Table Of ContentTHE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF
WASTE STUDIES
The Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies offers a comprehensive survey of the new field of waste
studies, critically interrogating the cultural, social, economic, and political systems within which
waste is created, managed, and circulated.
While scholars have not settled on a definitive categorization of what waste studies is, more
and more researchers claim that there is a distinct cluster of inquiries, concepts, theories, and
key themes that constitute this field. In this handbook the editors and contributors explore the
research questions, methods, and case studies preoccupying academics working in this field, in
an attempt to develop a set of criteria by which to define and understand waste studies as an
interdisciplinary field of study.
This handbook will be invaluable to those wishing to broaden their understanding of waste
studies and to students and practitioners of geography, sociology, anthropology, history,
environment, and sustainability studies.
Zsuzsa Gille is Professor of Sociology and Director of Global Studies at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of Paprika, Foie Gras, and Red Mud: The Politics
of Materiality in the European Union (2016) and From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History:
The Politics of Waste in Socialist and Postsocialist Hungary (2007—recipient of honorable mention
of the AAASS Davis Prize).
Josh Lepawsky is Professor of Geography at Memorial University, Canada. He is author of
Reassembling Rubbish: Worlding Electronic Waste and “Planet of fixers? Mapping the middle
grounds of independent and do-it-yourself information and communication technology
maintenance and repair”.
THE ROUTLEDGE
HANDBOOK OF WASTE
STUDIES
Edited by Zsuzsa Gille and Josh Lepawsky
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Zsuzsa Gille and Josh Lepawsky; individual
chapters, the contributors
The right of Zsuzsa Gille and Josh Lepawsky to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gille, Zsuzsa, editor. | Lepawsky, Josh, 1972- editor.
Title: The Routledge handbook of waste studies / edited by Zsuzsa Gille and Josh Lepawsky.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Routledge international handbooks | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021036980 (print) | LCCN 2021036981 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367894207 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781032188959 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003019077 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Refuse and refuse disposal‐‐Study and teaching. |
Recycling (Waste, etc.)‐‐Study and teaching.
Classification: LCC TD793.2 .R68 2022 (print) |
LCC TD793.2 (ebook) | DDC 363.72/8‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036980
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036981
ISBN: 978-0-367-89420-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-18895-9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-01907-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003019077
Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
CONTENTS
List of figures and tables viii
List of contributors x
PART I
Introducing the field of waste studies 1
1 Introduction: waste studies as a field 3
Zsuzsa Gille and Josh Lepawsky
2 At home with the waste scholar 20
Zsuzsa Gille, Josh Lepawsky, Catherine Alexander, and Nicky Gregson
PART II
Questions waste scholars ask 29
3 Matter out of place 31
Max Liboiron
4 Waste and whiteness 41
Joshua O. Reno and Britt Halvorson
5 Landfill life and the many lives of landfills 55
Patrick O’Hare
6 Reading the signs: some ways waste is framed in Tunisia 68
Jamie Furniss
v
Contents
7 Unmaking the made: the troubled temporalities of waste 88
Heike Weber
8 Commodification and respect: indigenous contributions to the so-
ciology of waste 103
Michelle Schmidt
PART III
Methods waste scholars use 119
9 Comparative methods for the study of waste 121
Raul Pacheco-Vega
10 Teaching critical waste studies in higher education 139
Kate Parizeau
11 Hunting for hidden treasures: a research methodology on China’s
informal recycling sector 154
Benjamin Steuer
12 Waste metrics from the ground up 169
Samantha MacBride
13 The potential role of gamification: an innovative intervention method
in waste studies 196
Tammara Soma, Belinda Li, and Virginia Maclaren
PART IV
Cases waste scholars investigate 209
14 The experience of nuclear waste 211
Romain J. Garcier
15 Uranium legacies and settler-colonial imaginaries: nuclear waste as
history, proximity, and colonial matter 224
Emily Potter
16 Brownfields as waste/race governance: U.S. contaminated property
redevelopment and racial capitalism 238
Shiloh Krupar
vi
Contents
17 Of ships of doom and icebergs: early perspectives on the global ha-
zardous waste trade 254
Kate O’Neill
18 Oil‐wasting: the necroaesthetics of energy expenditure 267
Amanda Boetzkes
19 Waste-picker organizations and urban sustainability 275
Jutta Gutberlet
20 Waste, labor, and livelihoods in South Africa 291
Mary Lawhon, Nate Millington, and Kathleen Stokes
21 Prepping for the [insert here] apocalypse and wasting the future 305
Myra J. Hird and Jacob Riha
Index 322
vii
FIGURES AND TABLES
Figures
5.1 Description: damaged waste containers lie beyond the fenced-in perimeter
of Montevideo’s Felipe Cardoso landfill. Image: Patrick O’Hare 60
5.2 Description: Waste-pickers recovering metals from a truck at Montevideo’s
Felipe Cardoso landfill as birds fly overhead. Image: Patrick O’Hare 61
6.1 Tunisian Transit Authority: Let’s collaborate together, so that we can work
in a space that is clean. Photo by the author 75
6.2 La Soukra (Tunis): The cleanliness of the city is a matter of awareness and
responsibility. Photograph by the author 77
6.3 Bab al-Khadra (Tunis): Those who put garbage (here) will not receive
(God’s) reward or blessing. Photograph by the author 80
6.4 La Marsa: “Our environment is our life. So let’s all cooperate together in
protecting it.” Photograph by the author 81
6.5 Enfidha, on the highway between Tunis and Sousse: Labib, the Mascot of
the Environment. Photograph by the author 83
6.6 Mutuelleville (Tunis): Do not throw waste and dirty things here. Thank
you. – the residents of the house. Photograph by the author 84
7.1 Debris which has recently been recovered from a site on Berlin’s periphery
where waste from Berlin households had once been used to meliorate the
grounds. Copyright: Oswin Nikolaus, 2021 92
7.2 Dismantling mainframes in Switzerland, 1968 by courtesy of SRF 95
7.3 Dismantling mainframes in Switzerland, 1968 by courtesy of SRF 96
7.4 The Ouroboros icon on the cover of an EPA study on recycling markets 97
7.5 Nineteenth-century visualization of the “life stair”, illustrating the stages of
human life from cradle to grave in ten-year stages. Source: Museum
Europäischer Kulturen der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin—Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, D (33 R 497) 488/1977 99
8.1 Author’s diagram depicting respect-based relationships with nature 109
11.1 Composition of household waste in urban China (adapted from Steuer,
Ramusch, and Salhofer 2017b ) 156
viii
Figures and tables
11.2 Waste collectors on tricycles in Jingmen (Hubei Province) (left) and
Changchun (Jilin Province) (right) (© the author) 162
11.3 A middleman’s truck in Changchun (Jilin Province) (© the author) 162
12.1 Boundary of operational jurisdiction 170
12.2 The flow of generation to a first disposition point 170
12.3 Generation 171
12.4 Calculating generation 172
12.5 Ranges of average national waste generation by region 172
12.6 Disposition 173
12.7 Disposal 173
12.8 Diversion 174
12.9 The diversion rate 175
12.10 Materials and data flows 176
12.11 Composition 177
12.12 Waste composition percentages. Totals may not add to 100 due to rounding 178
12.13 Recycling plant diagram 179
12.14 The capture rate 180
12.15 Calculating the capture rate 181
12.16 Contamination 181
13.1 Example of multiple-choice question 203
13.2 Participant engagement with online game 203
14.1 Storage room for high-level waste at Cap La Hague, France. February
2018. Credits: ©PHOTOPQR/OUEST FRANCE/Arnaud Le Gall 212
17.1 Keith Haring artwork © Keith Haring Foundation, depicted on the cover
of Vallette and Spalding (1990) 257
18.1 Monira Al Qadiri, behind the sun, single-channel video, 2013 268
19.1 Avemare, a waste-picker cooperative in Santana de Parnaiba. Photo by
Jutta Gutberlet 277
19.2 Some of the brands that use aseptic PET for the packaging of milk drinks.
Photo by Jutta Gutberlet 283
19.3 Bales of milk bottles at Cooper Viva Bem, in São Paulo that have no
customer because of the composite materials. Photo by Jutta Gutberlet 284
Tables
9.1 Five questions to consider for robust research design of comparative studies 124
9.2 A proposed framework to think about how to conduct a comparative study 128
9.3 Comparing two different research projects on waste and the decisions made
in the research design of comparative analyses 133
11.1 Survey questionnaire design (based on Steuer et al. 2017a and Steuer,
Ramusch, and Salhofer 2018b) 164
13.1 Characteristics of the Gamification Case Studies 200
ix
