Understanding Waste

Waste is omnipresent, with consequences that are increasingly visible. Despite considerable efforts by the waste-management sector to keep waste out of sight and out of mind, current waste levels pose a challenge to the welfare of today and tomorrow, from the squandering of resources to lasting environmental harm.

Understanding Waste provides a multidisciplinary introduction to the diversity of waste, including its definitions, physical properties and governance. It describes the spatial rationales for waste from local to global levels, stressing the injustices that characterise how waste is collected and processed. It also explains why contemporary societies are so waste-intensive, demonstrating why so many have an interest in producing waste and suggesting that everyone is implicated in wastework. Furthermore, it suggests that waste is an underestimated source of knowledge and creativity. Readers are invited on an intriguing journey into the underworld of waste, which we all participate in constantly.

Accompanied by a series of practical exercises that encourage a reflexive engagement with waste, Understanding Waste: A Multidisciplinary Introduction offers a kickstart to the emerging fields of Waste Studies and Discard Studies.