Pre-modern Recycling Mentality? Waste and Waste Regimes in 18th-Century London

It is well known that recycling, defined as the reuse of waste materials, played an important role in the early modern period: ashes turned into bricks, faeces into fertiliser, and broken crockery and rubble found a new purpose as building material. Recycling was undoubtedly an important strategy for dealing with waste materials in the early modern period, but there were far more different and sometimes conflicting perspectives on waste. The way waste was treated and experienced was influenced by a much broader and complex spectrum of practices, institutions and values. But by emphasising the importance of recycling, we are sometimes obscuring the underlying complexity of waste. Using the case of household waste in 18th-century London, the article argues for the integration of recycling practices into a broader history of waste regimes in order to identify dominant cultural patterns in dealing with waste. Given the variety of aspects which it integrates, the concept of "waste regimes" provides a useful tool for gaining insights into the dynamics of urban coexistence in the early modern period. Thus, a focus on waste throws new light on urban cultural history.