Most people perceive the aspect of anthropology in terms of the past. Archeology refers to the study of past remains with the objective of revealing the past. This could include fossils, landmarks as well as the culture of the ancient societies. Nevertheless, the conceptualization of archaeology is applicable to a diverse nature of studies with the view of learning about the present. In a similar manner that the archaeologists can come up with a hypothesis of civilization that was in existence millenniums ago, one can come up with inferences about self through a scrutiny of both the “preservable” and tangible objects that one uses. I embarked on a three-day mission with an objective of studying the waste product that comes out of me.
Between the fourth and sixth of February, I carried a personal study of Garbology, scrutinizing my eating habits with the view of comparing two aspects of my behaviour—real and ideal. Ideally, my real behaviour is what I do in actual sense. My ideal behavior, conversely, is what I claim to do, or in another light, what I would like to think I do. In this regard, I examined my kitchen garbage for the above said three consecutive days. After three days, the weight of my trash was two pounds. After listing every item that I found in the trash, I only concentrated on the ones that were related to food, disregarding the rest. I categorized these food-related items into four well-known food groups and then came up with new a new category that encompassed desserts and others. My next move was to come up with a percentage estimate of each food group that formed my overall diet.
Surprisingly, I managed to make important conclusion that relates to my eating practices after concise examination of my waste. During the study of my waste, I was able to discover many objects like broken jars of juices, caps that mainly sealed milk products. Additionally, I found numerous beer cans and barely empty cartons of soft drinks. From this observation that the boxes were incomplete and only found plastic rings and not the milk and juice bottles themselves, I inferred that I make an effort towards recycling some of my trash. Another of my observations was that my garbage was short of remains from smaller meals—as most of what I located was the nature of meals that I take for dinner—further assisted to make the inference that some of my meals, mostly lunch, are taken away from home.
Frozen chicken fingers, hamburgers and pizzas among other meals that are easy to prepare, had a heavy presence in my garbage. In this light, I inferred that I did not always have ample time to prepare a meal for dinner. Probably, I used to both work and attend classes. Another observation was that I had consumed higher rate of carbohydrates and milk products compared to proteins and products like meat. After a thorough sorting of the trash, it was my feeling that the quantity of trash that I had found could not match the actual volume I could have produced in the span of three days. I inferred that more likely than not, I could as well have deposited some other nature and volume of my trash in other places of my house in the last three days.
How does it define me?
In the study, I scrutinized myself in terms of eating habits and compared this information with the one that I had gathered from my garbage. This worked well because I shop and prepare food for myself in my household. By so doing, I was trying to compare and contrast my ideal and real characters. My first step was to try to give an estimate by percentage the amount of protein, dairy etcetera that I take in my diet, assuming that I had not carried out the garbage research. In my intrinsic response, the amount of my intake in these varying food groups was a balanced consumption. This however, was in contrary to my findings from the garbage that showed that I actually took more carbohydrates than compared to proteins. Moreover, assumptions were that I took desserts and such like foods in lower amounts than I actually found out.
I examined whether indeed I had other places that I usually dumped my trash and whether I recycled any items. I figured out that I was in possession of three additional trashcans that considerably lowered the amount of trash present in the kitchen garbage. I realized that I am used to disposing some types of food wastes through other channels other than throwing them away. Regarding recycling, I noted that I do put back to use some glass and plastic containers. Granted, I had much higher garbage out put than the two pound weighed in the study. However, had I taken into account the other cans of trash in the house while conducting my study; I would probably have come up with a figure that was close to average. A closer look at my way of life confirmed the inference that I actually took most of my lunches away from home.
During this study, I was able to get to a position whereby I could have a look at my own behaviours without the idealization of personal feelings or my personal estimates. As such, I was able to carry out a non-reactive measurement—observations that are taken devoid of interference. Most importantly, the data that I gathered in this study was able to give a reflection of my ideal behaviours. My estimates were not a reflection of what I observed in the trash. I suppose that I incline to utter things that do not contradict my beliefs and that which elicit praise amongst other members of the society. Besides, I realized they define my socialization patterns where I say things that people love to hear. Despite the size, the study was able to illuminate my ideal and real behaviors.