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meaning - Difference between "garbage" and "trash"?


What's the difference between garbage and trash? Is the difference significant?



Answer



I think the saying "one person's trash is another person's treasure" helps answer this question. Trash more often has the meaning of something discarded, whereas garbage more often carries the meaning of true refuse, often food waste. Of course, food waste can be a treasure to a gardener working on a compost pile, but I'm speaking generally here. It's not a very significant distinction, and the terms are often used interchangeably, but there are instances when they are not synonymous.


This excerpt from a 1986 Orlando Sentinel article titled "Trash Vs. Garbage: Any Big Difference?" supports this general distinction in meaning:



There was a little note stuck to the can. It said, in essence, that my refuse hadn't been picked up because -- and I quote -- ''trash and garbage had been mixed.''


I hate making mistakes like that. I didn't close the cover on a book of matches before striking. It was weeks before I got over the guilt.


I called Georgia Waste Systems, where I have my trash/garbage account, to apologize. They were very nice and said a lot of people make the same mistake I did and they were not planning a lawsuit.


As long as I had somebody on the phone who could explain, I asked, ''What is the difference between trash and garbage?''


''Garbage,'' the woman said, ''are things that come from the bathroom or kitchen.''


''You mean like bread you leave out for months and green things start growing on it?'' I asked.


''Precisely,'' she said.


''Trash,'' she continued, ''is basically anything else. We do not pick up leaves, for instance, or old furniture or boxes of materials that were collected when somebody cleaned out their attic.''



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