About the editors

Figures

1.1 Opening the bales of clothing

1.2 Mountains of clothing are sorted into ‘colour families’

1.3 A woman cuts up a tailored coat

2.1 Ship becoming steel

2.2 Chock-chocky furnishings

3.1 Flows of uranium to conversion facilities needed for nuclear electricity production in France, 2008

3.2 The ‘closed nuclear cycle’

3.3 Waste and materials generated in the material fuel chain

4.1 Industrial clusters related to recycling e-waste in the Yangtze river delta

4.2 The changing mode of competition in the global electronics industry

4.3 The role of different players in WEEE recycling flows

4.4 Different approaches in the EPR system

5.1 An educational mural

6.1 Negative equivalences of linguistic value

7.1 Catadores scramble to collect plastics

7.2 Bales of plastic bottles

9.1 A process of reinstitutionalizing the biomedical discard

9.2 An advisory medical professional in IHM’s ‘sorting room’

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Histories and representations of recycling

Economies of recycling

Notes

References

Section One: Global waste flows

1 | Shoddy rags and relief blankets: perceptions of textile recycling in north India

Introduction

The political economy of second-hand clothing

Panipat industry

1.1 Opening the bales of clothing

1.2 Mountains of clothing are sorted into ‘colour families’ prior to being cut up

1.3 A woman cuts up a tailored coat

Moral frameworks

Acknowledgements

Notes

References

2 | Death, the Phoenix and Pandora: transforming things and values in Bangladesh

The ship as Pandora’s box: death and destruction on the beach

2.1 Ship becoming steel

Phoenix from the cutting torch flames: sites of transformation and revalorization

2.2 Chock-chocky furnishings

Domestic reincorporation and appropriation: shipshape and Bengali fashion

Conclusions – the dangers of revalorization

Notes

References

3 | One cycle to bind them all? Geographies of nuclearity in the uranium fuel cycle

Defining the contours of the cycle, negotiating nuclearity

3.1 Flows of uranium to conversion facilities needed for nuclear electricity production in France, 2008

3.2 The ‘closed nuclear cycle’

3.3 Waste and materialsgenerated in the materialfuel chain

When spatial strategies fail (1): interrupted flows

When spatial strategies fail (2): requalified materials

Conclusion

Notes

References

4 | The shadow of the global network: e-waste flows to China

Introduction

Transnational flows of e-waste

Outline of the investigation

Localization of imported e-waste recycling in coastal China

4.1 Industrial clusters related to recycling e-waste in the Yangtze river delta

4.2 The changing mode of competition in the global electronics industry

Changing patterns of competition and innovation in the electronics industry

4.3 The role of different players in WEEE recycling flows

4.4 Different approaches in the EPR system

Concluding observations

Notes

References

Section Two: The ethics of waste labour

5 | Devaluing the dirty work: gendered trash work in participatory Dakar

Introduction

Description of the ENDA community-based trash project in Tonghor, Yoff

5.1 An educational mural aimed at neighbourhood women on the wall of the eco-sanitation station in Tonghor, Yoff

Producing community and empowerment in the space of trash

Conclusions: a flurry of wings and the return of the trash truck

Notes

References

6 | Stitching curtains, grinding plastic: social and material transformation in Buenos Aires

19/20 December

The right to work

The BAUEN

Cartoneando: from discarded workers to workers of waste

6.1 Negative equivalences of linguistic value

Conclusion

Notes

References

7 | Trash ties: urban politics, economic crisis and Rio de Janeiro’s garbage dump

Theories of marginality and metaphors of waste

7.1 Catadores scramble to collect plastics as a tractor-trailer unloads a mound of waste

Part 1: The perils of social inclusion

Part 2: At the centre of city politics

Part 3: Catadores and the global economic crisis

7.2 Bales of plastic bottles

Conclusion: waste and the making of social relations

Notes

References

8 | Sympathy and its boundaries: necropolitics, labour and waste on the Hooghly river

Necropolitics on the Hooghly river

Senses of workmanship: labour, vitality and waste

Neoliberalism, public deficit and private enterprise on the Hooghly

A state ethics of preservation: Ma Ganga, pedigrees of skill and the marine department of the Kolkata Port

A private ethics of fluidity: Hanuman, trusted futures and India Private Ltd

Conclusion: necropolitics, the metabolism of cities, labour and waste

References

Section Three: Traces of former lives

9 | ‘No junk for Jesus’: redemptive economies and value conversions in Lutheran medical aid

Introduction

Circulating things not people: NGOs as Lutheran global actors

Concealing the institutional life of hospital discards

Converting medical supplies into useful things

9.1 A process of reinstitutionalizing the biomedical discard

9.2 An advisory medical professional in IHM’s ‘sorting room’ in 2005/06

Sinfulness and ‘junk’ medical supplies

Conclusion

Notes

References

10 | Evident excess: material deposits and narcotics surveillance in the USA

Introduction

Revelation and representation

Sewer epidemiology

Conclusion

Notes

References

Legal cases cited

11 | Remont: work in progress

Introduction

Soviet remont in practice: from bedside lights to policy

Post-Soviet remont

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Notes

References

Afterword: the apocalypse of objects – degradation, redemption and transcendence in the world of consumer goods

Cosmologies have consequences

On the significance of the prefix ‘eco-’

Back to recycling

Notes

References

About the contributors

Index