Representing what is discharged, waste is logically considered peripheral, if not marginal, in contemporary urban life. As « dirt is matter out of place », thus human beings create places dedicated to contain and exclude that « dirtiness », which they want to be rid of. In private spaces, be it domestic or professional, we maintain the cleanliness of the property: organizing belongings, removing dust and disposing of waste. This ultimate physical exclusion allows one to place waste out of reach and out of sight: it is first confined to bags or assigned to containers, before to be «taken out» from our homes and placed into bigger containers, which are in turn removed from the citizens' daily view by being discharged into garbage dumps, and then buried or incinerated. The whole system of dismissing «dirty» material from places where it does not belong involves a territorialized network, whose existence maintains itself in the citizens' consciousness on a subliminal level, so that the production and transportation of waste does not contaminate the city. Indeed, the sociocultural construction of waste requires that it is kept at the same time out of sight and out of mind. I would like to ponder on the marginalization of waste in the city and its paradoxical character, by exploring the idea that this product of society is a fundamental component of public space, and therefore of contemporary urbanity.