Humans express waste just like animals, leaving their mark, their scent. This waste matter is the product of alimentary flows and processes — ingestion, digestion, excretion, metamorphosis of matter into nourishment and sustenance — from mouth to anus. Cosmopolis as the metabolism of body politic.

The basic principle is not that waste is useless leftover. Instead of treating faeces, excrement as filth, to be avoided, hidden, we might realize that it is simply part of alimentary flow — cycles of procurement, nourishment, sustenance. And there’s always excess.

Scavenging and reuse of things was a feature of all human societies until the twentieth century when it was seen more fit to simply discard and hide away what was now considered to have no use. In the first agricultural villages we can see how complementary were the alimentary flows. From the field was brought food, processed in the home, grain ground, mixed with water and fermented by yeast, cooked, served and consumed, excess matter excreted and returned to the earth of the field and garden as manure. Cows and sheep, often kept in the home, consume grass, masticate, process in stomach, produce milk and meat, and they too manure and fertilize the fields. Grapes are harvested from the vine, crushed and fermented with yeast to produce wine that delivers experiences that take us beyond the everyday.