Garbology

Garbology is a humorous term for the study of modern garbage, especially post-consumer waste, in the fields of archeology and environmental science. Garbology is also the practice of searching for information in discarded materials as part of an investigation, including dumpster diving conducted by journalists, hackers, activists, and private investigators.

As a sub-field of anthropology and contemporary archeology, garbology involves studying behaviors and practices related to waste management and landfills to better understand human cultures and reduce environmental issues. It was pioneered by William Rathje at the University of Arizona in 1973. The Tucson Garbage Project studied the contents of residential waste and people's perceptions of waste, including identifying misconceptions about the contents of landfills.

In environmental science education, influenced by Rathje's work, garbology includes teaching about waste minimisation and conducting waste characterisation activities.

The practice of searching for information in people's trash cans does not have a standardized name, but in 1971, American writer A. J. Weberman described his controversial practice of searching for scoops in celebrity trash cans as "garbage-ology", which influenced others to use the term garbology as well. This form of dumpster diving is also called "trashing" or "information diving". In British English, the practice is sometimes called "binology", especially when used to find information for tabloid journalism. As a law enforcement and intelligence agency practice, dating back to at least the 1950s, it is typically called a "trash cover", "trash pull", or "garbage pull".

The term "garbology" is also a humorous word for waste management in general, such as calling garbage collectors garbologists, first used in the 1960s.