The perspectives that intersect in this book share a common thread: a shift in our understanding of waste. ---- While the beneficial practice of individual waste management is neither underestimated nor rejected, the focus is on our economic and civilizational model. This shift in perspective is built around quantifiable individual and industrial realities. ---- Aurélie Leroy, a research fellow at the Tricontinental Centre, begins by outlining a comprehensive overview of waste in her introduction. Before emerging from our kitchens or homes, waste appears upstream, in the stages of raw material extraction and goods production. Using the European Union as an example, in 2023, municipal wastethat is, waste from households, businesses, offices, and public institutionsrepresented 8.9% of the 2.2 billion tons of waste generated annually. The remainder, the vast majority, was generated by other polluting actors. In 2022, the construction, mining, and manufacturing sectors alone accounted for over 70% of the total. Globally, 97% of waste produced originates from industrial activities.
So why place the burden primarily on individuals, households, and local municipalities? This is a miscalculation, far from it. While not underestimating the individual efforts required, the statistics place the entire responsibility on consumers, when they are merely one link in the waste generation chain. This leads to an accusatory discourse and an anthropological approach to portraying human beings as inherently wasteful, when in reality it is a social modelthe throwaway societythat has resulted in an explosion of waste production. Aurélie Leroy therefore goes on to question the logic of recycling and its market value. The cost of waste management is not negligible: $206 billion in 2012 and $375 billion in 2025. "Rethinking the world of waste therefore requires moving beyond the false solutions of industrial greening and placing social and environmental justice at the heart of public policy. This transformation demands breaking with the logic of overproduction and rampant consumption."
A second area of focus is the various contributions from authors around the perspectives of the Global South, the major beneficiary of our marginalization, our exclusion from the mainstream, our world. Revisiting the tale of the Three Little Pigs, we are offered a reflection, complete with a moral, on three modes of recycling: productivist denial, reformist recycling, and degrowth.
The third area of focus on decentralization concerns toxic colonialism: the outsourcing of waste to the poorest countries. Curiously, while statistics on individual waste production abound, of the 11.2 billion tons of solid waste collected each year, no reliable data exists to assess the total amount that crosses borders. Transborder flows are increasing in parallel with global production and are expected to grow by 70% by 2050.
While the issue of waste certainly raises ecological questions, these remain intrinsically linked to the economic model. Market logic takes precedence over environmental damage. Energy recovery from waste, a booming sector worth over $42 billion and poised to double in the near future, obscures reality by failing to address the underlying economic logic. This value-driven management, a source of future profits, develops a logic that is not contradictory, but rather internal to, the capitalist model. More growth, more production, more wastethat's what's economically advantageous.
The rest of the book takes us around the world, exploring these worlds of remoteness, poverty, and the neglect of waste management. A book to ponder and, above all, not to be thrown away.
Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Aurelie-Leroy-Les-dechets-du-monde-envers-du-decor
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Source : A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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