The concept of trash itself is a product of modernization

Evidence

Leh has no municipal trash system in place, as the very notion of trash is a product of modernization. In traditional Ladakhi living everything is used and reused and nothing is ever trash, even human excrement. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1506

Categorization

• CANDY: A tweetable conversation point: whole cultures existed with no category for trash at all — everything reused.
• SEED: Possible classroom framing device: ‘name one thing that is not a modern invention by being a category of thought, e.g. trash’ to teach discourse construction.