Objects dropped in a Norfolk marsh can disappear completely within weeks or even days as they are broken down by bacteria into nothing. And then there are the objects that can last for thousands of years in the marsh in good condition. What is it about the marshes that keeps some objects and disposes of others?
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The amount of oxygen in the water affects how waste material decomposes. In a well-oxygenated environment, the bacteria that break down organic material to create waste will continue to feed off the material until all of it has been broken down. In an anaerobic environment, where the water is not well-oxygenated, such as in a peaty, waterlogged ground, there are no bacteria that require oxygen to feed, meaning that the organic material is not broken down by the waste process. In such conditions, materials such as leather, wood, textile, bone and others will remain in the same state for thousands of years; iron and other metals will slowly oxidise in the wet conditions. Research into sites along the Fenland edge by English Heritage shows that the same conditions are present in the wetland sites throughout the rest of Norfolk.
What is particularly interesting about the way that humans have dealt with waste over the centuries and more recently is that many communities have used the ‘archiving’ qualities of the wetland to dispose of waste, often in a ritualistic manner and at times deliberately. This can make it difficult to distinguish between rubbish and ritual remains and it is not always easy to tell what the ancient disposers of the waste had intended for the items that were disposed of in this way. Waste Disposal Norfolk is covered in more detail at https://www.mgaze.co.uk/.
The problem with Waste Disposal Norfolk today is that it is tracked and regulated. In order for someone to dispose of waste nowadays it has to leave their hands and go to where it has been sent, so to speak.