Although it does not deal directly with your situation, I highly recommend
the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office's "Down in the Dumps"
historic context statement as a guideline for dealing with historical
trash disposal sites. It is accessible at:

http://azstateparks.com/SHPO/downloads/SHPO_Down_in_Dumps.pdf


Allen Dart, RPA, Executive Director
Old Pueblo Archaeology Center
PO Box 40577
Tucson AZ  85717-0577   USA
    520-798-1201 office, 520-798-1966 fax
    Email: [log in to unmask]
    URL: www.oldpueblo.org
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On Fri, August 12, 2011 8:36 am, Todd Hanson wrote:
Greetings,

I'd like the group's thoughts on a small dilemma I'm having. I'm
investigating a series of Cold War era (early 1960s) missile
ballistic missile sites in New Mexico. To date, our site
investigations have found no ground evidence of trash dumps and the
site plans make no references to such. Likewise, the site histories
also make no reference to trash collection services. So, where did
the trash go? Obviously, if we could locate any site local dumps it
could be a gold mine of data. Now given the specific site, I realize
that no one may had the have exact answer, but I do have a couple
general questions that the group may be able to shed some light upon.

First, is anyone aware of any semi-seminal works on the history of
solid waste management in the United States? I've found Lanier
Hickman's American Alchemy: The History of Solid Waste Management in
the United States, but it focuses mostly on urban efforts and the
rise of recycling, and Rathje and  Murphy's Rubbish! The Archaeology
of Garbage to be insightful, but not completely. The site I'm working
is really rural and annexed to a small New Mexico town.

Now I'm actually old enough to actually remember a time when trash
collection in rural areas did not exist and I'm sure it varied from
town to town with the enactment of federal waste management laws in
the mid-1960s, but I've not yet found anything that really documents
this paradigm shift from home or local dumps to municipal waste
processing as it relates to archaeology. Maybe such a single
historical work (or works) simply doesn't exist? But maybe others
have pondered this dilemma before?

The second question is aimed at those of you who may have some 20th
Century military experience or at least more experience than I with
the archaeology of US military sites. How is trash generally handled
in the military? Did bases normally (in my case Walker Air Force
base) have their own trash collection services? Perhaps they
incinerated what they could and sent the rest to a dump? The trash
had to go somewhere.

Obviously, much more archive and library work on this topic is in my
future, but any thoughts you folks might have on this will be most
welcome.

Thanks,

Todd Hanson
--
Todd A. Hanson, Ph.D.
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
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