Did We Recycle in Ancient and Medieval Times?

When we think of the beginning of recycling, most people tend to think of the 1970’s and the environmentalism movement. Maybe they think of the 1940’s and the recycling drives that took place during World War Two. We’ve actually been recycling for much longer than that. Reusing and recycling is ancient and now we can take modern day lessons from the recycling of the past.

During the Palaeolithic period, early humans made tools from stone and employed the idea of reuse. For instance, archeologists have found that when a large hand axe broke during this period, people would reuse the fragments to create smaller cutting tools. It makes sense that in a time where tools would take a long time to make and be so critical to survival reuse and recycling would be crucial.

Later in the Neolithic period, reuse became even more common. Large standing stones were sometimes moved and reused in new tombs, such as those at Locmariaquer in France. Broken pottery was ground into powder and mixed into fresh clay to strengthen new pots. On Minoan Crete, crushed pottery helped form mudbricks for houses. The focus at this time was not on saving the environment, but on saving energy and time.

The Bronze Age brought a major change to recycling that we still use. People learned to melt bronze and pour it into molds. If a bronze axe broke, it could be melted down and cast again into a new axe of the same shape. This is the earliest large-scale example we know of materials being melted down and fully transformed into new objects, called transformational recycling, which is more closely akin to the recycling we have today. When we melt aluminum cans or recycle copper wiring, we are using the same basic idea discovered thousands of years ago. Even now, our recycled plastic sometimes is poured into molds to create new containers.

As cities grew in ancient Greece, waste became a public concern. In Athens, laws required trash to be dumped far outside the city to help deter smells and pests. In Rome, a massive hill called Monte Testaccio formed from the disposal millions of broken clay jars. Today, Whitfield County’s landfill also fills steadily and creates new hills, making our recycling program which helps divert material away from disposal important.

Like today, Ancient Rome didn’t just pile up their waste, they looked for ways it could be reused or recycled. Roman cities were, after major events or changes, repaired and rebuilt. Instead of throwing away the remains of old structures, Romans carefully removed stone blocks, bricks, roof tiles, and marble columns so they could be used again. This practice, known as spolia, became common when money and supplies were tight.

Even rubble had value. Roman concrete was made from lime, volcanic ash, and crushed stone or brick. Pieces of demolished buildings were ground up and mixed into new concrete. Parts of older buildings became the foundations of new ones. Today, builders often crush old concrete to create aggregate for roads and sidewalks.

After the fall of Rome, recycling continued. In the Middle Ages, materials became harder to find. Artists reused Roman glass to create new works, such as those that were displayed in the exhibition Waste Not The Art of Medieval Recycling at the Walters Art Museum. They also used old statues to create new religious figures, melt gold objects for new ones, and scraping old manuscripts so the pages could be reused. This recycling had to be done by skilled workers and it created beautiful works of art.

The recycling in ancient times was often done in order to save energy, time, and raw materials. While it may be easier to make and get items today, it is still valuable to get all we can out of our materials. Our ancestors could not afford to forget the value of their items, and as we continue to fill up landfill space and use up finite resources, it becomes ever more important for us to remember the value of what we use and find ways to recycle and reuse.

     Amy Hartline is the recycling and education program coordinator for the Dalton-Whitfield Solid Waste Authority. Have a recycling question? Contact her at (706) 278-5001 or ahartline@dwswa.org.