 Rethinking waste within business history: A transnational perspective on waste recycling in World War IIChad Denton and Heike Weber Business History, 2022, vol. 64, issue 5, 855-881 Abstract: Waste and its reuse have constituted an important field of economic activity for most of human history, including modern times. While the collected articles of this special issue exemplify the significance that waste salvage had in mobilising resources in Europe, Asia, and North America in World War II, this introduction situates these cases in a long-term perspective. It explores the continuities and ruptures inside the structures, markets, and actors of the salvage business from late nineteenth century waste reclamation, including the sanitary era of municipal waste disposal, to the more recent era of ‘green’ recycling. It argues that we need to rethink waste’s role within business history by delineating four basic characteristics of the waste business: the moral economies that govern wasting and reusing; the informality of the trade and its operations; the trans-sectorality of the waste streams; and the reverse logistics of the waste salvage trade. Date: 2022 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:64:y:2022:i:5:p:855-881 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/00076791.2021.1919092 Access Statistics for this article Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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