Waste is increasingly a site of social conflict. The questions related to waste management are not merely technical; what, how, where, and by whom become intrinsically political questions. This book is about the power relations in recycling, from the viewpoint of political ecology and ecological economics. Informal waste recyclers are invisible for citizens and public policy. This book focuses on environmental conflicts involving them, with two emblematic case studies from India. Firstly, ship breaking, where the metabolism of a global infrastructure, namely shipping, shifts social and environmental costs to very localized communities in order to obtain large profits. Secondly, the conflict around municipal solid waste management in Delhi shows how environmental costs are shifted to urban residents, and recyclers are dispossessed of their livelihood source: recyclable waste. The first is an example of capital accumulation by contamination, while the second involves both dispossession and contamination. The struggles of informal recyclers constitute an attempt to re-politicize waste metabolism beyond techno-managerial solutions by fostering counter-hegemonic discourses and praxis. The book presents a range of experiences, mostly in India but with examples from all over the world, to inform theory on how environments are shaped, politicized, and contested.

The questions related to waste management are not merely technical; what, how, where, and by whom becomes intrinsically political questions. This book is about the power relations in recycling, from the viewpoint of political ecology, and ecological economics.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. This ground-breaking book makes visible the global counter-movement for environmental justice, combining ecological economics and political ecology. Using 500 in-depth empirical analyses from the Atlas of Environmental Justice, Martínez-Alier analyses the commonalities shared by environmental defenders and offenders respectively.

The Circular Economy: Case Studies about the Transition from the Linear Economy explores examples of the circular economy in action. Unlike other books that provide narrow perceptions of wide-ranging and highly interconnected paradigms, such as supply chains, recycling, businesses models and waste management, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the circular economy from various perspectives. Its unique insights into the approaches, methods and tools that enable people to make the transformation to a circular economy show how recent research, trends and attitudes have moved beyond the "call to arms" approach to a level of maturity that requires sound scientific thinking. - Compiles evidence through case studies that illustrate how individuals, organizations, communities and countries are transitioning to a circular economy - Provides a theoretical and empirical summary of the circular economy that emphasizes what others are actually doing and planning - Highlights achievements from industry, agriculture, forestry, energy, water and other sectors that show how circular principles are applicable, eco-friendly, profitable, and thus sustainable

This book offers an extensive review of e-waste management in India, the world’s third‐largest producer of waste from electrical and electronic equipment. With a focus on the evolution of legalframeworks in India and the world, it presents impacts and outcomes; challenges and opportunities; and management strategies and practices to deal with e-waste. First of its kind, the book examines relevant concepts and issues from across 15 disciplines and six areas of policy making and will serve as a comprehensive knowledge base on electronic waste in India. It links key themes to the global context of Sustainable Development Goals and explores the convergence with technological, infrastructural, and social initiatives in e-waste management. A range of topics are discussed, such as resource efficiency policies; circular economy; toxicity; technicalities and complexities of e-waste management including role of the informal sector and need for recognising social and human costs in policy making. The book deals with the role of statistics; legal trends and reforms; linkages with green Agenda 2030 and UN initiatives; implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR); environmental factors; business prospects; consequences on human health; Life Cycle Impact Assessment; the ‘six Rs’ (Responsible use, Repair, Refurbish, Recycle, Recover and Reuse); recycling practices and problems, material flow and informal sector in trade value chain; fostering partnership between formal-informal sectors; safe disposal; alternatives to landfilling; role of jurisprudence and regulatory bodies; and education and awareness. It also includes a survey of pan-India initiatives and trajectories of law-driven initiatives for effective e-waste management along with responses from industries and producers. Timely and essential, this volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of environment studies, digital waste management, waste management, development studies, public policy, political ecology, sustainable development, technology and manufacturing, design and instrumentation, environmental and international law, taxation, commerce, electronic industry, economics, business management, metallurgy, and engineering, labour studies, as well as to policymakers, nongovernmental organisations, and interested general readers.

Of Poverty and Plastic applies an interdisciplinary, 'field economics' approach to poverty analysis, using a mix of survey and ethnographic data to challenge received notions of the nature and extent of narrow income poverty and multiple deprivations experienced by those working in the informal waste recovery and plastic recycling economy of Delhi. A detailed analysis of specialization, capital, and value in various segments of this labour-intensive, 'green' informal market is undertaken, with explicit recognition of its wider social and political institutional context, and how it is shaped by unequal interactions with civil society and the state. In particular, the book focuses on the identity and agency of subordinate scheduled caste groups—living literally and metaphorically on the edge of the city—in negotiating 'a decent life' in today's neoliberal environment. The case studies of the ban on recycled polythene bags and the industrial relocation order illustrate the channels through which these actors collectively seek to resist the perceived anti-urban poor status quo, driven by powerful middle class coalitions through legislation or judicial fiat, with varying degrees of success. In doing so, the book exposes the complex, and at times contrary, policy reality binding poverty and deprivation, formal and informal markets, the state and citizenship in contemporary urban India.

This new volume offers effective solutions to the mismanagement of waste, particularly in developing countries, by providing an understanding of different types of wastes, their generation, and use of advanced technologies for waste management, and by focusing on integrating the technical and regulatory complexities of waste management. It provides a comprehensive overview of the characterization, issues, and regulatory development of waste management for sustainable solutions and prevention techniques. Covering the various types of pollution, including pollution from plastics, industrial activities, metals, livestock, healthcare, food loss and waste, etc., the book explores new techniques for thermal and radioactive waste management and includes such methods as vermicomposting and composting for organic waste management and profitable use. The volume also looks at the role of modern technologies and legislation measures to manage biosolid waste. Numerous data sets obtained from various surveys are included, and special categories of waste that may not fit precisely into either RCRA Subtitle D (solid wastes) or Subtitle C (hazardous wastes) are discussed as well.