Cycling and Recycling: Histories of Sustainable Practices

Technology has long been an essential consideration in public discussions of the environment, with the focus overwhelmingly on creating new tools and techniques. In more recent years, however, activists, researchers, and policymakers have increasingly turned to mobilizing older technologies in their pursuit of sustainability. In fascinating case studies ranging from the Early Modern secondhand trade to utopian visions of human-powered vehicles, the contributions gathered here explore the historical fortunes of two such technologies―bicycling and waste recycling―tracing their development over time and providing valuable context for the policy successes and failures of today.

Ruth Oldenziel is Professor of American and European History at the Eindhoven University of Technology and visiting scholar at the LMU Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. Her books include Consumers, Users, Rebels: The People Who Shaped Europe with Mikael Hård; Cold War Kitchen with Karin Zachmann; Gender and Technology with Nina Lerman and Arwen Mohun; and Making Technology Masculine.

Helmuth Trischler is Head of Research of the Deutsches Museum in Munich, Professor of Modern History and the History of Technology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, and Co-Director (with Christof Mauch) of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. His most recent book is Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers with Martin Kohlrausch.