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This thesis will underline the issue rooted in a mainstream ideological approach towards the existence of garbage and art in times of raised ecological awareness. Within the realm of a neoliberal stance towards ecological crises, garbage has turned into a critical substance that systematically recalls individual’s responsibilities to the pollution of the earth’s ecosystems. Having entered the domain of art, the ideological approach of ecology is being mirrored in the countless artworks in which garbage is recalling its own critical existence. Throughout this thesis I argue that 21st-century “Trash Art” provides its audience little or no space for critical investigation into the existence of garbage as a politically constructed entity. The morally loaded sculptures or installations made out of detritus provide, instead, visitors with feelings of guilt. In the search to come to a broader understanding of garbage through art, I exemplify how an artistic approach towards material detritus as a cultural and political construct has been flourishing in the 20th century art history. With the power to reflect on issues of inclusion, exclusion and otherness, artists have been systematically using cast-off materials as poetic tools for cultural critique and political dissent. As a way of bringing these reflections to live, I decided to analyze an exhibition that I organized in the frame of my studies related internship. The exhibition “Objects in Transit” which took place in Brussels during the weekend of the 24th and 25th of May, brought the cultural life of garbage to the foreground and builds further upon my thesis’ research.