Our bright and shiny consumer society (we are what we wear) is a throwaway society. On the one hand, there is an ethos of abundance and over-consumption; on the other the rubbish is everywhere. It is a trash culture in more ways than one. Corporations are still indifferent to the ecological impact of their waste.

Though the direct environmental damage it causes--eg., plastic bags polluting waterways, harming wildlife--is decried, we are still throwing more of it away in spite of the turn to recycling. Just think of all the junked computers, televisions, washing machines, fridges, cookers and various electronic gadgets.

We are recycling more, but we're also throwing away more. Landfill and incineration are still favoured over recycling and reuse. The reason is cost: landfill is by far the cheapest option, while recycling, especially of complex materials such as plastics and electronics, can be prohibitively expensive. It remains cheaper to bury or burn our waste than to recycle it.

It appears that we have become hooked on convenience, disposability, fashion, and constant technological change-the rise of mass consumption has led to waste on a previously unimaginable scale.

In Garbage and Recycling: From Literary Theme to Mode of Production in Other Voices (May 2007) Walter Moser says that garbage as:

an object always represents the intrusion of the past of a system into its present. It reminds us of a past state of things, pleasantly or unpleasantly. The garbage object is always endowed with pastness and thus becomes a vehicle or a trace of the past. Garbage therefore often supports the dialectic and drama of remembering and forgetting.

Is this return to the repressed a return to tan economy of excess, overflow and unreason?