Actor Networks, Modes of Production, and Waste Regimes: Reassembling the Macro-Social

Abstract

In the past ten to fifteen years, waste scholarship has expanded and deepened: we have seen an increasing number of rich case studies both on waste-related social movements (primarily in the US) and on specific waste materials (for the most part in the UK and Australia). Many of these also experimented with new conceptual frameworks, greatly deepening the theoretical foundations and the interpretive capacities of waste scholarship in the social sciences. Some of these novel approaches focused on microlevel practices, such as waste work (

Landfill Mining : Institutional challenges for the implementation of resource extraction from waste deposits

“…Gille, 2010). For example, researchers have in their quest to understand landfills strongly contributed to consolidating the image of landfills as something negative (Paper II).…”

“…The sociologist Zuzan Gille (2010) has brought a socio-material perspective to waste studies, and demonstrated how social, technical, and material processes have changed the perception of waste in Hungary over time, and enlisted policies, cultures, economics, and technologies into various "waste regimes": the metallic regime, the efficiency regime and the chemical regime. Gille is mainly interested in different social institutions, following Young's (1982) understanding of resource regimes, such as the structure of rights, rules, and policies to regulate and govern the production and distribution of waste: "Waste regimes consist of social institutions and conventions that not only determine what wastes are considered valuable but also regulates their production and distribution" (Gille, 2013: 29).…”

“…The focus of this thesis is policies with relevance for landfill mining operators. To explain why the policies for landfill mining look the way they do, Gille's (2010) approach is used where the formulation of the policies is connected to the perception of the material to be governed. However, Gille's starting point is different, as she has a broader approach analyzing Hungarian waste policy and institutions after World War II from a historical perspective where she finds a dynamic interrelatedness between the perception of waste and policies, which she categories according to different regimes.…”

“…As a result of the large amount of resources needed and difficulties in transporting resources in wartime, the waste policies in postwar Hungary were at first based on a view of all waste as metal resources, i.e., indefinitely recyclable. The Hungarian state thus invested in infrastructure for recycling and placed a ban on landfilling, "pushing enterprises to find useful purposes for their waste" (Gille, 2010;1057).…”

“…To understand the differences in the regulatory frameworks, Gille's (2010) approach was used where the formulation of policies is related to the perception of the material. The reason for the many regulatory obstacles of landfill mining can be found in a specific perception of disposed material in Paper II, while the other regulatory frameworks derive from a different view of the material (Paper III).…”