Mountains of waste and wasted mountains: clothes, sheep and people in modernising Iceland

Abstract

This paper takes as its starting point two landscapes of waste and connects them through an account of the intensification of production and consumption of textiles in modernising Iceland. Archaeological waste assemblages and historical resources are used to illustrate the consumption and disposal of clothing throughout the 19th century, which is juxtaposed with archaeological and historical studies into sheep rearing, grazing pressures and wool production. The paper argues that the economic notion of waste and the capitalist system from which it originates create landscapes of waste. It stipulates that many solutions which have been forwarded to the waste crisis are still conceived of within this socio-economic system. Historicizing waste creation demonstrates the urgency for alternative answers and the need to resist the movement of materials through the cycle of resource extraction, production, consumption and recycling, and further away from sites of use.