• Introduction, explaining what rubbish is? Explaining what assignment is about.
• One – wastefulness and affluence, how this affects rubbish, consumer society
• Two – Thompsons Theory, recycling (one man’s trash is another man’s treasure), Jordan’s Junk art.
• Three – Stevegraphs/supply & Demand
• Four – environment and rubbish
• Conclusion, do not introduce any new material!! Sum essay up. Remember word count and references.
‘Rubbish has no value’. Identify the arguments for and against this view.
It can be argued that rubbish is a thing that has no worth; it is what nobody wants, it is disvalued, so it is worthless and has zero value (Brown, 2009, p105).
‘Value’ can be a complex term. Items have value because people value them. What is rubbish to one person may have value to another. Rubbish is seems can be quite contradictory! Throughout this essay it will be argued whether rubbish does in fact have no value. Your immediate thoughts on rubbish might be something straight forward like an empty crisp packet, you have eaten the crisps inside so now the packet is surplus to requirements and has no more use; it is now rubbish has no value and will be disposed of.
But rubbish covers more than just this. There is also wasting, uneaten food is wasted, televisions left on standby is wasted electricity.
Rubbish is the invisible part of consumption, the growth of mass consumption due to rising affluence and prosperity has contributed to the increase of rubbished produced. The rise in disposable income has allowed us to buy goods easier than ever before, this in turn has caused a huge rise in the manufacturing of consumer goods. We are living in a consumer society, it is now cheaper to replace goods rather than repair, and we have become a throwaway society. In 1983/84 the amount of household rubbish per person was 397 kg, in 2006/07 this increased to 508kg (Brown, 2009, p107).
With this rise, the amount of rubbish we produce as a nation, for example packaging, outdated and broken items. These discarded items may no longer hold value to us as an individual but provides a lucrative business for the waste disposals business and recycling plants. It is not just household rubbish that is a problem, rubbish from shops; businesses supermarkets, manufacture, construction and agriculture cause a greater proportion of rubbish (Brown, 2009, p134)
Michael Thompson wrote a book ‘Rubbish Theory: The Creation and Destruction of Value’. He categorises objects into three:
• Transient objects which are planned for ordinary use and their value fall over time for example clothing and mobile phones
• Rubbish which is items like worn out clothes obsolete phones, these items has zero value.
• Durable items are items where the value increases over time, such as works of art and jewellery. (Brown 2009, p122)
Objects are produced for either transient or durable categories, items can move from transient into durable via the category of rubbish and are then revalued. Items lose and then gain value. An example of this would be Stevengraphs, silk woven pictures popular in 1828-88, many were made and sold but by the middle of the twentieth century they had become unsalable. It was during the 1960’s and 1970; s they were again being sold and as collectors’ items for vast amounts of money thus making them now an item of value.
Their increase in value can be attributed to their aesthetic revaluation. The aesthetic judgement of the few caused the Stevengraphs to be revalued. Consequently there are items that can only be described as rubbish with no value which will end up at land fill. Other items start life with value but over time due to the changing fashions and improvements in technology they lose value and there are items that start life with a relative normal value lose their value and then increase value. The value of items can also rise or fall according to supply and demand,
• Price rises when demand increases relative to supply.
• Price falls when demand fall relative to supply. (Brown, 2009, p128)
With regard to the Stevengraphs, their price fell due to lack of demand, the price or value increased years later due to a new demand for them. Other examples of items moving from the transient to durable category are vintage toys, at the time of production they would have been priced according to demand, then becoming surplus to requirements and having no value, years later the lack of supply or now supply as no longer produced along with an increase in interest would again give them value.
Aesthetic and economic valuations are inevitably linked to some degree, and this tends to hold generally (Brown, 2009, p131) another form with aesthetic value which can also be described as rubbish is junk art. This type of art uses discarded objects which most would describe as rubbish in such a way they then become art. Chris Jordan makes photographic artworks that are computer-assembled from smaller photographs, these photographs are shots of mass consumption, plastic cups tin cans plastic bags cigarette ends (Brown, 2009, p131) – this is transforming rubbish into art.
Using rubbish as art can be described as a form of recycling, what was once rubbish is now art? This also shows that the old saying of ‘one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure’ still holds true today. Recycling is a relatively new initiative for households, a few years back everything we no longer required went into one bin which was then collected and dumped at a land fill. Now we separate plastic, cardboard, food waste, tins and glass. These items are recycled and used or made into many different things such as new cardboard, fertilizer. This is giving new value to items that were once thought of as rubbish. The UK has come a long way with recycling but we are still lagging behind the rest of Europe.
The financial value of rubbish may change, to those in the rubbish collection and recycling business dealing with rubbish provides employment and income thus giving value to rubbish. The downside to this is the cost to each nation, the disposal of rubbish has to be paid for. Aside from the financial side to rubbish the environmental side needs to be considered. Rubbish can either go into landfill or be incinerated, this in turn causes pollution, complete disposal is hard to achieve. Consideration is needed towards our environment, if as a nation we continue to increase with mass consumption there will continue to be an increase in rubbished produced. The environment will not be able to sustain this. Global consideration is needed for future generations.
In conclusion it would appear that rubbish does and does not have value. Our first impression of unwanted/discarded items would be they are rubbish and are sent to land fill thus having no value. However using junk art and recycling as examples it is clear that certain type of rubbish can have value. Items from household rubbish are recycled into new items. Other items that one might believe to be rubbish can be interpreted as art, bringing value to rubbish. For those in rubbish disposal, rubbish has financial value, but the cost to society and the environment show the negative financial value of rubbish. Items can change from having little or no value to items of collectable status with immense value. So in essence rubbish can have both, value and no value depending on the situation it is in.