Waste and want : a social history of trash / Susan Strasser.

"Before the twentieth century, streets and bodies stank, but trash was nearly nonexistent. With goods and money scarce, everything possible was reused."--BOOK JACKET. "In the last hundred years, that way of life has been replaced by mass consumption, disposable goods, and waste on a previously unimaginable scale. Strasser charts the triumph of "disposable" goods - paper cups, toilet paper, packaged food - those signature products of modern life. And she shows how Americans became hooked on convenience, fashion, and constant technological change - as the mountains of garbage rose higher and higher."--Jacket.

"Waste and Want recaptures a hidden part of our social history, vividly illustrating that what counts as trash depends on who's counting, and that what we throw away defines us as much as what we keep."--Jacket.

New York : Metropolitan Books, 1999.

355 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

1st ed.

Toward a History of Trashmaking 3 -- Chapter 1 The Stewardship of Objects 21 -- Chapter 2 Any Rags, Any Bones 69 -- Chapter 3 Trash and Reuse Transformed 111 -- Chapter 4 Having and Disposing in the New Consumer Culture 161 -- Chapter 5 Making Do and Buying New in Hard Times 203 -- Chapter 6 Use It Up! Wear It Out! Get in the Scrap! 229 -- Chapter 7 Good Riddance 265.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 295-338) and index.