile outside of town, which is, you know, kind of
incredible when you think about it. Still, this didn't immediately
(07:39):
become the norm. Plenty of historic cities were known for
their trash and wastefilled streets. You think about places like
ancient Rome, POMPEII, Victorian London right. In fact, many cities
today are built on mounds of trash. In sixteen eighty six,
you could buy what was called a water lot in
New York City, which actually cost one twenty fifth price
(07:59):
of landlot. And these water lots got turned into land
thanks to you guessed it, crash. So builders piled up
silt and waste from ships and straight up garbage until
there was land where the river.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Used to be.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And this actually wasn't a practice just in New York.
Many US cities use this method to create space, including Seattle,
New Orleans, Chicago, even Oakland. Of course, there was one
other historic way that New York used to deal with
trash that I really think is worth mentioning. In eighteen
forty two, the New York Daily Tribune estimated that there
were ten thousand loose pigs running around the city just
(08:34):
gobbling up trash.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That is about ten thousand too many loose pigs, if
you ask me.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I know. But they were so good at eating up
the garbage is that anytime politicians suggested getting rid of them,
the public was completely outraged.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Okay, well you got to listen to your constituents, right,
let them have pigs.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, the thing is it was a pretty effective strategy too,
So by nineteen oh two, about twenty five percent of
US cities we're getting rid of garbage by feeding it
to livestock. Not everyone loved the trash pigs though. Actually,
Charles Dickens visited the US and in his travelog American Notes,
he devotes multiple paragraphs to the scavenging New York pig.
(09:17):
He writes, quote, ugly brutes they are having, for the
most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old
horsehair trunks spotted with unwholesome black blotches, which just feels
like an esthetic problem more than anything.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
His body shaming the pigs.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It also feels weird that, like with that many pigs,
like that none of the New York teams are named
after pigs, right, I know, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
God, someone needs to do that. Bring back the trash
pigs as a mascot completely.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But you know, it is worth noting that there was
way less household trash in the US back then compared
to today, So like, maybe pigs wouldn't be the most
effective solution today.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Right, right, Even one hundred thousand pigs couldn't keep up
with the amount of waste wegenerate now. I mean even
just in my neighborhood. And I assume the reason we
have more trash now is because our consumption habits have changed.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Right, absolutely, so, until very recently, most Americans couldn't afford
to just toss things out, so things like clothes were
mended over and over again until they finally became rags
which you could use or sell. People knew how to
fix furniture and glassware and tableware, and if they didn't
know how to fix something, you'd take it to an
expert for repair. Pretty Much everything got used up. Food
(10:32):
scraps when to soup or were fed to farm animals.
Lots of waste could be returned to manufacturers. Even coal
ashes were mixed with manure and used as fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, there's something really appealing about that kind of lifestyle.
It's like I saw this person on TikTok who had
all of her garbage for a year and fit in
one Mason jar.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah completely, But.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's really not realistic for a lot of us anymore. Right, Okay,
So as people began buying more stuff and all that
stuff became more disposable, I imagine waste management had to
keep up with it.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, and this change really took off in the early
part of the twentieth century. For example, in Pittsburgh, the
amount of trash in the city rose by forty three
percent between nineteen oh three and nineteen oh seven. So
by the early nineteen hundreds, most American cities had implemented
some forum of municipal trash removal service, which meant pigs
(11:27):
weren't required anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I love that you found one statistic here, and then
it was just about Pittsburgh. So shout out to Pittsburgh.
I've never been there, but I have always wanted to
go there. Okay, mag Well, I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's land of mister Rogers. It's not far from Falling Water.
I like pittsfrog Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
The Warhol Museum, if if anyone lives in Pittsburgh, tell
us what we should go see there? Okay, okay, So
obviously the next question is what do you do with
all of this trash once you've picked it up? Well,
incinerators were an early solution, inspired by European ones that
had been around since the eighteen seventies, but that practice
started to decline during the late thirties when we borrowed
(12:05):
yet another idea from Europe, the landfill, and since then
that's been our primary method of garbage disposal in the
United States. And landfills are everywhere, but unless you live
next one, you probably don't notice them. They're typically located
far outside cities, and they look like these big, treeless
mounds that just blend into the landscape. But do not
(12:28):
be fooled. These boring hills have a serious downside. They
emit landfill gas, which is fifty percent methane and fifty
percent carbon dioxide, so the bigger they get, the more
they contribute to climate change. One thing we can do, however,
is we can turn landfills into parks with vegetation and
animal habitats, and that's the plan for Freshkills Park in
(12:50):
Staten Island, here in New York. It was once the
world's biggest landfill, and eventually it'll be a two two
hundred acre public park that is three times larger than
Central Park.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
That is really incredible.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Actually, have you been to the Hirley Chisholm Park in
it's in South Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, it's on a former landfill and it is so gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I have not. It's very far from where I live,
but I've heard about. It's the largest state park in
New York.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah. We drove out there and it was stunning, Like
there was stunning bird watching. You can't believe how beautiful
is and you kind of forget you're in New York.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a really great use of a former landfill.
And the only problem is this process of converting landfills
to parks. It takes a long time and a lot
of environmental engineering. Landfills can take decades to settle, meaning
their foundations shift over time, and to avoid public health risks,
you need to figure out how to vent the landfill gas.
(13:50):
So you can't just slap some turf on top of
a garbage pile and call it a day.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, I mean I'm sure it takes a ton of
work to make. But if we want the landfills to
be small, I'm wondering, like, could we go back to
burning the waste first and then burying it?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, that is actually an option. This method has been
adopted in a bunch of places in Europe, where the
process is also used to generate electricity. Right, so that's
a bonus. So some advocates are calling for the United
States to do more of this too. The problem, of course,
is that burning trash creates air pollutions. It'sually not perfect fix.
So at the end of the day, we have the
(14:26):
same options we've always had for dealing with garbage. We
can toss it on the ground, we can put it
in a hole, we can light it on fire, or
we can find a way to reuse it. And luckily,
some scientists have come up with a way to turn
garbage into something very valuable knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
No, no, no, it's true, I know, I know. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's the most valuable product of all. And after we
take a quick break, we'll find out how garbage can
counteract government propaganda, and we'll also talk about some truly
amazing things that have been found in the trash, Go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. In just a moment,
I'm going to tell you about one of the coolest
scientific fields I've ever heard about.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
It's called garbology.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
But first I want to remind you to subscribe to
the show on your favorite podcast app. Please leave us
a nice rating and review, and if you enjoyed this episode,
share it with a friend. Okay, So back to garbology.
The term was coined in the early nineteen seventies by
aj Weberman, and it became a legitimate scientific pursuit in
(15:44):
nineteen seventy three. This is when the archaeologist William Rathge
launched the Tucson Garbage Project. This involved analyzing over fifteen
thousand samples of trash, which revealed tons of information about
residents of Tucson, from what they how much alcohol they drank,
to how good they were recycling and Researchers on the
(16:05):
project even learned that people tend to report eating a
lot less junk food than they actually eat.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You know, I actually did a garbology project of my
own in fourth grade. Yeah, I've actually I have actually
studied garbology at a university. I was nine years old
at the time. But I was really into archaeology back then,
and the University of Maine had these weekend classes that
were open to the community. One of them was about garbology,
(16:32):
and I begged my parents to let me do it.
They gave in, and it was just so fascinating. This
is what I did when I was nine on the weekends, right,
everyone else was playing sports whatever. But I had never
thought before about the fact that a lot of what
archaeologists dig up is just ancient garbage, right, like broken pottery,
things that people discarded. So it makes a lot of
(16:53):
sense that modern garbage can tell us a lot about
modern people. So I got really into it, and then
I got in a lot of trouble for sneaking around
my school and digging through the classroom garbage cans.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I love that they just didn't get your vision. Yeah,
I mean, if you think about it, scientists study human
activity in all kinds of ways that could seem invasive. Right. Besides,
garbology has a unique ability to reveal super accurate information
even when we're hiding the truth or covering it up.
And I can give you example this. So a few
(17:27):
decades ago, historians studying China's Cultural Revolution, realized that they
could learn a lot from papers and documents that have
been tossed out by households and also by government officials.
So they started collecting these artifacts at flea markets, and
when word got out, locals sifted through trash to find documents,
which they then sold to researchers. And because of this,
(17:48):
historians discovered concrete evidence about things that happened during the
Cultural Revolution, like government officials who deported people from cities
to rural areas with that whole.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Sent down youth stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Garbology has also been used to track changes in North Korea.
So if you think about trash that washes up in
South Korea, like there was a recent increase in more
colorful candy wrappers, that actually reveals how their culture and
economy has evolved over time. Even corporate America has gotten
into the garbology game. So before everything we bought was
easily tracked by barcodes and online shopping, some companies conducted
(18:23):
dust bin audits to see how well their brands were
doing well.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Speaking of fascinating finds in the trash, I was really
excited to look into this for this episode, and you
would not believe some of the crazy things people have
discarded and then discovered.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So give me an example, Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
In twenty nineteen, an episode of Antiques Road Show featured
a man who worked at a dump in England, and
there he found a bunch of artifacts that once belonged
to former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, including a top hat,
a cigar case, and a signed photograph.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
That is an incredible three it of it is.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And it gets even better because these items were verifiable
as belonging to Churchill because they were accompanied by two
hundred letters that he wrote to his cook, which it
does seem like a lot of letters to write to
one's cook, doesn't it. Yeah, but the show estimated that
all these items that had just been thrown away were
worth ten thousand pounds.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I mean, in some ways, it feels like they should
be worth more than ten thousand pounds, right like Winston
Churchill's letters to his cook feels like a book that
could deserve more of an advance in that.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, I don't know. I think the guy he wrote
a lot of letters though, if you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Think about it, right, Yeah, that makes sense. So do
we know how all of this ended up in the trash.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
No, and we will never know because the guy who
found the stuff refused to reveal the name of the
dump where he wanted to keep it secret. But you know,
ten thousand pounds worth of trash is chump change compared
to this next one. In two thousand and four, a
nurse named Melanie Steve found a plastic cello case with
(20:02):
a cello inside, leaning against a dumpster in the Silver
Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, and so she had this
kind of quirky idea. She decided she'd have her cabinet
maker boyfriend fix some of the cracks and scratches in
the cello and turn it into a case for her CDs.
This was two thousand and four. She had CDs. What
she didn't realize was that the cello had been stolen
(20:23):
three days earlier from the front porch of the lead
cellist for the La Philharmonic Organ and it was an
irreplaceable vintage instrument built in Italy in sixteen eighty four
and insured for three point five million dollars. Luckily, Melanie
saw a news report about the theft before her boyfriend
(20:44):
started turning the cello into a CD case, so she
was able to contact a lawyer who helped get it returned.
And that is your lesson. If you ever find a
priceless cello in the trash, have a lawyer handle it.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
I mean, I'm glad we give our listeners tips about
what to do if they find but you know, maybe
a rare Italian cello filled with Maroon five CDs would
have been worth even more.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
On the other hand, come on, let's not assume the
worst about Melanie's taste in music. It's not fair, Melanie.
We know you're better than that. Okay. Here is one
last story that also has a lesson for you. Always
double check what you're bringing out to the trash. In
twenty fifteen, the jewelry store Jay Bernbock Incorporated here in
New York City was undergoing renovations and some workers accidentally
(21:34):
threw away three wooden boxes of diamonds worth five million dollars.
The security guard spotted the mistake, grabbed the boxes, and
brought them into the bathroom. He then put all the
diamonds into one box and walked right out the door.
But the store had surveillance footage from the night of
the theft, so it was pretty easy to identify the culprit.
The guard was caught and he was arrested.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Oh man, that is rough.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I mean, I feel like the security guard thought he
had a short thing. It is always fun to hear
about historical artifacts and stolen diamonds turning up in the garbage.
And I always love when someone sees a print that
they think is really beautiful and it turns out to
be like a famous art piece or whatever. But unfortunately,
most trash is made up of something far less exciting,
(22:19):
and that is styrofoam. So according to one estimate, styrofoam
accounts for approximately thirty three percent of landfill volume and
it takes five hundred to one thousand years to decompose.
But Stanford researchers have found one potential solution mealworms. They
can live on a diet of styrofoam and other plastic,
(22:41):
which could help break it down faster. And not only that,
but the researchers have also determined that yellow mealworm guts
can break down the toxic chemical additive HBCD without it
building up in their system, which is really incredible because
that means that these same mealworms that feed on plastic
could still be used for their other common purpose, which
(23:02):
is as a food for other animals, including chicken, snakes, fish,
and shrimp.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
What a sad life though, eat a bunch of plastic
and then become someone else's snack.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Henry had a pet mealworm in kindergarten which he named
George Harrison, and I felt so sad to lose two
George harrisons of my life.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Rip George Harrison and also George Harrison.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So here is another upsetting fact for you. Picture this,
if every coastline on Earth had fifteen grocery bags filled
with plastic trash sitting on each yard of beach. That
is how much plastic waste goes into the oceans.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yearly, yearly.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Isn't that so sad to think about? That is so
depressing And a lot of the newer waste related innovations
are focusing on that issue, so this bit will make
you happy. One of these innovations is called mister trash Wheel.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Is that an actual person?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
No, Mister trash Wheel is a fourteen foot tall trash
interceptor that sits in the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland,
and he does exactly what the name suggests. Trash in
the water gets funneled onto a conveyor belt and then
transferred to a dumpster. It's run by solar and hydro power,
and this wheel is incredibly strong. It can even suck
(24:23):
up things like tires or mattresses, so it's pretty formidable.
The smart folks at the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore decided
to decorate the wheel with big eyes so it would
look like a cartoon character gobbling up the garbage. And
they gave it, or excuse me him, that funny name,
mister trash Wheel. And because of this great branding, mister
(24:45):
trash Wheel has become something of a social media celebrity.
He has over forty three thousand Instagram followers, probably more
after this episode, but that's not his most impressive number.
Since his debut, he's removed over four point three million
pounds of t debris from the harbor. What's also interesting
is that his family is expanding. There are now three
(25:05):
more trash wheels in Baltimore which have contributed another million
pounds of trash removal. Their names are Professor trash Wheel
who got a PhD, Captain trash Wheel, and Gwinda, the
Good Wheel of the West, who sits at the mouth
of a stream called Gwinn's Falls.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
You know, I don't know how much the people at
the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore get paid, but I do
know it is not enough.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I agree, it's definitely not enough. Now, if you enjoy
ethropomorphized wheels, I think you're really gonna like this next
innovation as well. It's inspired by one of my favorite animals,
the whale sharks. So whale sharks are known for moving
slowly through the water and doing something called filter feeding. Basically,
as they swim, they suck in a bunch of water,
(25:51):
hoping to nab some food in the form of plankton,
small fish, and fish eggs. And in twenty seventeen, a
robot inspired by the whale shark called the Waste Shark
was launched into the canals of the Netherlands. Like a
filter feeder, the waste Shark floats through the water and
collects debris. Unlike a filter feeder, this robot then disposes
(26:11):
of that debris on land. It can help remove about
a one hundred pounds of unwanted material in the water
every single day, and it operates autonomously or with a
person remote controlling it. Now, when the battery is low,
it heads for its shark pod, where it charges up
for more crash guzzling, which I just love.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I love that the charger is called a shark pod.
That's really great idea. But now I'm wondering what other
animals could we use as inspiration to help deal with waste, right,
Like a litter rat, trash raccoon, a garbage seagull.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean all those would be incredible, although I
do feel like a trash raccoon is just a raccoon.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I was just brainstorming. This is a starting point as
we go, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
As fascinating as these waste disposal innovations are, the fact
is our only way out of a garbage choked future
is by generating less trash in the first place. The
zero waste movement has cut on in many communities, including
the city of Keel, which in twenty twenty four became
Germany's first certified zero waste city. They've implemented a bunch
(27:16):
of policies aimed at cutting waste by fifteen percent per
person per year by twenty thirty five. For example, they
give new parents grants of up to two hundred euros
to buy cloth diapers so they don't have to buy
disposable and garbage fees are based on the weight of
the waste that each household throws away, so residents are
coming up with their own ways of contributing, like restaurants
(27:38):
that now give uneaten food away to people in need,
or a local hairdresser who collects hair trimmings and this
is true, turns them into mats that are used to
absorb oil from sewers.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh, I love that for a whole city to be
able to create zero waste is remarkable. It does remind
me of the old phrase reduced reuse, recycle, which you know,
makes me think that we haven't actually talked about recycling yet.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Ah well, don't worry. I learned some truly shocking facts
about recycling and I'll tell you all about it after
this quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius. Now,
(28:26):
before the break, I was telling you about Kiel, Germany's
first certified zero waste city, and that is an actual
standard that was created by a nonprofit called Zero Waste Europe.
And what I find really interesting about this is Germany
was already known for its commitment to recycling in twenty
twenty one, Germany recycled over two thirds of its municipal
(28:47):
solid waste, more than any other country in Europe, and
according to Bettina aust, the president of the Keiel City Council,
that actually lulled people into a false sense of complacency.
She told her reporter from The Guardian that a lot
of people are so focused on recycling they forget about
reducing the amount of stuff they buy in the first place,
or finding ways to repair or reuse it. Which is
(29:10):
not to say recycling hasn't helped with the trash problem
right here in the United States, recycling is a relatively
new phenomenon. Curbside recycling didn't become a thing until the
nineteen seventies, when we realized our landfills were starting to overflow.
In the nineteen eighties, about ten percent of municipal waste
got recycled, but these days it's over thirty two percent,
(29:31):
and thanks to recycling programs, we're sending about half as
much waste to landfills as we used to. But here's
the dirty truth. A lot of American recycling just ends
up getting shipped overseas, where it piles up and causes
serious problems.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
That feels kind of depressing because we spend so much
time recycling. I guess what you're saying is that recycling
doesn't get recycled.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Not always. And we could probably do an entire episode
just about this phenomenon. But it has to do with
a global waste trade. So approximately one third of United
States recycling gets sent overseas, and for a long time
most of that plastic and metal scrap went to China,
which used it to fuel manufacturing. But in twenty seventeen,
(30:13):
China banned foreign waste imports, citing public health and environmental concerns.
With our biggest customer gone, many US municipalities had to
cut back on recycling or they scrambled to find other
places to send stuff. As a result, Malaysia, Indonesia, and
other parts of Southeast Asia were quickly flooded with our
discarded yogurt cups and takeout containers, and it's way more
(30:36):
than they can handle. The author Alexander Klapp, who wrote
a book called Waste Wars The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash,
described seeing remote areas in the highlands of Java that
he called quote hellscapes of Western waste, toothpaste tubes from California,
shopping bags from the Netherlands, deodorant sticks from Australia, stacked
knee high as far as the eye can see. And
(30:59):
because it is literally impossible to recycle it all, local
Javanese street vendors have taken to burning it for a
cooking fuel, filling the air with toxic fumes.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
That is so horrifying.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And it's what former Kenyon president Daniel Larotmoy called garbage imperialism,
and he coined that phrase in the nineteen eighties when
countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America were angry
at the United States because we were dumping our toxic
waste on their land. But as Alexander Klapp points out,
back then it was easy for people to realize that
(31:31):
hazardous waste is bad. Today, the stuff we dump can
be just as dangerous, but we don't consider that because
if it's labeled recyclable, we think it's good for the planet.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I mean, the truth is we really have to emphasize
the reduce part of that reuse recycle slogan.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, the words are in that order for a reason. Reduce, reuse,
recycle is the last resort.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And now for our last resort, why don't we turn
to the fact off.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I'll kick things off with the Trail of a Thousand Trolls,
a project by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo which definitely
leans into the reused part of that slogan. Along with
his team, Dambo creates massive troll sculptures made from discarded
items like wooden palettes, old furniture, and wine barrels. These
trolls can be up to forty feet tall. Dambo installs
(32:30):
them in places like forests, jungles, and grasslands. There are
one hundred and seventy of them now around the world,
everywhere from Australia to South Korea to Chile. And each
trash troll has its own lore, its own backstory. Yes, so,
for example, Little Bibby, who's located in Dayton, Ohio, comes
(32:50):
with a story about how she wanted to learn to
fly like a bird. The statue of Little Bibby, which
at seventeen feet is not little at all, holds winglight
contraptions and has one like up in the air to
show that she is about to take flight.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh man, I've got to look these offs now, So
we talked about garbology, and I'm going to take it
one step further, which is virtual garbology. In twenty twenty,
Jared Hansen published a paper titled quote an Abundance of
Fruit Trees a garbology of the artifacts in Animal Crossing
New Leaf. So I'm sure people out there know about
(33:24):
Animal Crossing the video game from its massive popularity, especially
during the COVID nineteen pandemic. New Leaf was the twenty
thirteen edition of the game for the Nintendo three DS,
So in his research, Hanson visited a random selection of
Animal Crossing towns to see which items players had left
lying around like trash, and he found that the most
(33:44):
likely items to be discarded were fruit with pairs and lead,
which makes sense if you've ever played the game. There's
definitely a lot of fruit. But he also discovered that
there wasn't much litter in Animal Crossing in general, and
he concluded quote, it seems as though the economic systems
of the game, which encouraged the player to pay for
(34:04):
upgrades to their home and public works, lead many players
to forego conspicuous consumption, and the waste or trashing of
items related to accessories and clothing instead, items of trash
and garbage are those with utility and economic value instead
of personal meaning.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh, that is so wholesome, unlike my next fact, which
is not wholesome at all. In two thousand and one,
contractors hired by Procter and Gamble, which makes Panteen and
head in Shoulders shampoo, were caught doing corporate dumpster diving.
They were going through the trash of the Chicago offices
of Unilever, a rival company that also owned haircare brands
like Finesse, and they retrieved eighty pages of confidential planning documents.
(34:47):
Procter and Gamble confessed to the espionage, although they claimed
that they hadn't used the material the contractors took, but
either way, the whole debacle culminated in Procter and Gamble
paying a ten million dollar settlement.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
That's in two thousand and one, right, that's nuts, and
it's like a watergate but for Dandriff shampoos well. Another
rivalry with trash at the center is the one between
Bob Dylan and the New York City writer aj Weberman.
So during the sixties, Weberman became a huge Dylan fan.
In fact, some say he was completely obsessed, but over
(35:23):
the years he grew dissatisfied with Dylan's music and persona,
saying he turned his back on radical politics. In nineteen
seventy one, he tried to confront Dylan by knocking on
his door, and Dylan slammed the door in his face.
So Weberman took it to the next level. He started
going through his trash and if you remember from earlier
that I teased Weberman as the inventor of the word garbology,
(35:46):
this is actually why. So he started publishing pictures of
Dylan's garbage, including private letters and photographs. He did this
in an underground paper called The East Village Other Now, unsurprisingly,
Dylan stopped putting personal items into trash and asked Weberman
to stop invading his privacy. Weberman alleges that this issue
came to a head with Dylan attacking him on Elizabeth Street,
(36:09):
and he claims the event was memorialized in Dylan's song
where Are You Tonight. According to Weberman, this lyric is
about him getting beaten up by Bob Dylan quote, it
fell out of place, my foot in his face, But
he should have stayed where his money was green Wow.
It's poetic. I guess it is.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I guess okay. I think by bringing our conversation about
garbage all the way around to Bob Dylan lyrics and
for telling us about mister Trashwheel and his entire family,
you've earned today's trophy. Mango.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
I think it's more about mister Trashwheel than anything else.
But okay, I promise I'm never gonna throw this this
trophy away. So that is it for our dumpster dive
into the world of trash. Research and writing for this
episode was done by our friend Meredith Danko. Thank you, Meredith.
But now we want to hear from you, and specifically,
(37:02):
we have a very odd question that we need answered.
We want to know what your favorite or least favorite
type of pasta is. It is for an episode we're
working on. Give us a call at three oh two,
four oh five, five, nine two five. We want to
hear your very strong pasta opinions. You can also send
us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
(37:22):
Do not hold back. We cannot wait to hear your
hot takes on pasta and big news. Next week we're
going to have five brand new episodes for you. It
is a week long series all about curiosity. If you've
ever wondered why do I wonder so many things? Then
this is for you. We'll also have daily activities contests,
so follow us on Instagram and blue Sky at part
(37:45):
Time Genius so you don't miss out on all this fun.
We'll be back on Monday to kick that off, but
in the meantime, From Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
(38:09):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
by Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler and researched by our
good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
(38:29):
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shoring. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what, Mary, what's that mango? Do you know?
There are around two hundred cities on Earth that have
trash flying underneath them at speeds of up to forty
three miles per hour. What I know? It sounds totally bizarre,
(00:39):
but it is a very real innovation. It's called a
pneumatic waste collection system and they've been installed in cities
all over the world Stockholm, Soul, Singapore, Dubai, even Disney
World uses one.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Ah. Yes, of course disney World one of my favorite cities. Wait,
so how does this work? Exactly?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
So, the systems have these above ground waste inlets, which
kind of look like pipes or mailboxes, but with round
doors that people open to insert trash, and there are
separate ones for recyclables as well. But when an inlet
gets full, a trap door releases its contents into underground
pipes and the trash gets sucked through the pneumatic tubes
(01:19):
to a waste station thanks to the force of these
spinning industrial fans. Isn't that incredible?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It's also a very whimsical way to deal with garbage.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
It also feels like the future, and this tech is
actually good for the environment. The company that first built
these tubes, ENVAC, claims that the system can lower the
distance driven by garbage trucks by ninety percent, and this
of course reduces air pollution, diesel emissions, and hardest of all,
especially if you live in a place like New York City,
(01:47):
local traffic, which gets slowed down tremendously by these trucks.
According to locals in Bergen, Norway, which began building a
pneumatic waste collection system in two thousand and seven, it
has also lowered rat sightings.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Well that is a bummer for rat fans though.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Right, yeah, Well rat fans can always come to New
York City to get their fixed I think last. But
these systems are not cheap. Bergen has spent one billion
kroner on the system so far, which is one hundred
million US dollars, and they estimate it'll take another thirty
million dollars to complete it. But the city officials say
they've already saved twenty two million dollars on waste collection
(02:28):
since the system launched, so in time, actually this investment
will pay off.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, you know, that's really good news because one of
the things I learned in my research this week is
that humans generate two billion tons of municipal solid waste
every year. Now, if we packed that amount of garbage
into standard shipping containers and lined them up, it would
wrap around the equator twenty five times. And yeah, no,
(02:55):
it gets worse. Municipal solid waste is expected to rise
to three point eight billion tons annually by twenty fifty.
So today on the show, we're talking trash, what we
can learn from it, why we have so much of it,
and most important, what we can do with it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
(03:35):
Part Time Genius. I'm Mongish Articular, and today I'm here
with super producer Mary Philip Sandy, and over there in
the booth is our pal and producer Dylan Fagan, who's
wearing quite the outfit. He's got a long yellow coat,
red button down, clear tie, yellow pants, and the most
amazing thing is the silver sunglasses he's wearing. There's no
(04:00):
way he can see through those, but obviously I think
he's channeling, right Doc Brown?
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Is that right? Very Yeah, that's what it looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Back to the future as he powers his Delaureate up
with trash to go exactly, he's going back to the future.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know, I wonder if Doc Brown got into podcasts
when he landed in twenty fifteen. I would love to
hear his take on cereal. Actually, I think Doc Brown
would be a reply all fan.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Right, yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, Well, anyway, here we are in twenty twenty five,
and we are still waiting for some of the inventions
back to the future promised. You know, every year I
think this is it, this is the year we finally
get hoverboards, and every year I'm disappointed. But you know what,
using trash to power cars would be even better than
a hoverboard.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, especially since we generate what would you say, two
billion tons a year.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, two billion tons of municipal waste a year. But
that term municipal waste, it only refers to waste generated
by individuals, schools, and businesses. You know, things like food
contain used paper, worn out clothes basically the stuff that
you put out and it gets collected by the garbage truck.
And by the way, I mentioned worn out clothes because
textiles are a huge source of waste. Globally, we throw
(05:13):
away an entire garbage truck's worth of clothing every single second.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That is insane, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
But here's the thing, Mango, all this municipal waste, it's
actually only three to five percent of the total waste
people create every year.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So so where's the rest of the waste coming from?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
So the rest includes waste for mining, farming, construction, not
to mention human waste and pollution. Right, all of that,
and when we factor all of that, in the United
States alone creates around twelve billion tons of waste every
single year. But listen, I could give trash statistics for hours.
I'm going to cut myself off. Yeah right, let's go
(05:56):
back to the beginning. I know you looked into this,
so tell me when did people start creating trash?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, so there has always been some level of waste
created by humanity. But I really like the way that
Wilson Hughes, who is former co director of the Garbage
Project at the University of Arizona in Tucson, puts it.
He said, quote, our forefathers created waste with stone chips,
but it didn't become a problem until they settled down
(06:22):
and began living in one place. That's when societies had
to start thinking about what to do with it, which
is fascinating, right, Like you don't think about the evolution
of garbage. But one place our ancestors settled in was
this place called Chattel hu Yuk, which is located in
modern day Turkey. It was a Neolithic settlement and it
dates back to around seventy four hundred to sixty two
(06:45):
hundred BCE. This is one of the earliest cities we
know about, and people tossed waste between their houses until
those houses merged together, and then they built structures on
top of that waste, and this practice continued for generations.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
That's really I guess that's feasible if your waste isn't
mostly made up of like fast food wrappers and industrial
chemicals like ours. Yeah, yeah, okay, So when did people
actually start doing something to dispose of the trash other
than just throwing it out the door?
Speaker 3 (07:14):
You know, I had the same question.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It turns out people started burying their waste as early
as three thousand BCE, so we know the Minoan people
who lived in the city of Naussus on Crete did this,
and in five hundred BCE, Athens actually created this law
that waste had to be disposed of at least a
mile outside of town, which is, you know, kind of
incredible when you think about it. Still, this didn't immediately
(07:39):
become the norm. Plenty of historic cities were known for
their trash and wastefilled streets. You think about places like
ancient Rome, POMPEII, Victorian London right. In fact, many cities
today are built on mounds of trash. In sixteen eighty six,
you could buy what was called a water lot in
New York City, which actually cost one twenty fifth price
(07:59):
of landlot. And these water lots got turned into land
thanks to you guessed it, crash. So builders piled up
silt and waste from ships and straight up garbage until
there was land where the river.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Used to be.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
And this actually wasn't a practice just in New York.
Many US cities use this method to create space, including Seattle,
New Orleans, Chicago, even Oakland. Of course, there was one
other historic way that New York used to deal with
trash that I really think is worth mentioning. In eighteen
forty two, the New York Daily Tribune estimated that there
were ten thousand loose pigs running around the city just
(08:34):
gobbling up trash.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
That is about ten thousand too many loose pigs, if
you ask me.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I know. But they were so good at eating up
the garbage is that anytime politicians suggested getting rid of them,
the public was completely outraged.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Okay, well you got to listen to your constituents, right,
let them have pigs.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, the thing is it was a pretty effective strategy too,
So by nineteen oh two, about twenty five percent of
US cities we're getting rid of garbage by feeding it
to livestock. Not everyone loved the trash pigs though. Actually,
Charles Dickens visited the US and in his travelog American Notes,
he devotes multiple paragraphs to the scavenging New York pig.
(09:17):
He writes, quote, ugly brutes they are having, for the
most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old
horsehair trunks spotted with unwholesome black blotches, which just feels
like an esthetic problem more than anything.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
His body shaming the pigs.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
It also feels weird that, like with that many pigs,
like that none of the New York teams are named
after pigs, right, I know, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
God, someone needs to do that. Bring back the trash
pigs as a mascot completely.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But you know, it is worth noting that there was
way less household trash in the US back then compared
to today, So like, maybe pigs wouldn't be the most
effective solution today.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Right, right, Even one hundred thousand pigs couldn't keep up
with the amount of waste wegenerate now. I mean even
just in my neighborhood. And I assume the reason we
have more trash now is because our consumption habits have changed.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Right, absolutely, so, until very recently, most Americans couldn't afford
to just toss things out, so things like clothes were
mended over and over again until they finally became rags
which you could use or sell. People knew how to
fix furniture and glassware and tableware, and if they didn't
know how to fix something, you'd take it to an
expert for repair. Pretty Much everything got used up. Food
(10:32):
scraps when to soup or were fed to farm animals.
Lots of waste could be returned to manufacturers. Even coal
ashes were mixed with manure and used as fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, there's something really appealing about that kind of lifestyle.
It's like I saw this person on TikTok who had
all of her garbage for a year and fit in
one Mason jar.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah completely, But.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It's really not realistic for a lot of us anymore. Right, Okay,
So as people began buying more stuff and all that
stuff became more disposable, I imagine waste management had to
keep up with it.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Yeah, and this change really took off in the early
part of the twentieth century. For example, in Pittsburgh, the
amount of trash in the city rose by forty three
percent between nineteen oh three and nineteen oh seven. So
by the early nineteen hundreds, most American cities had implemented
some forum of municipal trash removal service, which meant pigs
(11:27):
weren't required anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I love that you found one statistic here, and then
it was just about Pittsburgh. So shout out to Pittsburgh.
I've never been there, but I have always wanted to
go there. Okay, mag Well, I mean.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
It's land of mister Rogers. It's not far from Falling Water.
I like pittsfrog Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
The Warhol Museum, if if anyone lives in Pittsburgh, tell
us what we should go see there? Okay, okay, So
obviously the next question is what do you do with
all of this trash once you've picked it up? Well,
incinerators were an early solution, inspired by European ones that
had been around since the eighteen seventies, but that practice
started to decline during the late thirties when we borrowed
(12:05):
yet another idea from Europe, the landfill, and since then
that's been our primary method of garbage disposal in the
United States. And landfills are everywhere, but unless you live
next one, you probably don't notice them. They're typically located
far outside cities, and they look like these big, treeless
mounds that just blend into the landscape. But do not
(12:28):
be fooled. These boring hills have a serious downside. They
emit landfill gas, which is fifty percent methane and fifty
percent carbon dioxide, so the bigger they get, the more
they contribute to climate change. One thing we can do, however,
is we can turn landfills into parks with vegetation and
animal habitats, and that's the plan for Freshkills Park in
(12:50):
Staten Island, here in New York. It was once the
world's biggest landfill, and eventually it'll be a two two
hundred acre public park that is three times larger than
Central Park.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
That is really incredible.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Actually, have you been to the Hirley Chisholm Park in
it's in South Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, it's on a former landfill and it is so gorgeous.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I have not. It's very far from where I live,
but I've heard about. It's the largest state park in
New York.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah. We drove out there and it was stunning, Like
there was stunning bird watching. You can't believe how beautiful
is and you kind of forget you're in New York.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah. Yeah, it's a really great use of a former landfill.
And the only problem is this process of converting landfills
to parks. It takes a long time and a lot
of environmental engineering. Landfills can take decades to settle, meaning
their foundations shift over time, and to avoid public health risks,
you need to figure out how to vent the landfill gas.
(13:50):
So you can't just slap some turf on top of
a garbage pile and call it a day.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, I mean I'm sure it takes a ton of
work to make. But if we want the landfills to
be small, I'm wondering, like, could we go back to
burning the waste first and then burying it?
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, that is actually an option. This method has been
adopted in a bunch of places in Europe, where the
process is also used to generate electricity. Right, so that's
a bonus. So some advocates are calling for the United
States to do more of this too. The problem, of course,
is that burning trash creates air pollutions. It'sually not perfect fix.
So at the end of the day, we have the
(14:26):
same options we've always had for dealing with garbage. We
can toss it on the ground, we can put it
in a hole, we can light it on fire, or
we can find a way to reuse it. And luckily,
some scientists have come up with a way to turn
garbage into something very valuable knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
No, no, no, it's true, I know, I know. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's the most valuable product of all. And after we
take a quick break, we'll find out how garbage can
counteract government propaganda, and we'll also talk about some truly
amazing things that have been found in the trash, Go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. In just a moment,
I'm going to tell you about one of the coolest
scientific fields I've ever heard about.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
It's called garbology.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
But first I want to remind you to subscribe to
the show on your favorite podcast app. Please leave us
a nice rating and review, and if you enjoyed this episode,
share it with a friend. Okay, So back to garbology.
The term was coined in the early nineteen seventies by
aj Weberman, and it became a legitimate scientific pursuit in
(15:44):
nineteen seventy three. This is when the archaeologist William Rathge
launched the Tucson Garbage Project. This involved analyzing over fifteen
thousand samples of trash, which revealed tons of information about
residents of Tucson, from what they how much alcohol they drank,
to how good they were recycling and Researchers on the
(16:05):
project even learned that people tend to report eating a
lot less junk food than they actually eat.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You know, I actually did a garbology project of my
own in fourth grade. Yeah, I've actually I have actually
studied garbology at a university. I was nine years old
at the time. But I was really into archaeology back then,
and the University of Maine had these weekend classes that
were open to the community. One of them was about garbology,
(16:32):
and I begged my parents to let me do it.
They gave in, and it was just so fascinating. This
is what I did when I was nine on the weekends, right,
everyone else was playing sports whatever. But I had never
thought before about the fact that a lot of what
archaeologists dig up is just ancient garbage, right, like broken pottery,
things that people discarded. So it makes a lot of
(16:53):
sense that modern garbage can tell us a lot about
modern people. So I got really into it, and then
I got in a lot of trouble for sneaking around
my school and digging through the classroom garbage cans.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I love that they just didn't get your vision. Yeah,
I mean, if you think about it, scientists study human
activity in all kinds of ways that could seem invasive. Right. Besides,
garbology has a unique ability to reveal super accurate information
even when we're hiding the truth or covering it up.
And I can give you example this. So a few
(17:27):
decades ago, historians studying China's Cultural Revolution, realized that they
could learn a lot from papers and documents that have
been tossed out by households and also by government officials.
So they started collecting these artifacts at flea markets, and
when word got out, locals sifted through trash to find documents,
which they then sold to researchers. And because of this,
(17:48):
historians discovered concrete evidence about things that happened during the
Cultural Revolution, like government officials who deported people from cities
to rural areas with that whole.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Sent down youth stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Garbology has also been used to track changes in North Korea.
So if you think about trash that washes up in
South Korea, like there was a recent increase in more
colorful candy wrappers, that actually reveals how their culture and
economy has evolved over time. Even corporate America has gotten
into the garbology game. So before everything we bought was
easily tracked by barcodes and online shopping, some companies conducted
(18:23):
dust bin audits to see how well their brands were
doing well.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Speaking of fascinating finds in the trash, I was really
excited to look into this for this episode, and you
would not believe some of the crazy things people have
discarded and then discovered.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So give me an example, Okay.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
In twenty nineteen, an episode of Antiques Road Show featured
a man who worked at a dump in England, and
there he found a bunch of artifacts that once belonged
to former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, including a top hat,
a cigar case, and a signed photograph.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
That is an incredible three it of it is.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
And it gets even better because these items were verifiable
as belonging to Churchill because they were accompanied by two
hundred letters that he wrote to his cook, which it
does seem like a lot of letters to write to
one's cook, doesn't it. Yeah, but the show estimated that
all these items that had just been thrown away were
worth ten thousand pounds.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I mean, in some ways, it feels like they should
be worth more than ten thousand pounds, right like Winston
Churchill's letters to his cook feels like a book that
could deserve more of an advance in that.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Yeah, I don't know. I think the guy he wrote
a lot of letters though, if you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Think about it, right, Yeah, that makes sense. So do
we know how all of this ended up in the trash.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
No, and we will never know because the guy who
found the stuff refused to reveal the name of the
dump where he wanted to keep it secret. But you know,
ten thousand pounds worth of trash is chump change compared
to this next one. In two thousand and four, a
nurse named Melanie Steve found a plastic cello case with
(20:02):
a cello inside, leaning against a dumpster in the Silver
Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, and so she had this
kind of quirky idea. She decided she'd have her cabinet
maker boyfriend fix some of the cracks and scratches in
the cello and turn it into a case for her CDs.
This was two thousand and four. She had CDs. What
she didn't realize was that the cello had been stolen
(20:23):
three days earlier from the front porch of the lead
cellist for the La Philharmonic Organ and it was an
irreplaceable vintage instrument built in Italy in sixteen eighty four
and insured for three point five million dollars. Luckily, Melanie
saw a news report about the theft before her boyfriend
(20:44):
started turning the cello into a CD case, so she
was able to contact a lawyer who helped get it returned.
And that is your lesson. If you ever find a
priceless cello in the trash, have a lawyer handle it.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
I mean, I'm glad we give our listeners tips about
what to do if they find but you know, maybe
a rare Italian cello filled with Maroon five CDs would
have been worth even more.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
On the other hand, come on, let's not assume the
worst about Melanie's taste in music. It's not fair, Melanie.
We know you're better than that. Okay. Here is one
last story that also has a lesson for you. Always
double check what you're bringing out to the trash. In
twenty fifteen, the jewelry store Jay Bernbock Incorporated here in
New York City was undergoing renovations and some workers accidentally
(21:34):
threw away three wooden boxes of diamonds worth five million dollars.
The security guard spotted the mistake, grabbed the boxes, and
brought them into the bathroom. He then put all the
diamonds into one box and walked right out the door.
But the store had surveillance footage from the night of
the theft, so it was pretty easy to identify the culprit.
The guard was caught and he was arrested.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
Oh man, that is rough.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
I mean, I feel like the security guard thought he
had a short thing. It is always fun to hear
about historical artifacts and stolen diamonds turning up in the garbage.
And I always love when someone sees a print that
they think is really beautiful and it turns out to
be like a famous art piece or whatever. But unfortunately,
most trash is made up of something far less exciting,
(22:19):
and that is styrofoam. So according to one estimate, styrofoam
accounts for approximately thirty three percent of landfill volume and
it takes five hundred to one thousand years to decompose.
But Stanford researchers have found one potential solution mealworms. They
can live on a diet of styrofoam and other plastic,
(22:41):
which could help break it down faster. And not only that,
but the researchers have also determined that yellow mealworm guts
can break down the toxic chemical additive HBCD without it
building up in their system, which is really incredible because
that means that these same mealworms that feed on plastic
could still be used for their other common purpose, which
(23:02):
is as a food for other animals, including chicken, snakes, fish,
and shrimp.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
What a sad life though, eat a bunch of plastic
and then become someone else's snack.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Henry had a pet mealworm in kindergarten which he named
George Harrison, and I felt so sad to lose two
George harrisons of my life.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Rip George Harrison and also George Harrison.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So here is another upsetting fact for you. Picture this,
if every coastline on Earth had fifteen grocery bags filled
with plastic trash sitting on each yard of beach. That
is how much plastic waste goes into the oceans.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yearly, yearly.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Isn't that so sad to think about? That is so
depressing And a lot of the newer waste related innovations
are focusing on that issue, so this bit will make
you happy. One of these innovations is called mister trash Wheel.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Is that an actual person?
Speaker 1 (24:02):
No, Mister trash Wheel is a fourteen foot tall trash
interceptor that sits in the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland,
and he does exactly what the name suggests. Trash in
the water gets funneled onto a conveyor belt and then
transferred to a dumpster. It's run by solar and hydro power,
and this wheel is incredibly strong. It can even suck
(24:23):
up things like tires or mattresses, so it's pretty formidable.
The smart folks at the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore decided
to decorate the wheel with big eyes so it would
look like a cartoon character gobbling up the garbage. And
they gave it, or excuse me him, that funny name,
mister trash Wheel. And because of this great branding, mister
(24:45):
trash Wheel has become something of a social media celebrity.
He has over forty three thousand Instagram followers, probably more
after this episode, but that's not his most impressive number.
Since his debut, he's removed over four point three million
pounds of t debris from the harbor. What's also interesting
is that his family is expanding. There are now three
(25:05):
more trash wheels in Baltimore which have contributed another million
pounds of trash removal. Their names are Professor trash Wheel
who got a PhD, Captain trash Wheel, and Gwinda, the
Good Wheel of the West, who sits at the mouth
of a stream called Gwinn's Falls.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
You know, I don't know how much the people at
the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore get paid, but I do
know it is not enough.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
I agree, it's definitely not enough. Now, if you enjoy
ethropomorphized wheels, I think you're really gonna like this next
innovation as well. It's inspired by one of my favorite animals,
the whale sharks. So whale sharks are known for moving
slowly through the water and doing something called filter feeding. Basically,
as they swim, they suck in a bunch of water,
(25:51):
hoping to nab some food in the form of plankton,
small fish, and fish eggs. And in twenty seventeen, a
robot inspired by the whale shark called the Waste Shark
was launched into the canals of the Netherlands. Like a
filter feeder, the waste Shark floats through the water and
collects debris. Unlike a filter feeder, this robot then disposes
(26:11):
of that debris on land. It can help remove about
a one hundred pounds of unwanted material in the water
every single day, and it operates autonomously or with a
person remote controlling it. Now, when the battery is low,
it heads for its shark pod, where it charges up
for more crash guzzling, which I just love.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I love that the charger is called a shark pod.
That's really great idea. But now I'm wondering what other
animals could we use as inspiration to help deal with waste, right,
Like a litter rat, trash raccoon, a garbage seagull.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Yeah, I mean all those would be incredible, although I
do feel like a trash raccoon is just a raccoon.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I was just brainstorming. This is a starting point as
we go, you know.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
As fascinating as these waste disposal innovations are, the fact
is our only way out of a garbage choked future
is by generating less trash in the first place. The
zero waste movement has cut on in many communities, including
the city of Keel, which in twenty twenty four became
Germany's first certified zero waste city. They've implemented a bunch
(27:16):
of policies aimed at cutting waste by fifteen percent per
person per year by twenty thirty five. For example, they
give new parents grants of up to two hundred euros
to buy cloth diapers so they don't have to buy
disposable and garbage fees are based on the weight of
the waste that each household throws away, so residents are
coming up with their own ways of contributing, like restaurants
(27:38):
that now give uneaten food away to people in need,
or a local hairdresser who collects hair trimmings and this
is true, turns them into mats that are used to
absorb oil from sewers.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Oh, I love that for a whole city to be
able to create zero waste is remarkable. It does remind
me of the old phrase reduced reuse, recycle, which you know,
makes me think that we haven't actually talked about recycling yet.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Ah well, don't worry. I learned some truly shocking facts
about recycling and I'll tell you all about it after
this quick break. Welcome back to Part time Genius. Now,
(28:26):
before the break, I was telling you about Kiel, Germany's
first certified zero waste city, and that is an actual
standard that was created by a nonprofit called Zero Waste Europe.
And what I find really interesting about this is Germany
was already known for its commitment to recycling in twenty
twenty one, Germany recycled over two thirds of its municipal
(28:47):
solid waste, more than any other country in Europe, and
according to Bettina aust, the president of the Keiel City Council,
that actually lulled people into a false sense of complacency.
She told her reporter from The Guardian that a lot
of people are so focused on recycling they forget about
reducing the amount of stuff they buy in the first place,
or finding ways to repair or reuse it. Which is
(29:10):
not to say recycling hasn't helped with the trash problem
right here in the United States, recycling is a relatively
new phenomenon. Curbside recycling didn't become a thing until the
nineteen seventies, when we realized our landfills were starting to overflow.
In the nineteen eighties, about ten percent of municipal waste
got recycled, but these days it's over thirty two percent,
(29:31):
and thanks to recycling programs, we're sending about half as
much waste to landfills as we used to. But here's
the dirty truth. A lot of American recycling just ends
up getting shipped overseas, where it piles up and causes
serious problems.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
That feels kind of depressing because we spend so much
time recycling. I guess what you're saying is that recycling
doesn't get recycled.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Not always. And we could probably do an entire episode
just about this phenomenon. But it has to do with
a global waste trade. So approximately one third of United
States recycling gets sent overseas, and for a long time
most of that plastic and metal scrap went to China,
which used it to fuel manufacturing. But in twenty seventeen,
(30:13):
China banned foreign waste imports, citing public health and environmental concerns.
With our biggest customer gone, many US municipalities had to
cut back on recycling or they scrambled to find other
places to send stuff. As a result, Malaysia, Indonesia, and
other parts of Southeast Asia were quickly flooded with our
discarded yogurt cups and takeout containers, and it's way more
(30:36):
than they can handle. The author Alexander Klapp, who wrote
a book called Waste Wars The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash,
described seeing remote areas in the highlands of Java that
he called quote hellscapes of Western waste, toothpaste tubes from California,
shopping bags from the Netherlands, deodorant sticks from Australia, stacked
knee high as far as the eye can see. And
(30:59):
because it is literally impossible to recycle it all, local
Javanese street vendors have taken to burning it for a
cooking fuel, filling the air with toxic fumes.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
That is so horrifying.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And it's what former Kenyon president Daniel Larotmoy called garbage imperialism,
and he coined that phrase in the nineteen eighties when
countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America were angry
at the United States because we were dumping our toxic
waste on their land. But as Alexander Klapp points out,
back then it was easy for people to realize that
(31:31):
hazardous waste is bad. Today, the stuff we dump can
be just as dangerous, but we don't consider that because
if it's labeled recyclable, we think it's good for the planet.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I mean, the truth is we really have to emphasize
the reduce part of that reuse recycle slogan.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, the words are in that order for a reason. Reduce, reuse,
recycle is the last resort.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And now for our last resort, why don't we turn
to the fact off.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I'll kick things off with the Trail of a Thousand Trolls,
a project by the Danish artist Thomas Dambo which definitely
leans into the reused part of that slogan. Along with
his team, Dambo creates massive troll sculptures made from discarded
items like wooden palettes, old furniture, and wine barrels. These
trolls can be up to forty feet tall. Dambo installs
(32:30):
them in places like forests, jungles, and grasslands. There are
one hundred and seventy of them now around the world,
everywhere from Australia to South Korea to Chile. And each
trash troll has its own lore, its own backstory. Yes, so,
for example, Little Bibby, who's located in Dayton, Ohio, comes
(32:50):
with a story about how she wanted to learn to
fly like a bird. The statue of Little Bibby, which
at seventeen feet is not little at all, holds winglight
contraptions and has one like up in the air to
show that she is about to take flight.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh man, I've got to look these offs now, So
we talked about garbology, and I'm going to take it
one step further, which is virtual garbology. In twenty twenty,
Jared Hansen published a paper titled quote an Abundance of
Fruit Trees a garbology of the artifacts in Animal Crossing
New Leaf. So I'm sure people out there know about
(33:24):
Animal Crossing the video game from its massive popularity, especially
during the COVID nineteen pandemic. New Leaf was the twenty
thirteen edition of the game for the Nintendo three DS,
So in his research, Hanson visited a random selection of
Animal Crossing towns to see which items players had left
lying around like trash, and he found that the most
(33:44):
likely items to be discarded were fruit with pairs and lead,
which makes sense if you've ever played the game. There's
definitely a lot of fruit. But he also discovered that
there wasn't much litter in Animal Crossing in general, and
he concluded quote, it seems as though the economic systems
of the game, which encouraged the player to pay for
(34:04):
upgrades to their home and public works, lead many players
to forego conspicuous consumption, and the waste or trashing of
items related to accessories and clothing instead, items of trash
and garbage are those with utility and economic value instead
of personal meaning.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Oh, that is so wholesome, unlike my next fact, which
is not wholesome at all. In two thousand and one,
contractors hired by Procter and Gamble, which makes Panteen and
head in Shoulders shampoo, were caught doing corporate dumpster diving.
They were going through the trash of the Chicago offices
of Unilever, a rival company that also owned haircare brands
like Finesse, and they retrieved eighty pages of confidential planning documents.
(34:47):
Procter and Gamble confessed to the espionage, although they claimed
that they hadn't used the material the contractors took, but
either way, the whole debacle culminated in Procter and Gamble
paying a ten million dollar settlement.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
That's in two thousand and one, right, that's nuts, and
it's like a watergate but for Dandriff shampoos well. Another
rivalry with trash at the center is the one between
Bob Dylan and the New York City writer aj Weberman.
So during the sixties, Weberman became a huge Dylan fan.
In fact, some say he was completely obsessed, but over
(35:23):
the years he grew dissatisfied with Dylan's music and persona,
saying he turned his back on radical politics. In nineteen
seventy one, he tried to confront Dylan by knocking on
his door, and Dylan slammed the door in his face.
So Weberman took it to the next level. He started
going through his trash and if you remember from earlier
that I teased Weberman as the inventor of the word garbology,
(35:46):
this is actually why. So he started publishing pictures of
Dylan's garbage, including private letters and photographs. He did this
in an underground paper called The East Village Other Now, unsurprisingly,
Dylan stopped putting personal items into trash and asked Weberman
to stop invading his privacy. Weberman alleges that this issue
came to a head with Dylan attacking him on Elizabeth Street,
(36:09):
and he claims the event was memorialized in Dylan's song
where Are You Tonight. According to Weberman, this lyric is
about him getting beaten up by Bob Dylan quote, it
fell out of place, my foot in his face, But
he should have stayed where his money was green Wow.
It's poetic. I guess it is.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I guess okay. I think by bringing our conversation about
garbage all the way around to Bob Dylan lyrics and
for telling us about mister Trashwheel and his entire family,
you've earned today's trophy. Mango.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
I think it's more about mister Trashwheel than anything else.
But okay, I promise I'm never gonna throw this this
trophy away. So that is it for our dumpster dive
into the world of trash. Research and writing for this
episode was done by our friend Meredith Danko. Thank you, Meredith.
But now we want to hear from you, and specifically,
(37:02):
we have a very odd question that we need answered.
We want to know what your favorite or least favorite
type of pasta is. It is for an episode we're
working on. Give us a call at three oh two,
four oh five, five, nine two five. We want to
hear your very strong pasta opinions. You can also send
us an email at high Geniuses at gmail dot com.
(37:22):
Do not hold back. We cannot wait to hear your
hot takes on pasta and big news. Next week we're
going to have five brand new episodes for you. It
is a week long series all about curiosity. If you've
ever wondered why do I wonder so many things? Then
this is for you. We'll also have daily activities contests,
so follow us on Instagram and blue Sky at part
(37:45):
Time Genius so you don't miss out on all this fun.
We'll be back on Monday to kick that off, but
in the meantime, From Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary, and myself,
thank you so much for listening. Part Time Genius is
(38:09):
a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted
by Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler and researched by our
good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and
produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norbel
(38:29):
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shoring. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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