Historically, the amount of wastes generated by human population was insignificant mainly due to the low population densities, coupled with the fact there was very little exploitation of natural resources. Common wastes produced during the early ages were mainly ashes and human & biodegradable wastes, and these were released back into the ground locally, with minimum environmental impact.
Before the widespread use of metals, wood was widely used for most applications. However, reuse of wood has been well documented . Nevertheless, it is once again well documented that reuse and recovery of such metals have been carried out by earlier humans.
The Maya of Central America had dumps, which exploded occasionally and burned. They also recycled. Homemakers brought trash to local dumps, and monthly burnings would occur. Many Mayan sites demonstrated such careless consumption. Consumption and waste of resources is probably related to supply available more than any other factor.
With the advent of industrial revolution, waste management became a critical issue. This was due to the increase in population and the massive migration of people to industrial towns and cities from rural areas during the 18th century. There was a consequent increase in industrial and domestic wastes posing threat to human health and environment.
Waste has played a tremendous role in history. The Bubonic Plague, cholera and typhoid fever, to mention a few, were diseases that altered the populations of Europe and influenced monarchies. They were perpetuated by filth that harbored rats, and contaminated water supply. It was not uncommon for Europeans to throw their waste and human wastes out of the window which would decompose in the street.
France, specifically Paris seems to have been a leader in poor waste management. "At Lille, in the 1860s, in the working class district of Saint-Sauveur, 95% of the children died before age 5.
"The famed Paris sewer system was created over a long period of time in the second half of the 19th century. The long delays were largely due to the virulent opposition of property owners, who did not want to pay to install sanitary piping to their buildings. The Prefect of Paris, Monsieur Poubelle, succeeded in forcing garbage cans on the property owners in 1887 only after a ferocious public battle. This government interference in the individual's right to throw his garbage in the street - which was, in reality, the property owner's right to leave his tenants no other option - made Poubelle into the 'cryptosocialist' of the hour. In 1900 owners were still fighting against the obligations to put their buildings on the public sewer system and to cooperate in the collection of garbage. By 1910 a little over half of the city's buildings were on the sewer system and only half of the cities in France had any sewers at all.
"Photos of early-twentieth-century Marseilles show great piles of refuse and excrement down the centre of the streets. Cholera outbreaks were common and ravaged the population. In 1954 the last city without, St. Remy de Provence, installed sewers.
"It was the gradual creation of an effective bureaucracy which brought an end to all this filth and disease, and the public servants did so against the desires of the mass of the middle and upper classes. The free market opposed sanitation. The rich opposed it. The civilized opposed it. Most of the educated opposed it. That is why it took a century to finish what could have been done in ten years" Adapted from John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards - The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, ref page 239
| Date | Location | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6500 BC | North America | Archaeological studies show that a clan of Native Americans in what is now Colorado produced an average of 5.3 pounds of waste a day. |
| 2 | 500 BC | Athens Greece | First municipal dump in the Western world. Regulations require waste to be dumped at least a mile from the city limits. |
| 3 | New Testament of Bible | Jerusalem Palestine | The valley of Gehenna (also called Sheol) is a dump outside of the city that periodically burns. It becomes synonymous with "hell": "Though I descent into Sheol, thou art there." |
| 4 | 1388 | England | English Parliament bars waste disposal in public waterways and ditches. |
| 5 | 1400 | Paris France | Waste piles so high outside of Paris gates that it interferes with city defense. |
| 6 | 1690 | Philadelphia | Rittenhouse Mill, Philadelphia produces paper from recycled fibers originating from waste paper and rags. |
| 7 | 1820's | London, England | Almost 100% of the waste collected by "dust-men" is recycled/recovered/reused through manual separation and sieving in "dust-yards", the main product being the fine fraction of coal-ash, remaining after coal burning in households ("dust").[4] The system had many similarities to informal sector recycling, prevailing in today's environmentally developing countries. |
| 8 | 1842 | England | Edwin Chadwick's Report of an Inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain linked disease to filthy environmental conditions. The "age of sanitation" begins. |
| 9 | 1874 | Nottingham England | A new technology called "The Destructor", patented by Albert Fryer and built by Manlove, Alliott & Co. Ltd., provides the first systematic incineration of refuse in Nottingham, England. Until this time, much of the burning had been incidental, a result of methane production. |
| 10 | 1885 | Governor's Island New York | First waste incinerator is built in United States. |
| 11 | 1889 | Washington, D.C. | Washington, D.C., reports that the country is running out of appropriate places for refuse. |
| 12 | 1896 | United States | Waste reduction plants for compressing organic wastes arrives in US. Later closed because of noxious emissions. |
| 13 | 1898 | New York | New York opens first waste sorting plant for recycling. |
| 14 | Turn of the 20th century | Waste problem seen as one of the greatest problems facing local authorities. | |
| 15 | 1900 | [[Intensive pig farming] is developed to consume fresh or cooked waste. Later, in the mid-1950s, an outbreak of vesicular exanthema of swine virus results in the destruction of thousands of pigs that had eaten raw waste. A law is passed requiring waste to be cooked before feeding it to swine. | |
| 15 | 1916 | New York City | New York City citizens produce 4.6 pounds of refuse per day. |
| 17 | 1914 | United States | Approximately 300 incinerators operating in the US for burning waste. |
| 18 | 1920's | Landfills become a popular way to reclaim swamp land while getting rid of trash. | |
| 19 | 1954 | Olympia, Washington | The city of Olympia, Washington, pays for return of aluminum cans. |
| 20 | 1965 | United States | First US federal solid waste management laws enacted. |
| 21 | 1968 | Companies begin to buy back recyclable containers. | |
| 22 | 1970 | United States | First Earth Day celebrated. Environmental Protection Agency created. |
| 23 | 1976 | United States | As a result of the 1974 oil embargo and discovery (or recognition) of Love Canal, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is created to emphasizing recycling and waste management. |
| 24 | 1979 | United States | EPA issue criteria for the prohibition of open dumping. |