Recycling and the Politics of Urban Waste

Recycling and the Politics of Urban Waste PDF Author: Matthew Gandy
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134162707
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
The affluence of western society has given rise to unprecedented quantities of waste, presenting one of the most intractable environmental problems for contemporary society. This book examines recycling and municipal waste management in three major cities: London, New York and Hamburg. A range of political and economic issues are examined to illustrate how any reduction in the size of the waste stream in order to achieve more equitable and environmentally sustainable patterns of resource use is incompatible with the current emphasis in the use of the market for environmental protection. The case studies show how, contrary to the hopes of many environmentalists and policy makers, municipal waste management is moving steadily towards the profitable option of incineration with energy recovery, rather than the recycling of materials or waste reduction at source. The evidence suggests that the achievement of a more sustainable pattern of recycling and waste management policy would demand a fundamental change in public policy, to give government a more active role in environmental protection.

Resisting Garbage

Resisting Garbage PDF Author: Lily Baum Pollans
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477323708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Resisting Garbage presents a new approach to understanding practices of waste removal and recycling in American cities, one that is grounded in the close observation of case studies while being broadly applicable to many American cities today. Most current waste practices in the United States, Lily Baum Pollans argues, prioritize sanitation and efficiency while allowing limited post-consumer recycling as a way to quell consumers’ environmental anxiety. After setting out the contours of this “weak recycling waste regime,” Pollans zooms in on the very different waste management stories of Seattle and Boston over the last forty years. While Boston’s local politics resulted in a waste-export program with minimal recycling, Seattle created new frameworks for thinking about consumption, disposal, and the roles that local governments and ordinary people can play as partners in a project of resource stewardship. By exploring how these two approaches have played out at the national level, Resisting Garbage provides new avenues for evaluating municipal action and fostering practices that will create environmentally meaningful change.

Recycling and Waste

Recycling and Waste PDF Author: Matthew Gandy
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing
ISBN:
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description


Discard Studies

Discard Studies PDF Author: Max Liboiron
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262369516
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
An argument that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. Discard studies is an emerging field that looks at waste and wasting broadly construed. Rather than focusing on waste and trash as the primary objects of study, discard studies looks at wider systems of waste and wasting to explore how some materials, practices, regions, and people are valued or devalued, becoming dominant or disposable. In this book, Max Liboiron and Josh Lepawsky argue that social, political, and economic systems maintain power by discarding certain people, places, and things. They show how the theories and methods of discard studies can be applied in a variety of cases, many of which do not involve waste, trash, or pollution. Liboiron and Lepawsky consider the partiality of knowledge and offer a theory of scale, exploring the myth that most waste is municipal solid waste produced by consumers; discuss peripheries, centers, and power, using content moderation as an example of how dominant systems find ways to discard; and use theories of difference to show that universalism, stereotypes, and inclusion all have politics of discard and even purification—as exemplified in “inclusive” efforts to broaden the Black Lives Matter movement. Finally, they develop a theory of change by considering “wasting well,” outlining techniques, methods, and propositions for a justice-oriented discard studies that keeps power in view.

Managing the Monster

Managing the Monster PDF Author: International Development Research Centre (Canada)
Publisher: IDRC
ISBN: 9780889368804
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Effective governance is typified by transparency, accountability, credibility, and stability of the governing body, as well as by the cooperative partnership of public sector, private sector, and civil society. In Africa today, good governance is central to the achievement of sustainable and equitable development. But Africa is rapidly urbanizing. Urban authorities must deal with the uncontrolled and unplanned movement of rural dwellers into the large urban centers, and the environmental "monster" it is creating: rampant urban waste, much of it toxic. Managing the Monster critically examines urban governance in Africa, with particular reference to the serious problems and challenges posed by waste management. It describes, compares, and appraises the situations in Abidjan, Dar es Salaam, Ibadan, and Johannesburg, characterizing typical forms of governance and their successes and failures in dealing with the critical problem of mounting urban waste. It will interest researchers, academics, and students in African studies and urban planning; donor organizations worldwide working on urban issues; policy makers, municipal engineers, city managers, and urban planners, especially in Africa; and environmental and civic NGOs.

The Politics of Garbage

The Politics of Garbage PDF Author: Larry S. Luton
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822974878
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Increased enviromental awareness, more demands on local governments, a newly invigorated citizen activism, and a decaying and overburdened infrastructure have made taking care of our garbage one of the major policy making challenges facing local communities. Luton uses the case study of Spokane WA to analyze the public administration and socio-political context of solid waste policy making. Luton’s thorough exploration of Spokane’s experience as opens a window onto contemporary issues of solid waste management as well as the complex social and political environment in which public administrators must operate. His integration of systems theory in the analysis adds to the book’s value as a teaching tool for courses on policy making, urban planning, public administration, and the environment. He examines the complex combination of ecological, political, social and relational dynamics that affect such policies, providing insight into inter-governmental public policy making.

Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development

Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development PDF Author: Adam S. Weinberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400823897
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
More Americans recycle than vote. And most do so to improve their communities and the environment. But do recycling programs advance social, economic, and environmental goals? To answer this, three sociologists with expertise in urban and environmental planning have conducted the first major study of urban recycling. They compare four types of programs in the Chicago metropolitan area: a community-based drop-off center, a municipal curbside program, a recycling industrial park, and a linkage program. Their conclusion, admirably elaborated, is that recycling can realize sustainable community development, but that current programs achieve few benefits for the communities in which they are located. The authors discover that the history of recycling mirrors many other urban reforms. What began in the 1960s as a sustainable community enterprise has become a commodity-based, profit-driven industry. Large private firms, using public dollars, have chased out smaller nonprofit and family-owned efforts. Perhaps most troubling is that this process was not born of economic necessity. Rather, as the authors show, socially oriented programs are actually more viable than profit-focused systems. This finding raises unsettling questions about the prospects for any sort of sustainable local development in the globalizing economy. Based on a decade of research, this is the first book to fully explore the range of impacts that recycling generates in our communities. It presents recycling as a tantalizing case study of the promises and pitfalls of community development. It also serves as a rich account of how the state and private interests linked to the global economy alter the terrain of local neighborhoods.

Endlessly Green

Endlessly Green PDF Author: Savita Hiremath
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 8195131735
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Endlessly Green looks at the history, the science and the art of composting and sustainable waste management through a kaleidoscope of philosophical, moral and ethical intricacies. The author digs into her rich pool of experiential learnings and raw inputs gathered through a decade of research, legwork and fearless execution. This engaging field guide equips community volunteers, activists, students, SWM practitioners and professionals with practical inputs on segregation, composting and organic gardening/farming, making sustainability imaginable in a concrete jungle. In doing so, it helps individuals discover the possibilities of bringing about a change in their environment by engaging their own environmental sensibilities. Endlessly Green is an extraordinary celebration of things small and significant and the fight against waste, culminating in a replicable and scalable end-to-end solution.

Recycling Reconsidered

Recycling Reconsidered PDF Author: Samantha Macbride
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262297663
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
How the success and popularity of recycling has diverted attention from the steep environmental costs of manufacturing the goods we consume and discard. Recycling is widely celebrated as an environmental success story. The accomplishments of the recycling movement can be seen in municipal practice, a thriving private recycling industry, and widespread public support and participation. In the United States, more people recycle than vote. But, as Samantha MacBride points out in this book, the goals of recycling—saving the earth (and trees), conserving resources, and greening the economy—are still far from being realized. The vast majority of solid wastes are still burned or buried. MacBride argues that, since the emergence of the recycling movement in 1970, manufacturers of products that end up in waste have successfully prevented the implementation of more onerous, yet far more effective, forms of sustainable waste policy. Recycling as we know it today generates the illusion of progress while allowing industry to maintain the status quo and place responsibility on consumers and local government. MacBride offers a series of case studies in recycling that pose provocative questions about whether the current ways we deal with waste are really the best ways to bring about real sustainability and environmental justice. She does not aim to debunk or discourage recycling but to help us think beyond recycling as it is today.

Organising waste in the city

Organising waste in the city PDF Author: Zapata, María José
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447306384
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
This book offers a critical perspective on the issue of organising waste in cities, which has often been positioned in terms of relatively narrow engineering, economic and physical science approaches. It emphasises the ways in which the notion of waste, and the narratives and discourses associated with it, have been socially constructed with corresponding implications for waste governance and local waste handling practices. Organising waste in the city takes a broad and international approach to the ways in which the issue of waste is framed, and brings together narratives from cities as diverse as Amsterdam, Bristol, Cairo, Gothenburg, Helsingborg and Managua. Organised into four main sections and with an integrative introduction and conclusion, the book not only provides new insights into the hidden stories of urban and municipal household solid waste and waste landscapes, but also connects concerns regarding urban waste to such issues as globalisation, governance, urban ecology, and social, economic and environmental justice.