Modern consumer habits lead to massive regions in, and near, cities to be designated solely for waste. These dumps reflect not only how the average person is today, but also the steps, or lack thereof, from the past that allowed the current state of dumps. Everyone has trash, from plastic to organics every house sets a trash bin out for collection on a weekly basis. The amount of trash and how it is stored serves as artifacts about the civilization. While there is unholy amounts of garbage littered throughout the landscape, the actions to contain or adapt this refuse shows a deep sense of compassion towards the environment from individuals in the society.

            In everyday life plastic and paper containers are used to hold food, after which much of this becomes waste thrown out on garbage day. In addition to the small containers people produce waste that cannot go in the trash-bin as easily. This leaves the individual only three choices, adapting the discarded object for use in something else; paying additional charges to throw the item out directly to a dump; or shoving it to the side and ignoring the problem. While all three events take place the one that is visible to everyone is the final choice, abandoning and ignoring the trash. When a construct is broken down in a field some individuals may find it too much of a hassle to move the items to the trash, so they simply leave them to rot and decay over decades in nature. Another more innocuous case of ignoring trash is personal items that are too large to discard with ease. A lot of these large items were expensive when purchased, so instead of discarding of them properly the innate hoarder mentality individual’s have takes over and the broken piece of history is shoved in a corner and forgotten about.

            This ignoring of trash leads into a world where ambient trash is normalized. When average individuals walk down the street there are not disgusted by the sheer amounts of garbage from bags and cigarette-butts that litter the gutter and sidewalks. This lack of reaction is because, as a society, we have become accustom to the garbage, whether its there or not our daily lives are unaffected. This behaviour makes the simple chip-bag or cigarette-butt an artifact of our civilization and our priorities.

Take the Naturalized Rubble images for example, this scene depicts a demolished elementary school with only the underground portions remaining as an indication of what this rubble once was. The rubble it self has laid there for the better part of a year with very minor change, a stark grey field next to one that children would raise pennies to help plant flowers. The area around the rubble has changed over time, the jungle-gym removed, fields unkempt, the only items to remain are two benches underneath tree. The benches overlook a busy main-road and also the concrete mess that once was a school. These benches, most often associated with casual and calming seating in the middle of nature, now is a spot to exist with the rubbish.

            The second image of the Naturalized Rubble section shows a small totem built of stone outside of the sheltered underground section of the school. The cinder-blocks stacked in a circular tower did not arrange themselves there by chance, instead an individual saw the rubble and saw an opportunity for either some entertainment or intrigue. This image of the destroyed building and construction cones creates a poignant feeling when juxtaposed with the simple and clean sculpture in the middle of the alcove.

            Humans want to naturalize the world around them, to make it seem like everything is okay. In addition to this there is the inherent desire when something looks off to try to influence the area into something more. This is seen not only in the rubble-sculpture but also through graffiti. People express themselves through art, and that art leaves an impact on anyone else who might observe it. Aside from tagging, graffiti is often an individual’s attempt to evoke a feeling from the passerby. In the case of the graffitied storage shed, the dilapidated building lies adjacent to both a walking path and a river. People walk these paths in the fresh air, trying to take in as much nature as city life can provide. An unaltered, ruined shed creates a more depressing atmosphere that is contrary to what people desire at those moments. The community art on the shed is composed of many different images from different art styles, these images give intrigue to the shed rather than repulsion.

             By adding something to a pre-existing piece of garbage it can be turned into a completely different object. Another way people have changed garbage into something else is adapting the piece into something useful. The felled tree was cut in such a way to create a stool next to a path. The rest of the tree lays in pieces a few feet behind it. Deforestation has led to the destruction of many forested areas and assists in creating both garbage and pollution. This stool is a destroyed tree that conveys something entirely different to the deforestation. The stool is a seat, the large dead logs homes for thousands of insects, and the tree was likely cut down due to it posing a risk to the rest of the environment. As opposed to deforestation, this single tree-stool is a form of refuse that has played a net positive one the world.

            The decay of nature and adaptation of refuse is crucial for creating a stable ecosystem if the current consumer society is to continue. Landfills contain artifacts of garbage pilled in thousands of kilograms. Once landfills get too large cities try to reclaim the land, to restore the area to natural green lands. To achieve this layer of soil are piled on top of the trash and cared for to assist growth of grass and trees. In these kinds of parks there remains large pillars with turbines at the top, these are gas vents. The decaying garbage below exerts toxic and explosive gasses, with the gas vents these risks are alleviated with help from wind passing through the wind turbine. The area has in many respects been restored to nature, but the artifacts of trash remain.

            Garbage is ubiquitous among all cultures and civilizations. How societies handle their trash act as artifacts on their mentalities. Humans want to believe their world is okay, and to achieve this they can act on the trash in several ways. From creating artistic works from pre-existing rubbish, to normalizing the trash that surrounds us daily, to acting on reducing the amount of trash and alleviating the effects to restore nature, every individual has their own was of coping with trash in nature, and their own artifacts of trash that can reveal who they are to future civilizations.