Understanding Waste: A Multidisciplinary Introduction

Waste is omnipresent, with consequences that are increasingly visible. Despite considerable efforts by the waste-management sector to keep it 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.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Hervé Corvellec is a professor in business administration at the Department of Service Studies, Lund University, Sweden.

Mathieu Durand is a professor of geography and urban planning at the Space and Society Research Centre at Le Mans University, France.

Alison F. Stowell is a senior lecturer in organisation, work and technology at Lancaster University Management School, United Kingdom.