Empire of Scrounge: Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving, Trash Picking, and Street Scavenging (Alternative Criminology)

In fact, an entire branch of research called “garbology” has emerged within archaeology, focusing specifically on trash heaps and, through them, the more recent history of humanity.

This “ecosystem of distribution, repair, and disposal” is, Burrell argues, a “fact of life in everyday places marked by scarcity.”