Waste and the circular economy

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Chapter 5 in Industry 4.0 and the Future of Work, 2024, pp 138-165 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In Chapter 5 we explore how waste is conceptualized as a thing and how it and its production must be situated politically, economically, and spatially. We illustrate this argument by investigating the production of waste under twentieth-century capitalism in the USA. We note how, during this time period, manufacturers created a specific ‘waste regime’ through encouraging the disposability of their products. This has contributed to waste now being viewed semiotically as a ‘problem’. We also examine how the export of much of the waste from the Global North to China represented an important spatial fix to capitalism’s waste problems, as well as consider the geographical effects on global waste management and the i4.0 era of the Chinese government’s decision to stop importing such waste from 2018 onwards. Key to understanding ‘waste’ and working on waste, we aver, is that it is endemic, not incidental to capitalism.

Keywords: Business and Management; Development Studies; Economics and Finance; Geography; Innovations and Technology; Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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