PrefaceJohannes MüllerTreatment of Waste – Past and Present: An IntroductionKonrad OttChapter 1: Hidden Dirt, Hidden KnowledgeThe Cognitive Value of DirtLorenz Kienle, Khurram Saleem, Ulrich SchürmannEnvironmental aDNA – The Whole World in a Handful of DirtJens SchneeweißA Closer Look at Dirty LayersSvetlana Khamnueva-Wendt and Jens SchneeweißChapter 2: Facing StereotypesOut of Sight Is Out of Mind: Bronze Age Waste Management – Back to the Year 1800 BCEJutta Kneisel, Janusz Czebreszuk, Wiebke Kirleis, Johannes MüllerFrom Weeds to Construction Material: Rye in GermanyBenjamin ClaaßenTurning Soil, Changing Perspectives – How Modern Sustainability Concepts and Past Ways of Life Meet in the GardenDana Zentgraf and Jens SchneeweißChapter 3: Use. Reuse. Refuse“Water, Water Everywhere,… nor Any Drop to Drink” – Water Waste, Reuse, and Quality in Ancient and Medieval TimesNicolas Lamare, Max Grund, Guillermo TorresUse and Reuse of Lead in the Middle Ages – A Biography of LeadPaweł Cembrzyński and Marie JäckerTimber Recycling – or: How to Get People to Recycle?Jutta Kneisel and Lisa ShindoShit Happens – Dealing with Faeces in the Middle AgesMax Grund, Bente Majchczack, Jens SchneeweißChapter 4: Learning from the Past? Today’s Challenges for the FutureIs this Trash Yet? On Rejecting and DepositingElena Diehl and Sonja WindmüllerOnce Around the World – Plastics, the Sea as a Transport Route and the Archaeology of the FutureKatrin Knickmeier, Katrin Schöps, Ilka ParchmannContributorsFor further readingImprintGrowing mountains of waste, decreasing resources and global environmental pollution confront us today with challenges of unprecedented dimensions. Against this background, interest in sustainable and resource-saving concepts is increasing; it is not uncommon to fall back on (supposedly) traditional approaches from times past. But what do we really know about the roots of the circular economy? What turns everyday objects into worthless rubbish, what turns others into highly sought-after objects? What actually is waste?Researchers from various disciplines in the humanities and natural sciences have joined forces to get to the bottom of these and similar questions in short stories. In them, they provide en passant or explicit insights into the broad spectrum of methods available to research today. The selected stories are loosely based on the authors’ research projects, whereby emphasis was placed on bringing together different disciplinary perspectives. Moreover, it is noteworthy that all academic levels – from Master’s degree students to professors – are represented. The result of these sometimes very different perspectives on seemingly everyday things leads to entertaining, sometimes surprising and often instructive insights that are quite intentionally thought-provoking about our world today.