Circling the economy: resource‐making and marketization in EU electronic waste policy

Abstract

This article investigates the reinvention of electrical and electronic waste as a resource in the context of the EU market economy. It argues that the European regulatory framework is underpinned by a particular vision of 'circular economy' that both internalises e-waste within formal economic circuits and confines its exchange to the territory of the single market. Yet the boundaries of this economic regime continue to be highly permeable, as the terminus of two thirds of the products placed on the market remains unaccounted for, said to dissipate via various loopholes in waste collection and treatment. Based on analysis of the policy rationale and praxis, the article relates this failure to the fact that e-waste is identified in ambiguous terms as comprising both socio-ecological risk and economic value, or what is termed here the 'logic of hazard' and the 'logic of resource' . The making of resources from potentially hazardous materials hinges on the extent to which incremental quantities of end-of-life equipment can be translated into a uniform tradable good, the movements of which are documented, calculated and monitored through standard methods. The two logics are complementary insofar as they legitimise the spatial enclosure of e-waste trade, but they can also come into conflict, since the double identity of e-waste complicates the reframing of market boundaries and generates different objects of regulation. The case study advances geographical research on materials and 'marketization' , enabling the materiality of e-waste to be conceptualised as both a product of and obstacle to the territorial b/ordering of the market.

A crack in the facade? Situating Singapore in global flows of electronic waste

“…These findings lead Kama () to conclude, like Berndt () and Christophers (), that territorialization is a fundamental aspect of making markets, i.e., to marketization. Thus, drawing on key geographic thinkers of territory (e.g., Painter, ; Elden, ), Kama (: 6) understands the ‘economic territory’ of the EU to be both a particular socio‐technical arrangement and a political technology related to the EU's desire to build a circular e‐waste economy, rather than a pre‐extant bounded unit.…”

“…In situating the territorialization of Singapore under the Basel Convention, we do not claim that the Convention specifically, or environmental regulation more generally, makes territory in toto. Instead, following work by Elden (; ; ), Painter () and others (e.g., Berndt & Boeckler, ; Gregson et al ., ; Christophers, ; Kama, ), we claim that Singapore's status as a non‐Annex VII party to the Convention is a territorializing effect of regulatory action at work in the Convention and its attendant policy documents. At the same time we argue that the existing outflow of electronic discards from Singapore highlights its role as a fissure in the Convention's regulatory edifice of territory—a crack in the facade.…”

“…It has long been recognized that waste making, value making and space making are mutually constitutive processes (e.g., Douglas, ; Thompson, ; Lynch, ; Gille, ; Gidwani, ; Goldstein, ). Geographers interested in the territorialization of waste and other externalities (e.g., Gregson et al ., ; ; ; Kama, ) have recently drawn on the geographies of marketization literature (e.g., Berndt & Boeckler, ; Christophers, ) to explicate the building of spatially confined markets for the trade and management of waste and its retransformation into value. The notion of spatially confined markets for waste trading and management are relevant to the case of Singapore and the Basel Convention.…”

“…At the same time we argue that the existing outflow of electronic discards from Singapore highlights its role as a fissure in the Convention's regulatory edifice of territory—a crack in the facade. From this observation, we point to some broader questions about territory that might usefully direct future analyses in the emerging literature on the territorialization of markets for waste (e.g., Gregson et al ., ; ; ; Kama, ).…”

Peering through loopholes, tracing conversions: remapping the transborder trade in electronic waste

“…As referenced above, the emergent treaty architecture of the Convention separates the planet into Annex VII and non‐Annex VII nations, the latter designated as vulnerable developing countries, despite numerous contradictions to this framing (see Lepawsky's contribution). For its part, the European Union's ambitious policy toward WEEE is ‘underpinned by a particular vision of a “circular economy” that both internalises e‐waste within formal economic circuits and confines its exchange to the territory of the single market’ (Kama this issue). Yet the boundaries of the EU remain highly permeable, bringing into question both the effectiveness of the policy, at least at this stage, and the interpretive logic of the imaginary itself.…”