Garbage Demographics
William Rathje and Cullen Murphy
WHAT PEOPLE REALLY DO
 Garbage is part of an ecosystem whose properties
depend on:
 Weather
 Season
 Rate of growth
 Garbage sampling can reveal:
 The percentage of households that fall victim to
advertisements.
 Households that have stockpiles
 Households that buy the same product over time
 Households that didn’t like a product
GARBAGE TO CHECK THE CENSUS
 Documenting illegal aliens
 Household data already collected to aid the Garbage
Project
 “Multiplier”
WHY ARCHAEOLOGISTS?
 Estimate population size of prehistoric cultures
THE GREAT EQUALIZER
 Plastic accounts for 0.2 pounds of the 2.1 pounds of
garbage that is thrown away in a day.
 Equation: household size=0.2815xplastic
 NO definite way to determine proportions between
men and women in a given society.
PROPORTION OF CHILDREN
 Average discard of toys and packages
 Child’s clothing
Analysis Example
Name of Artifact
Description
Pop Can
Silver, Sprite diet
Water Jug
Poland Springs, gallon
Water bottle
Blue, green label, Poland springs
Bottle
Seltzer , blue label, red writing,
Description:
The person that produced this garbage is apparently recycling bottles used in
the house. The majority of beverages that this person drinks is water. There
may be a child in the house because of the smaller bottles of water.