Sociology of Waste Putting waste to use: sociological explanations behind specific beliefs in waste management

Looking at the trash located in a dormitory, one of the items that caught my interest was a sheaf of papers containing readings, exams, and notes from a (notably) university student. Since some of the readings were somehow familiar or of interest to me, I salvaged these papers from the trash, and tried to know what is the information contained within these papers. Notable among these papers is that most of them were only written or have prints or texts on one side of the paper, while the back part was left blank. The readings were also unmarked, which seemed to be not used nor read by the owner at all. Papers containing notes, meanwhile, were mostly photocopied, which gave the impression that they were not the owner's (notes), but notes that were simply photocopied from a classmate....

I considered this sheaf of papers as unused papers in the sense that it was not read nor even looked at by its owner.
These observations are given more meaning when applied in the context of sociology of waste. In the book "Waste and want: a social history of trash," author Susan Strasser explicated her interpretation of the changes in society's consumption and economy through an analysis of people's trash (i.e., garbage). One of the most popular views expressed in the book was her observation that "Kleenex, Kotex and Shredded Wheat boxes -- the literal throwaways -- represent the most extreme form of a relationship to objects that was new at the beginning of the 20th century. More and more things were made and sold with an understanding that they would soon be worthless or obsolete."

This passage speaks strongly for the "plight" of the sheaf of papers I found in the dorm's…