Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste

238 Pages·2018·5.334 MB·English

by  Josh Lepawsky

Reassembling Rubbish

Reassembling Rubbish
Worlding Electronic Waste
Josh Lepawsky
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2018 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information
storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in ITC Stone Serif Std by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited.
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lepawsky, Josh, 1972- author.
Title: Reassembling rubbish : worlding electronic waste / Josh Lepawsky.
Description: Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017039339| ISBN 9780262037884 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780262535335 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Electronic waste.
Classification: LCC TD799.85 .L47 2018 | DDC 628.4/4--dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039339
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For those to whom I am kith and kin, especially Mom, Dad, Noah, Erin,
and Arlo

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Figures xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Waste/Nonwaste 19
3 The Discard Test 49
4 Charting Flows of Electronic Waste 69
5 Looking Again in a Different Way 93
6 Weighty Geographies 129
7 Conclusion 159
References 179
Index 209