Wasting
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From the beginning of the article: Waste is a word with complex connotations. As in T.S.Eliot’s famous poem “The Waste Land” from a war-torn Europe of 1922, it may include the double meaning that signifies both “deserted” and “rubbish”. Then there is wasting away, as in disappearing or losing strength, wasting as squandering or destroying, wasted as in consumed. We may talk about a wasted life, a waster, a wasteful activity or a waste product. But what happens when you use cultural phenomena like waste disposal and the production of refuse as an entrance into a world of overlooked or underdeveloped types of cultural processes? My starting point is an ongoing project concerning refuse, The Universe of Waste: On Culture and Decomposition.