A lot of people nowadays are talking about how plastic takes thousands of years to decompose and our landfills will therefore still be full of plastic thousands of years from now. It is, however, important to note that massive landfills filled with waste that takes thousands of years to decompose is not an exclusively modern problem. People in the ancient world commonly used ceramics for storing, transporting, cooking, and eating.
Like plastic, ceramic takes many thousands of years to decompose. As a result, pieces of ceramic dating back thousands of years are present at pretty much any ancient site. In fact, one of the most common methods used to archaeologists to determine the date of a particular site is analysis of the style of the pottery found at that site. Ancient people used and threw away so much pottery that there is at least one mountain made entirely of ancient pottery.
Introducing Monte Testaccio
The Roman Empire was at its height between the first century BCE and the third century CE. At this time, the city of Rome was possibly the largest city on the entire planet, with a population of somewhere around 1,250,000 people. Thousands upon thousands of large ceramic storage jars known as amphorae were brought to Rome on cargo ships from all over the Mediterranean.
Once these amphorae were emptied, the Romans generally liked to reuse them, but the amphorae that were used to store and transport olive oil could not be reused because the oil seeped into the pores and couldn’t be washed out. Consequently, many amphorae that were originally used to transport olive oil went into a landfill located near the east bank of the Tiber River.
Naturally, the landfill grew larger over time as more and more amphorae accumulated. By the late second century CE, the Romans are believed to have been depositing no less than 130,000 amphorae into the landfill every year. Eventually, the Romans deposited so many amphorae into this landfill that it grew into a literal mountain made entirely of bits of pottery. This mountain of literal ancient trash still stands in the city of Rome today. It is known as Monte Testaccio and it remains a physical testament to the sheer extent of ancient Roman consumption.
Monte Testaccio covers a land area of roughly 220,000 square feet (20,000 square meters) and stands at a height of 115 feet (35 meters). It has a volume of approximately 20,482,506 cubic feet (580,000 cubic meters). The mountain is so huge that it takes approximately twenty minutes to walk all the way around it. It is believed to contain the remains of at least 53,000,000 ancient Roman amphorae, all of which were originally used for storing olive oil.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of the peak of Monte Testaccio from a distance
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing terraces on the side of Monte Testaccio
ABOVE: Close-up of the side of one of the terraces, showing the individual potsherds that make it up Monte Testaccio
ABOVE: Photograph from Archaeology Magazine of a path on top of Monte Testaccio, showing that the ground is entirely made of potsherds
ABOVE: Photograph from Reddit of a cross-section of Monte Testaccio
The eternity of trash
The Roman Empire ceased to exist as a discrete political entity many centuries ago. At least 99% of all literary texts produced in the Roman Empire have not survived to the present day for various reasons. Nearly all the works of Roman art that were most greatly admired in antiquity have been lost or destroyed. The vast majority of ancient Roman public buildings have either been completely destroyed or deteriorated into ruins.
But we still have a literal mountain of ancient Roman trash.
Now, as it happens, Monte Testaccio is useful to archaeologists because it provides a literal mountain of information about the ancient Roman olive oil trade. Many of the broken amphorae that make up the mountain bear tituli picti (i.e., commercial inscriptions describing what the vessel originally contained, where it came from, and where it was headed). Since we don’t have detailed records of the Roman olive oil trade, these amphorae and the inscriptions they bear are quite helpful.
All the same, the disappointing reality is that trash is perhaps the most durable legacy of any civilization because every civilization leaves behind more trash than perhaps anything else. Most people don’t think about how, when they throw away a disposable plastic fork, a plastic bag, or a plastic bottle, they are really putting it in the ground or in the ocean to be preserved for thousands of years to come.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a modern landfill in Perth, Australia
The difference between Monte Testaccio and modern landfills
The crucial difference between ancient Roman waste and modern waste is that modern waste production is much, much more prolific. According to this article in The Guardian, New York City alone produces approximately 33,000,000 tons of trash each year. We don’t know exactly how much trash the city of Rome produced when the Roman Empire was at its height, but it was certainly not even a tiny fraction of that amount.
Most of the waste modern people produce will still exist in two thousand years. Our trash will almost certainly survive far longer than any of our political structures and will most likely survive longer than most of our great works of literature, art, and architecture.
Unfortunately, much of the present discourse around trash focuses on individual consumer responsibility, with consumers being exhorted to avoid buying things with plastic packaging if possible, recycle plastic if possible, and reuse plastic if possible. This approach is extremely wrong-headed in my opinion.
ABOVE: Photograph from this article in The Guardian showing the streets of Naples, Italy, literally overflowing with trash
Nearly everything that consumers need to buy in order to live comes in plastic packaging of some kind. Even if you just want food from the grocery store, it almost invariably comes in disposable plastic packaging. It is therefore impossible for ordinary people to avoid purchasing things in plastic packaging.
Moreover, the vast majority of this plastic packaging can’t actually be recycled or reused. Most recycling plants can only recycle plastic types one and two and, even then, they can only do it if those plastics have never been in contact with food. Even if a consumer tries to put non-recyclable plastic into the recycling, the recycling company has to sort it out and put it in a landfill. Putting non-recyclable materials in the recycling can also contaminate plastics that would otherwise be recyclable, thereby preventing them from actually being recycled.
It’s also much cheaper for companies to make products out of new plastic made fresh from petroleum than it is for them to make products out of recycled plastic, so a lot of plastic that could in theory be recycled doesn’t actually get recycled because there simply isn’t enough demand for recycled plastic.
Even the plastic that does get recycled can’t be recycled indefinitely. Once it has been recycled once, it usually can’t be recycled again, meaning it almost inevitably ends up eventually going into a landfill somewhere.
ABOVE: Photograph from this article in Discover Magazine depicting plastic water bottles at a recycling facility
The real problem here is not with consumers, but rather with the companies that produce so much non-recyclable, non-reusable, non-biodegradable plastic in the first place. Companies put things in new, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable plastic packaging because it is cheaper and more convenient to use this kind of material than to use other materials that can actually be recycled or that can actually break down in landfills. As long as they can get away with using these kinds of packaging, companies will obviously continue to do so.
I know that a lot of people in the United States instinctively hate the very concept of government regulation with a burning passion, but, if we want to solve the current problem of so much plastic waste, the most realistic solution is for the government to step in and regulate corporate production of plastic more heavily.
One measure the government could take is to enforce targeted bans against certain types of unnecessary, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable, single-use plastic products, such as polystyrene foam cups, plastic straws, and plastic shopping bags. This would force companies to use more environmentally friendly alternatives, such as paper cups, paper straws, and paper bags, which are biodegradable.
Another measure would be to enforce extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws that would make plastic manufacturers financially responsible for the costs of the disposal or recycling of their own plastics. This would force companies to either reduce the amount of plastics they produce or find economically viable ways to recycle their own plastics.
Neither of these measures would completely eliminate non-biodegradable plastic, but they could potentially reduce the amount that we are producing and throwing away, thereby perhaps making our modern Monte Testaccios a bit smaller.
ABOVE: Photograph of a mass of plastic waste
I hadn’t known about that ceramic mountain. At least it has a use for archaeologists and doesn’t look like a landfill, unlike ours. I completely agree with your assessment regarding how to reduce plastic waste. Companies started this problem and they should be made responsible for finding more ways to reduce their use of plastic.
Thank you John Oliver 🙂 I also recommend watching Plastic China to see the personal cost of recycling plastic. Consumers have been sold the dual lies that 1) plastic is recyclable and 2) it is our responsibility as consumers to make sure it gets recycled. This garbage is unavoidable and that will not change until we hold the producers responsible for it to incentivize the production of less of it. Decades ago we were taught that if in doubt just put it into the recycling. This has created an absurd culture of wish-cycling where we are detached from the reality that the bulk of what we put in the blue can still winds up in the trash. We’ve gone from little blue cans and big trash cans to big blue cans and tiny trash cans, but the destiny of our trash remains the same.
Thank you. I think also we consumers need to come to grips with paying appropriately for things… we’re partly responsible for this mess because of our madness to buy the cheapest, cheapest, cheapest crap. We gotta stop expecting everything to be cheap, and stop buying poorly made junk that ends up in the trash by the end of the season *koff*ChristmasTreeShoppes*koff*. Better regulations, absolutely. Enforcement with teeth and accountability, for sure. Consumer awareness and participation, that too.
Interesting! Thanks.
In California for literally thousands of years, Native American tribes rotated between “hunting grounds.” Several of these were right near San Francisco Bay and the shellfish shells from millions of creatures got pilled up in the same place over time, until there were literal hills made of such shells. These shellfish remains mounds, were a testament to the Native American’s ability to strip an area of all that is edible, then move on and return only after the area had recovered from their depredations.
So, trash mountains aren’t as rare as many would think.
Great article! Some people seem to think that modern humans are creating environmental pollution because we’re more careless, materialistic, or thoughtless than our supposedly noble ancestors. For years, I’ve been teaching my college classes that no, we’re not different than our ancestors. We are polluting more than they did simply because there are more of us, and because we have more advanced technology. But if the ancient Romans had the capacity to fill the oceans with plastic garbage, they certainly would have. They weren’t better or worse than us; we’re all just human.
I think this is important because if you identify the wrong cause of environmental pollution, you will almost inevitably identify a solution that doesn’t work. So for example, some people think the cause of modern pollution is that modern people aren’t connected enough with nature, or they think the cause is patriarchy, or Christianity, or capitalism. (I was forced by my university to use textbooks which taught all of these dumb ideas!) If you think these are the causes of pollution, then you’ll look to get people out in nature more, or you’ll fight against patriarchy, Christianity, or capitalism. While there may be legitimate reasons to fight against one ideology or another, stopping pollution isn’t one of those good reason. The ancient Romans polluted a heckuva lot, up to the limits of their population size and technology, and they did it without Christianity, capitalism, or being disconnected from nature.
I agree with you that all cultures throughout history have polluted their environments, at least to some degree. I do, however, think that capitalism and industrialization are two of the main reasons why modern capitalist industrialized societies produce so much more pollution than previous societies. Capitalism tends to maximize both production and consumption. When you produce things that either can’t be consumed or are left behind after consumption, this inevitably leads to greater quantities of waste.
Totally agree. We’re the same kinds of humans as our ancestors, but we have a different economic system which allows us to pollute more.
Interesting article, as usual. Roman amphorae at least break down into something mineral like sand that might occur in nature and be reabsorbed more easily into the ecosystem at last. Plastic is going to take the same human effort to atone for that it took to create it, finally. There is a mushroom that can help digest some plastic, so the future of research might lie in that direction. The amount and suffering of wildlife plastics kill every year, particularly in the oceans, is just criminal. I completely agree with you about the need for corporations to make the change and the need for the law to create a single policy to combat this serious threat to living beings rather than the existing local patchwork driven by the various degrees of consumer activism across the country.
Where I live only #s 2, 4 and 5 are recyclable with labels and other plastic and contents completely removed and washed clean. #1 is not recyclable here without going to great lengths. And then there are the glass and metal returnable bottles. Those are recyclable, we thought; we just have to pay a 10 cent deposit and we will, so problem solved. Recently it was reported in an independent publication called Willamette Week that the place that recycles the bottles for the whole State of Oregon is in danger of being shut down after being required to pay fines for the amount they are polluting over and above what is allowed — they say they can’t afford it — the irony of that! Even when government and business are involved in trying to find a solution to this sort of problem, there are still hurdles to be overcome before finish line.
Although this pile of pottery was probably the largest there would have been other piles elsewhere in the ancient world. For example Herodotus records that the Persians when they had taken Egypt made law that when a jar of wine was imported into the Egypt, once it was empty it had to be taken to Memphis, filled with water and then taken to a waterless place in Syria so that the Persians always had a supply of water on their way to Egypt. What happened to the jars after that I don’t know but I imagine they piled up. At any rate a pile of shards has been found that could be the remains of these pots.
In Athens there was some limited recycling of pottery shards or ostraka. When the Athenians wanted to get rid of an unpopular politician or one who seemed to be getting too powerful, they had a process where they could write the name of a person on a shard and providing enough people voted that person would be exiled or ostracised.
Piles of rubbish were not the only forms of pollutIon in the ancient world. You probably didn’t want to live downwind of a fish paste factory or a leather processor.
Other forms of environmental degradation were deforestation. This is from Plato’s dialogue Critias.
“and it (Attica or the area round Athens) had much forestland in its mountains, of which there are visible signs even to this day; for there are some mountains which now have nothing but food for bees, but they had trees no very long time ago, and the rafters from those felled there to roof the largest buildings are still sound. And besides, there were many lofty trees of cultivated species; and it produced boundless pasturage for flocks. Moreover, it was enriched by the yearly rains from Zeus, [111d] which were not lost to it, as now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea; but the soil; it had was deep, and therein it received the water, storing it up in the retentive loamy soil and by drawing off into the hollows from the heights the water that was there absorbed, it provided all the various districts with abundant supplies of springwaters and streams, whereof the shrines which still remain even now, at the spots where the fountains formerly existed, are signs which testify that our present description of the land is true.”
And the ancient inhabitants of the Greek city of Sybaris in Italy were concerned with noise pollution. At least they banned roosters from the city so that they wouldn’t be woken up too early in the morning.
My view would be that of Liz above. It’s our abundance and the technology that makes the difference.The ancient world did not consciously preserve their environment and it many respects degraded it but not to a great extent. Nor do remote South American tribes have a moral superiority over us because they seem to live in harmony with nature. Given the resources I am sure they would devastate their environment as much as anyone. Where we are reprehensible is that we are aware of the problem and that there are some clear actions that we can and should take but seem to unwilling to take.
It’s not exaggeration. It is widely agreed among scholars who study the Roman Empire that, when the empire was at its height, the city of Rome had well over a million people.
It is true, though, that Chang’an did probably reach a population of over a million people before the city of Rome did, since Chang’an was the capital of China during the Western Han Dynasty, which lasted from 202 BCE until 9 CE. At the time when the Western Han Dynasty was founded, the Roman Republic only controlled Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and eastern Iberia. Consequently, at the time, the city of Rome was nowhere near as large as it would eventually become. The city of Rome probably first reached a population of over a million people in the first century BCE, by which point the Western Han Dynasty had ruled for over a century.
In 9 CE, while Augustus was still ruling in Rome, Wang Mang seized power in China and declared the formation of the short-lived Xin Dynasty. After Wang Mang was overthrown in 23 CE, the Eastern Han Dynasty was established, which had its capital at Luoyang. Thus, by the time the Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent in 117 CE, Chang’an was no longer the capital of the Han Empire.
A most interesting article. People who read this might also enjoy Michael Gilleland’s blogs:https://laudatortemporisacti.blogspot.com/2018/02/ian-jackson.html