"Waste" is a discursive object whose identity is determined by the intersection of discourses ordered by the cultural codes that emerge from hybridisation with capitalist logics. This identity currently qualifies it as a space hidden by the logics of capitalism, which make only certain phases of the object's existence visible. At the level of enunciative praxis, waste can be understood as a semiotic form. Thus, it’s the result of a process of potentialization from an earlier realized state. The potentialization regulates its hiddenness, which legitimizes the intense pollution that is difficult for the consumer to quantify. Consequently, waste is not something that falls out of the cycle of signification, but takes on a specific role in the object system of capitalism. The permanence of "waste" in the cultural system is evidenced by the fact that it continues to produce effects that fall back on the structure. What we call "recycling practices" therefore simply redefine the mode of existence of the object: they convert the potential into the real, because recycling also means actualizing the semiotic form - the waste - and making it available for further realisation. Some of these modes of actualisation respond to "invented" cultural codes that rethink the capitalist one. This is the case of the artist Antonio Berni: in his works, he recognises in “waste” an agency capable of influencing contemporary social organization of South-America. In this way, “waste” really becomes part of the shared cultural heritage.