It all starts around 12,000 years ago...Back then, humans lived in tribes and had a nomadic lifestyle, moving around frequently in search of food and shelter.The tribes then grew into settlements, which grew into villages and civilizations, exploding in numbers, many of which can be traced back to the modern cities we know of today.200 years later, in Ancient Rome, the world's first bin men appeared, as two men were employed to traverse the cobbled streets with a wagon, picking up litter.Discoveries of Ancient Roman bronze artefacts point to native Northumbrians recycling the metal into things like weapons and coins to sell to the Roman soldiers.With a great number of people, comes a great amount of waste, and whilst there were no plastic bottles, aluminium cans, glass jars and cardboard boxes, there was a lot of food waste and construction waste.Whilst it's not 100% certain that they invented this technique, some archaeologists claim this is one of, if not the earliest known act of metal recycling.Due to the varying terrains and sources of food, it took a long time for homosapien man to find a good enough reason to stay in one place.They had a checklist, like water, low threat of death, warmth, vegetation and local mammal life, among other things.Proper ways to treat waste were not officially recognised until the Greek Empire in 400BC, when the world's first rubbish tip was opened (municipal dump for those in the US).Paper recycling was reportedly invented in 1690 in America, by the Rittenhouse family of Philadelphia.Incineration was invented by the British, in Nottingham, 1874.