Waste Away: Working and Living with a North American Landfill

282 Pages·2016·2.76 MB·English

by  Joshua O. Reno

Waste Away
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Waste Away
working and living with a
north american landfill
Joshua O. Reno
university of california press
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University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2016 by Th e Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reno, Joshua.
Waste away : working and living with a North American
landfi ll / Joshua O. Reno.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-28893-5 (cloth : alk. paper)—isbn 0-520-28893-9
(cloth : alk. paper)—isbn 978-0-520-28894-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)—
isbn 0-520-28894-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)—isbn 978-0-520-96377-1 (ebook)—
isbn 0-520-96377-6 (ebook)
1. Sanitary landfi lls—Michigan—Detroit. 2. Sanitary landfi lls—Social
aspects—Michigan. 3. Refuse and refuse disposal—Social aspects—North
America. I. Title.
td795.7.r46 2016
628.4′4564097—dc23 2015029538
Manufactured in the United States of America
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and
sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures
Natural, a fi ber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the
minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–1992 (r 1997) (Permanence
of Paper).
contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Interlude: A Note on Drawing and Ethnography 19
1 Leaky Bodies 22
•
2 Smells Like Money 58
•
3 Going Shopping 98
•
4 Wasteland Historicity 136
•
5 Ghostly and Fleshly Lines 168
•
Conclusions 211
Notes 229
Bibliography 247
Index 265
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illustrations
figures
1. Th e sludge hole 4
2. Laborer talking to management 33
3. Perimeter fence in need of picking 36
4. Th e relationship between home and market 113
5. Mac picking paper, with a serendipitous fi nd 119
6. Timer’s Malibu, with the landfi ll in the background 129
7. Local protesters 180
8. Todd at a retention pond 226
table
1. Timeline of legislation and local activism associated with
the waste trade 179
vii
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acknowledgments
Th ere are many people who helped make this book possible, including schol-
ars and friends on both sides of the Atlantic, and research informants on
both sides of a debate concerning where landfi lls belong and whose waste
they should accept.
First and foremost, I owe a debt of gratitude to the activists, residents, and
waste workers who welcomed me into their lives and shared their experiences
of the landfi ll with me. Without the cooperation of the managerial staff at
“Four Corners landfi ll,” I would not have been given the opportunity to
understand and observe life on the ground as a landfi ll laborer. And without
the assistance of my former coworkers, who looked aft er me, confi ded in me,
laughed at and with me, this opportunity would have amounted to nothing. I
am also very grateful to residents of “Harrison” and “Brandes” for helping me
understand local history and inviting me to join them in a political struggle. I
have done my best to faithfully represent what we said and did together.
Th is research was funded by the Center for the Ethnography of Everyday
Life (CEEL) at the University of Michigan, which was supported under the
auspices of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Th rough the leadership of Tom
Fricke, CEEL played an important role in many graduate careers, including
my own. It introduced me to other young anthropologists, including Britt
Halvorson, Sallie Han, Cecilia Tomori, and Jessica Smith Rolston, who were
willing to discuss early fragments of my fl edgling project and helped foster a
community of intellectual encouragement and friendship. Of CEEL partici-
pants, Pete Richardson is the one who fi rst introduced me to the possibility
of doing “shopfl oor ethnography” and inspired me with his redoubtable pas-
sion and wit. Many other people at the University of Michigan provided
critical feedback on my doctoral research and writing at important moments,
ix