The Australian Bureau of Statistics finds that 69% of Australians are generally concerned about waste management and the environment. At the same time we don’t spend much time thinking about our own practices on household rubbish. People pride themselves in being neat and tidy, because the rubbish they produce is stacked away safely in a bin. Out of sight and mind. Hard rubbish collection is the one time when it’s socially acceptable to put waste on display. One participant in a sociology study says: “[Waste] is the snail trail of human existence, the mess we leave behind us as we supposedly move forward. As our lives progress we leave a trail of sludge and slime and poo that we’ve got no use for but all the time it’s showing us where we’ve come from and what we are about.”
Photo: Dr Zuleyka Zevallos http://buff.ly/1Cl0C3i #sociology
The Other Sociologist 