Living with the Garbage? Recycling, Waste, and Everyday Life in Ancient Rome

What is trash? The current exhibition at the Museum Auxiliarkastell Carnuntum poses a seemingly simple question — and in doing so, takes visitors right into the heart of everyday life in ancient Rome. Back then, trash wasn’t simply what was left over. Whether an object was worthless or could be reused depended on its material, condition, and practical need.

A broken pot, a bent nail, a scrap of old fabric, or an animal bone were by no means necessarily useless. Many things had a second, third, or even fourth life. They were repaired, repurposed, melted down, crushed, or used in a new context. The exhibition thus vividly demonstrates that recycling is not a modern invention. Only the reasons behind it were different.

Today, we usually associate recycling with environmental awareness and sustainability. In ancient Rome, however, the focus was more on practical necessity. Raw materials were valuable, and extracting and processing them was labor-intensive. Metal had to be mined, smelted, and forged. Glass required specialized production. Pottery and bricks had to be shaped, fired, and transported. For this reason, materials were used for as long as possible. 

Metal, in particular, was too precious to be carelessly thrown away. Damaged tools, nails, metal fittings, or parts of military equipment could be collected and remelted. Glass was also easy to recycle: broken vessels became raw material for new products. For archaeology, this means that valuable materials are often missing from the ground not because they were rare, but because they were consistently reused.

Scenes from the special exhibition at the Carnuntum Auxiliary Fort Museum - © D. Ziliachovinos 

Ceramics were a special case. A broken pot could not be remelted. Nevertheless, it was not automatically worthless. Shards could be reused as lids, coasters, writing surfaces, or household tools. In larger quantities, ceramic and brick fragments found a new purpose, particularly in construction.

Crushed brick debris was mixed into mortar or screed. Such materials could make floors and wall coverings more durable. Foundations, backfill, road surfaces, and repairs could also be carried out using this broken material. What today would appear to be construction debris was often a usable building material in antiquity. This practice is particularly evident in Carnuntum. The Roman city was built, rebuilt, repaired, and altered over the course of centuries. In the process, older building components, brick remnants, ceramic fragments, and stone rubble could be reused directly on site. Recycling was therefore not only economical but also efficient: it shortened transport distances, reduced effort, and made use of existing resources.

Aerial view of the reconstructed district of the Roman city of Carnuntum - © T. Mauerhofer

With its legionary camp, auxiliary fort, encampment, civilian town, roads, burial grounds, sanctuaries, workshops, and residential areas, Carnuntum formed a densely populated settlement landscape. People, goods, animals, and raw materials moved through this area on a large scale. This activity left its mark. Households produced food scraps, ashes, broken vessels, and damaged everyday objects. Workshops left behind production waste. Construction sites generated debris. 

The military circulated standardized equipment, supplies, and large quantities of consumables. Whatever remained after use, repair, or recycling ended up in pits, ditches, fill layers, or along the streets. Carnuntum’s waste is therefore not a random remnant. It is an archive of everyday life. It reveals which materials were used, how the supply system functioned, and what activities took place in the city’s various areas.

Horse skeleton from the area around the auxiliary fort in Carnuntum - © ÖAI/Zimmermann 1990

This is particularly evident in the area of the auxiliary fort. There, a former defensive ditch was used as a waste disposal site after it had served its military purpose. The fill contained food scraps and slaughter waste, as well as larger parts of animal carcasses, including horses, mules, and donkeys. Some bones were still in their anatomical positions. Such finds demonstrate just how diverse ancient “trash” could be. It consisted not only of food scraps and broken vessels, but also of craft waste, construction debris, unusable objects, and dead animals. At the same time, these deposits provide insights into hygiene, organization, and waste disposal in a densely populated Roman settlement. 

Display case with animal remains from Carnuntum - © N. Kirchengast

In Carnuntum, animal remains are among the most common finds, along with pottery. At first glance, they seem unremarkable. Upon closer examination, however, they become an important source of information about diet, animal husbandry, crafts, and waste management practices. In Carnuntum, domesticated animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats are particularly well-documented. In addition, there are horses, dogs, cats, and, occasionally, wild animals. 

Cut, chiseled, and burn marks reveal how animals were slaughtered, butchered, boiled, roasted, or smoked. But animals provided more than just meat: bones, horns, antlers, hides, tendons, and fat could all be reused. Suitable bone fragments were used to make items such as needles, hairpins, game pieces, handles, or fittings. Here, too, it becomes clear that what appears to be waste was often part of a larger system of utilization. 

Südstraße in the reconstructed district of the Roman city of Carnuntum - © T. Mauerhofer

Despite all the reuse, one should not idealize antiquity. There was no garbage collection in the modern sense. Waste was usually disposed of wherever there was space: in courtyards, pits, abandoned wells, ditches, along roadsides, or outside the settlement. Latrines and sewers could also accommodate waste, but they were not comprehensive waste disposal systems. Trash was therefore a visible and sometimes unpleasant part of everyday life. 

Organic waste, ashes, broken pottery, construction debris, and feces could cause hygiene problems. Ancient regulations against dumping manure and refuse show that pollution of public spaces was certainly perceived as a problem. The Roman world was thus not an exemplary circular economy in today’s sense. It was a society in which many things were reused because materials were valuable — and in which waste disposal nevertheless remained difficult.

Exhibition Hall at the Carnuntum Auxiliary Fort Museum - © N. Kirchengast

That is precisely why the exhibition at the Auxiliary Fort Carnuntum Museum is so relevant today. It shows that how resources are managed always depends on the conditions of a society. The Romans lived without plastic, disposable packaging, or industrial mass production. Much of their waste consisted of ceramics, metal, glass, wood, bone, leather, or organic material. Much of it could be repaired, repurposed, recycled, or at least reused in some other form.

For archaeology, this waste is a primary source. Prestigious buildings, inscriptions, or works of art often reveal how people wanted to be perceived. Waste reveals what actually happened in everyday life. Pottery shards tell stories of cooking, eating, and trade. Animal bones provide insights into diet, slaughter, and animal husbandry. Construction debris points to repairs and renovations. Metal and glass fragments shed light on craftsmanship and recycling.

The exhibition's connection to today's approach to recycling - © N. Kirchengast

The exhibition thus illustrates that objects in Roman antiquity rarely served just a single purpose. A vessel could break and still be reused. A brick could come from an older building and end up in a new structure. An animal bone could be food waste, a raw material, or an archaeological source. The Roman waste from Carnuntum therefore tells us not only about discarding things. It tells us about use, repurposing, and reuse. This is precisely what makes the exhibition so compelling: it lets ancient Rome speak not through monuments, but through shards, bones, rubble, and remnants — and thus through the everyday life from which history is made.