Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307180104
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Hey!" Rathje shouted to his excavation crew, "I think it's guacamole!"
It was guacamole. Guacamole that had been buried in the Arizona landfill for 25 years. Guacamole so well-preserved, there still were chunks of avocado in the bowl.
That discovery, dated by the newspapers buried nearby, helped support one of Rathje's more controversial theories - that very little biodegradation takes place in most landfills. Instead, he claims, a wide array of garbage is "mummified," and takes up space indefinitely.
That is just one of the many garbage-related theories that Rathje has developed during his 20 years of traversing city dumps and wading through trash. Many of his findings flout conventional wisdom. Some contradict environmental dogma. A few infuriate recycling advocates.
But even his detractors - one of whom called him "the anti-Christ of the recycling movement" - concede that no one knows more about garbology than he does.
Rathje's research bears little resemblance to the tawdry practice of rummaging through celebrities' trash to learn their fears and foibles. "A sad perversion," he says, pursing his lips with distaste.
He excavates landfills, using sophisticated archeological technology, to gain insight into human behavior. Much of his work is designed to help solve environmental problems associated with overflowing landfills, diminishing resources and toxic waste disposal.
Rathje, 48, a heavyset man with a garbage truck belt buckle and garbage pail lapel pin, was visiting a Glendale, Calif., landfill recently when he was asked if a photographer could shoot him sifting through garbage. He bristled.
He does not simply poke through garbage, making half-baked conclusions, he explained, with great irritation. Garbology involves, he said, "carefully and systematically" sampling landfill contents and "analyzing them with great care."
Rathje is no self-taught scavenger. He has a doctorate in archeology from Harvard, where he studied Mayan civilization. And he is a professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, where he heads the Garbage Project, a research center staffed by student volunteers.
All archeology, in a sense, involves the study of garbage. Prized artifacts often are the refuse of an ancient society. Because the garbage Rathje studies is pop tops instead of pottery, he has been viewed by the academic community as a curiosity, and even something of an embarrassment.
But after sorting, classifying and studying almost 300,000 pounds of garbage, his work is being taken seriously. The Oxford English Dictionary credits Rathje for coining the term "garbology," and defines the field as: "The scientific study of the refuse of a modern society . . . considered as an aspect of social science."
The Smithsonian Institution will pay tribute to his refuse research next year. An exhibit called "The Garbage Dilemma" will be featured in a new display at the Smithsonian's American History Museum.
"At first, some of our scientists weren't too eager to feature garbage in the museum," says Karen Lee, an exhibit researcher at the American History Museum. "Their attitude was like: `Garbage? You've got to be kidding.' But Rathje has made the study of garbage a serious scientific discipline."
Rathje founded the Garbage Project 20 years ago to teach students basic archeological techniques. The research was so intriguing and the findings so dramatic the project gained national acclaim.
The odoriferous mounds of refuse that Rathje and his crew analyze may be repugnant, but their research techniques are sophisticated. They drill almost 100 feet down - with a device similar to an oil rig - excavating three feet at a time. They take the temperature of the samples, to study the rate of biodegradation and sort the contents into 150 coded categories.
Rathje's findings have exploded many popular myths about garbage. In addition to the 25-year-old guacamole, he has discovered several 15-year-old hot dogs in a Staten Island, N.Y., landfill, a 16-year-old T-bone steak in an Illinois landfill and reams of readable 30-year-old newspapers from countless city dumps.
The well-preserved condition of so much old food proves that landfill biodegradation "is the biggest myth since Santa Claus," Rathje says. Biodegradation does take place, he says, just not at the rate people think. Much of the garbage is packed tightly and kept so dry that very little composting takes place.
Rathje also has attempted to defuse much of the rhetoric about the country's garbage crisis. People are not producing more garbage than before, he says, just different garbage. And the accumulation of refuse should not be viewed as a crisis, but a manageable task such as street cleaning.
Paper, construction debris and yard cuttings take up about half the space at landfills, according to Rathje's research. So, he says, movements by local governments to ban disposable diapers and fast-food containers - which make up less than 3 percent of landfill volume, Rahje says - only divert attention from more serious environmental problems.
Some environmentalists, who respect his research, take issue with his conclusions. They find his views on recycling heretical.
Rathje, for example, contends that one of the virtues of plastic is that it does not biodegrade - which often is cited as its major problem - and therefore does not introduce toxic chemicals into the environment. And, he argues, that tons of newspaper and bottles are dumped in landfills because the market is glutted, so simply separating trash by the curb does not always guarantee it will be recycled. Buying recycled products, he says, is the best way to create a market for recycled trash.
But the amount dumped is greatly exaggerated by Rathje, says Jerry Powell, editor of Resource Recycling, the nation's largest recycling magazine. And he finds Rathje's contention that economics is the only factor in recycling behavior offensive and "simply wrong."
By concentrating on how slowly some things biodegrade, Rathje is diverting attention from "the more serious issue" of how toxic materials in landfills seep into the environment, Powell says. And, contrary to Rathje's claims, "there is a serious garbage crisis."
Because some of the Garbage Project's studies are funded by industry, the results are suspect, Powell says. But, Rathje contends his research never has been compromised by either private or public sources and, sometimes, "I bite the hand that feeds me." He says a few of his studies were funded by the paper industry, which he has criticized for filling up the nation's landfills.
"He has done a lot for our field, including helping to take away the stigma of garbage," says Joe Haworth, an environmental engineer for Los Angeles County. "Because he's a well-educated guy and a professor, his studies have given garbage a kind of sophistication."
At one time, Rathje says, he planned to elevate the study of garbage by creating a museum. He began collecting the more unusual items from sorted refuse - including a diamond ring and a set of antique soldiers - and stored the prospective exhibits in a marked trash can.
But one afternoon, at the Garbage Project's Tucson headquarters, Rathje realized his plans for the museum were dashed.
Someone, by mistake, had taken all the exhibits and thrown them out.
by CNB