Abstract

This paper analyzes terms like “garbage”, “garbage can” and “garbage processing”. The term garbage is special that it doesn’t refer to any specified thing, but may refer to anything. Something becomes garbage not because of its physical characters, but its relationship with human. Garbage is something discarded by its owner, which is not necessarily broken. Something discarded as garbage lost its original name too. To recycle is to rename. An object with a name/position should be treat as it is, and it’s human’s morality to respect thing’s dignity. Things lost name lost dignity meanwhile. Things inside a garbage can may never met when they had names, but be put together disorderly as they share the name garbage. Garbage can’s function is to hide. As discarded things, garbage is generally disposed outside. Garbage dump is a land lost dignity. “Garbage processing” misleads people that garbage could be processed, and even turned into resource. People don’t feel guilty for discarding, and human’s environmental ethic is degraded. Chemical synthesized materials primarily consisting of modern garbage are hardly degradable and definitely cause environmental and ecological problems. Garbage cannot be hidden anymore, and garbage problem manifests.