Why Is Rubbish Not Worthless

When one discusses rubbish the conclusion is often that it is worthless, and therefore disvalued. This essay will explain how rubbish is not worthless to different types of people and businesses . There must be certain factors for things to be considered ‘rubbish’ by society. These can include it being seen as broken, old, not needed or simply not wanted anymore. Though there may be some truth behind certain items being considered rubbish, such as broken, that item can still have value to another, so would not be considered as rubbish . Rubbish is commonly defined as something which has no worth ; it is what nobody wants, it is disvalued, so it is worthless and has zero value. This may be seen by many in society as the norm, value has a
105 ) . Items don’t simply have value by virtue of their physical properties, they have value because people value them . Technology has and continues to grow rapidly and existing products evolve or new products are created, with growth of mass consumption and rising affluence people can afford to upgrade their products and old necessities, such as a TV, would now become rubbish, because it isn’t the new model, which could be defined as a luxury item. From 1957 to 2006 food expenditure more than halved this was because the rest of the income was spent on ‘non necessities’ (ONS, cited in Brown, 2008, p.110) which is why this explains that rubbish isn’t worthless . In addition, there has also been “ economy wide shifts between labour intensive and labour saving technologies”
As Taylor et al state (Taylor et al., 2009, p. 119) recycling can “ give new value to rubbish and waste by producing outputs that have positive value; that is, positive prices .” The majority of people in today’s society recycle, glass bottles, plastic bottles, newspapers to name but a few, however many people would define these items as rubbish. Recycling creates a demand, many recycling businesses exist today, that make money out of other peoples rubbish, and items from tin cans to newspaper are being recycled back into society . This is not done just through recycling. Perhaps items at home have become of no value such as old or broken electrical goods, seen as worthless and of negative value as you have to give up your own time in order to dispose of them , for example, taking an old TV to the rubbish tip. This rubbish does have potential value to others, and could become profitable. “The old saying ‘where there’s muck, there’s brass’ still has some truth. These businesses turn rubbish into something of value either by resale, repair or by transforming the items into new materials that can be reused. “They do this by transforming it into saleable products or by moving it elsewhere for disposal” (Taylor et al., 2009, p.