Fifty years ago, environmentally conscious Westerners were worried about the pollution that often accompanies the trappings of civilisation.

Rubbish is a consequence of existence that is common to all lifeforms, whether it be piles of bird shit accumulating beneath swallow nests, the sprawling dumps on the outskirts of cities, or the creation of atmospheric oxygen that accompanied the rise of photosynthetic life that plunged the Earth into a near-fatal ice age.