Organising waste in the city: International perspectives on narratives and practices
Maria Jose Zapata and Michael Hall
Abstract
This book offers a critical perspective on the issue of organising waste in cities, which is often 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. The book 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, ... More
This book offers a critical perspective on the issue of organising waste in cities, which is often 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. The book 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. 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 over urban waste to such issues as globalisation, governance, urban ecology, and social, economic and environmental justice. The chapters have been organised in four sections that set out the aims of this book: spaces, places and sites of waste in the city; global waste discourses and narratives shaping local practices; waste governance and management practices; and how civil society is responding and sometimes contesting waste policies, and what issues of environmental, economic and social injustice emerge from this struggle.
Keywords:
Waste governance,
cities,
narratives,
practices,
environmental injustice
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9781447306375 |
| Published to Policy Press Scholarship Online: January 2014 |
DOI:10.1332/policypress/9781447306375.001.0001 |
