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Zero Waste and the circular economy are the new challenges of our current society. Historical parallels with our ancestors' waste management.
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As of January 1, 2020, France banned the sale of certain single-use plastic products (cotton swabs, cups, plates). Additionally, the lockdown allowed many of us to realize that a break with current overconsumption models is necessary to limit our ecological impact. Thus, many families have taken on the challenge of reducing the weight of their trash by going Zero Waste.
The Zero Waste approach, which allows us to reduce the amount of waste produced and its environmental impact by changing certain habits, is not always seen as a progressive step but as a step backward by its detractors… And they’re not wrong, but that’s all the better!
Cook more, buy local, do it yourself… so many “eco-friendly” principles useful for reducing our waste while trying to take care of the planet. But these “new” principles are not so new after all.
In fact, “Grandmother’s Tips” are more popular than ever. We limit the number of ingredients and products and use a bit of elbow grease to make things ourselves rather than buying. We are encouraged to recover, recycle, and valorize our waste and even the biggest brands are getting on board. We are actually taking our cues from our ancestors, those great unwitting pioneers of Zero Waste.
When it comes to food, our ancestors had no choice but to eat locally. Before the arrival of canned food and canning in 1790, our forebears dried, smoked, or salted their products to preserve them. And before the birth of the fridge in the 19th century, they stocked up daily from local small traders and bought in bulk with containers made of wood, glass, tin, ceramics, or cloth.
Moreover, many of our ancestors grew their own crops (grains, vegetables, and fruits) and raised chickens and pigs to meet their needs. Their food waste was very useful for feeding their animals and their land. Without being self-sufficient, our ancestors consumed in short circuits for the most processed products.
As for objects, for economic reasons first, our ancestors repaired, patched, or resold them, thus ensuring the valorization of their supplies on a daily basis. Old clothes and rags were sold to ragmen, who recycled them into paper.
Our forebears also made their own household products, their laundry, their soap… long before the arrival of chemical products and other technical advances of the 1960s.
In short, our ancestors always made do with what they had and in accordance with their means. A different paradigm from our current society. Indeed, while in past centuries the poor had no choice but to valorize their waste and consume in a reasoned manner, the rich, by consuming more, produced the most waste.
If our ancestors mastered the principles of Zero Waste without even being aware of it, they were not much more “eco-friendly” than we are. Explanations.
First, ecology is, among other things, a movement of thought whose goal is to take environmental issues into account at the heart of social, economic, and political organization by changing the relationship between humans and the environment. We have been talking about ecology in its proper sense (that of the study of the habitat) since 1866 only, which is a rather recent concept. And long before it became democratized and central to our current socio-politico-economic organization, few of our ancestors were concerned with ecology and their impact on our planet. Moreover, we still find, to this day, waste left behind in -10,000 BC by prehistoric men. But these “waste” items were actually very useful as true witnesses of the past!
As for the waste management system, as early as Antiquity, a regular waste collection system was set up in Athens or Rome.
In the Middle Ages, people were asked to dump their rubbish in storage areas outside the city to avoid polluting rivers and streets, in vain.
In 1506, Louis XII set up the “taxe des boues” for the collection and disposal of rubbish to clean the streets, but the inhabitants continued to throw them out the windows.
Two centuries later, the first Industrial Revolution would increase waste production and pollution with mining and textile industries, among others. It was not until Pasteur’s discovery of the link between hygiene and health and the invention of E. Poubelle that we saw a waste collection system close to the current one.
The parallel between industrial innovation and waste production would only escalate until today. The increase in consumption in the 1960s multiplied our waste by 10 (plastics, among others). A phenomenon that gave rise to the concept of political ecology in 1970, widely present in our daily lives today. Since 2005, we have observed a reversal of the trend with an improvement in waste sorting and greater ecological awareness.
But what would our ancestors say about this “step backward” by Zero Waste when we can enjoy modern comforts? Were they aware of their possible ecological impact and what they would leave for future generations?
Today, many Zero Waste advocates give a special meaning to this phrase “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”…