The Pro Dumpster Diver Who's Making Thousands Off America's Biggest Retailers | WIRED

"While researching his book, Humes obtained what was one of the last interviews with William Rathje, the late University of Arizona garbage researcher. During that conversation, the archaeologist said that US overconsumption reminded him of the ancient civilizations he had studied, in which the moment that extravagance began to outstrip resources always seemed to signal the descent into contraction and decline. In Garbology, Humes urged a break with that historical pattern and an all-out commitment to cutting waste. But in his conversation with Rathje, the university researcher noted one big problem with this idea: 'No great civilization of the past has ever pulled this off,' Humes says Rathje told him. 'None.'”