No high-tech fix for our millennia-old garbage problem

Here’s a question no one asks: What did Adam and Eve do with the apple core? Did they compost it or simply toss it into the nearest river or valley? Waste has been with humanity since the very beginning. And while we might survive in a post-apocalyptic future without coffee, the Kardashians or wearables, garbage will be right there with us (and cockroaches, most probably). The way we view garbage has changed in the past 50 years, and more recently the disruptive power of new technology is altering how we handle waste. But there will never be an app that can stop us from generating garbage. OUR WASTE: YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER For both a synopsis of how trash evolved from refuse to resource and a lesson in newspeak, consider a passage from the UN Environment Programme’s 2015 “Global Waste Management Outlook” report: “Many developed countries have made great strides