Metropolitics

Closing the Loop or Looping Close By?

Marine Frantz & Gabriel Renault — 2023-02-07T06:00:00Z

Marine Frantz and Gabriel Renault explore the spatial dimension of the circular economy, particularly in regard to waste management issues. Based on research conducted in Lille, France, they outline steps municipalities could take to develop a more local recycling industry.
---- Series: Urban Wastes, Present and Future In the last decade, the notion of a circular economy has been imposed as a major public policy feature at various scales of governance, from European to local. Circular economy

- From the Field / waste management, waste, Lille, France, Hauts-de-France, Northern France

The Slow Violence of Planned Obsolescence

Elise Mason — 2022-09-20T05:00:00Z

Elise Mason critiques planned obsolescence as a form of slow violence. She argues for an ethic of care, rooted in Black feminist thinking and writing, to transform waste and our relationship to it.
---- Series: Urban Wastes, Present and Future “We are all entangled. And the fact that entanglement is a slow death doesn't make it any better; it in fact makes it more gruesome. And I mourn the parts of you that lost feeling today” (Gumbs 2020, pp. 103–104).
I have spent my adult life amid the

- Debates / waste, waste management, environment, consumerism, consumer goods, planned obsolescence, feminism, Black feminism, care ethics, ecology

Power in the Periphery: Waste Conflict and Resistance in Periurban Kerala

Ashish Prabhakar — 2022-09-06T05:00:00Z

Ashish Prabhakar analyzes one Indian village's fight against a city waste processing plant in 2011–2012, illustrating the perils of rapid urbanization, increasing consumption, the diminishing carrying capacities of cities, and growing mounds of garbage. The village's pushback not only highlights the tensions between various levels of governance structures, but also signals the need for a deeper examination of urban planning and urbanization.
---- Series: Urban Wastes, Present and Future In

- From the Field / waste, waste management, conflict, periurban, India, Global South, periphery

Disposability in the City: A Review of Waste Worlds

Lily Baum Pollans — 2022-07-05T05:00:00Z

Lily Pollans reviews Jacob Doherty's Waste Worlds: Inhabiting Kampala's Infrastructures of Disposability, which shows how the way in which societies define and manage waste can shed light on political, social, and economic power.
---- Series: Urban Wastes, Present and Future In 1966, anthropologist Mary Douglas argued that defining and managing dirt is an essential act of worldmaking. It is through the categorization of what is pure and what is contaminated that societies make meaning and

- Reviews / waste, waste management, Africa, Uganda, Kampala, Global South, infrastructure

Starve the Beast: Community-Owned and Community-Controlled Composting as an Alternative to Incineration in Baltimore

Nicole Fabricant — 2022-05-31T05:00:00Z

Nicole Fabricant documents organizing efforts in Baltimore, led by youth of color, against a trash-to-energy incinerator in one of the most environmentally unhealthy communities in the United States. In doing so, these youths created a movement for fair development. Fabricant shows the power of young people to create change in a city that, like most deindustrialized, impoverished, and majority-Black cities, caters to private developers and bankers, promoting a development model that does not

- From the Field / waste, waste management, Maryland, United States, Baltimore, community organizing, youth organizing

The Spectacle of Reuse: Recirculating Urban Salvage at Pittsburgh's Construction Junction

Susan M. Ross — 2022-04-29T05:05:00Z

Susan M. Ross examines a building-materials reuse center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, arguing that it is an important space for encouraging the reuse of materials, revealing material flows that are usually hidden, and promoting local social good.
---- Series: Urban Wastes, Present and Future Urban salvage yards play an important role in recirculating materials by encouraging building-materials recovery, repair, and reuse (Ghyoot et al. 2018). This article examines Construction Junction, a

- From the Field / waste, waste management, building materials, reuse, repair, salvage, deconstruction, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Urban Wastes, Present and Future

Lily Baum Pollans — 2022-04-29T05:00:00Z

Lily Pollans guest-edits this series for Metropolitics that focuses on the various ways in which waste is part of the urban environment—how waste produces urban space, the local management of waste, its environmental impacts, and the forms of social justice it gives rise to.
---- ▼ Jump to the list of articles in this series ▼ All cities are made, one way or another, from waste. Some cities, like the coastal cities of the northeastern United States, are literally constructed on land conjured

- Series / waste, waste management, space, production of the city, environment

Reconsidering Wasteways from Boston to Seattle

Lisa Jean Moore — 2022-02-01T06:00:00Z

Throughout the Covid‑19 pandemic, with disposable masks and endless testing, garbage proliferates. It is extremely difficult to resist our own participation in creating more single use trash. Fortunately, Lily Baum Pollans' book, Resisting Garbage: The Politics of Waste Management in American Cities, is an excellent analysis of our individual and collective consumptive habits that produce waste. Through her comparison of two different American cities, Pollans offers incisive commentary on the

- Reviews / waste, waste management, United States, Boston, Seattle, recycling

Who Cleans Paris? Garbage Collectors in Their Own Words

Coline Ferrant & Marie Mourad & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-06-21T05:00:00Z

Who are Paris's garbage collectors? Coline Ferrant and Marie Mourad highlight the diverse working conditions covered by this job title, which includes both municipal and private-sector employees.
“Paris City Hall has an image to convey on a global level. France too, of course, but on a global level,” says Ahmed, a garbage collector employed by a private contractor that provides waste-management services to the city of Paris (hereafter “the city”). From “zero-waste” objectives to its “Paris du

- From the Field / waste, waste management, urban public service, garbage collectors, Paris, civil service, public services

From non-planning to cutting-edge policy: the transformation of waste management in Boston since the 1980s

Lily Baum Pollans — 2019-06-11T05:00:00Z

Recycling and composting are hot topics. Lily Baum Pollans argues that Boston's changing approach to waste management represents a more radical shift than some might think.
In 2018, the city of Boston banned plastic bags and launched a zero-waste initiative. In doing so, Boston joined a growing list of cities using solid-waste management to advance sustainability and climate goals by closing material loops and reducing consumption. Despite recent setbacks in the global recycling market, these

- Essays / United States, Boston, environment, waste, waste management, recycling, sanitation, hygienism