Worldbuilding
A fictional city’s waste system tells you more about its politics than its palace ever will. Who gets proper drains, who gets a midden at the back, who is expected to live beside the stink, and what gets quietly pushed out of sight all say a great deal.
The interesting bit is what the society refuses to name. Refuse, sewage, ash, bodies, cursed objects, all the awkward evidence of a world that wants to look clean. If a setting has a tidy, invisible waste system, I start wondering who is paying for that invisibility.
The interesting bit is what the society refuses to name. Refuse, sewage, ash, bodies, cursed objects, all the awkward evidence of a world that wants to look clean. If a setting has a tidy, invisible waste system, I start wondering who is paying for that invisibility.
Waste systems are one of those bits of worldbuilding that can get too neat on the page. Real cities are full of compromises, shortcuts and things nobody wants to budget for. If a fictional place has perfect drains and efficient disposal, I start looking for the missing labour, because someone still has to haul the mess away.