Abstract
<p>Garbage has completely different semantics in a museum showcase than in a forest or a landfill site. Likewise, the proximity of figures to garbage has an essential social and aesthetic impact on them. Therefore, this study focuses on the spatial and figurative effects that are always associated with garbage. Based on works of contemporary literature, it shows how the relationships, proximity or distance of the elements to garbage, as well as their dynamics, essentially constitute both the content-related orientation and the textual constitution of so-called poetic garbage scenes. In doing so, the study reveals four characteristic garbage scenes, in which the poetics of plastic waste, the bottom of society, throwaway acts and compulsive hoarding are unfolded.</p>