"For Harwood, key to understanding the Essex marshes is the concept of “wasteland”, which is central to the county’s place in the world. He told me that when Europeans first went to the Americas and found land no one was farming, it was called wasteland. “This idea of waste is so kind of fixed in our culture, and it’s so embedded in colonialism as well. And so you can see the way that London has used Essex as a kind of colony … sending out vast tracts of shit.”"