Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies

Gregson, N.; Crang, M.A.

Authors



Abstract

We outline the frameworks that shape and hold apart waste debates in and about Global North and South and that hinder analysis of flows between them. Typically waste is addressed as municipal waste, resulting in a focus on domestic consumption and urban governance, and a resulting emphasis on cities and the national scale. The prevailing ways of addressing the increasingly global flows of wastes between North and South are those of global environmental justice and are underpinned by the geographical imagination encoded in the Basel Convention. New research on the trades in used goods and recycling in developing countries challenges these accounts. It shows that arguments about dumping on the South need revision. ‘Wastes’ are secondary resources for developing countries, ‘harvesting’ them is a significant economic activity, and consequent resource recovery is a key part of the global economy. Four areas of further research are identified: (1) changing patterns of global ‘harvesting’; (2) attempts to re-scale resource recovery and the challenges faced; (3) the geopolitics of resource recovery; (4) changes in resource recovery in developing countries.

Citation

Gregson, N., & Crang, M. (2015). From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 40(1), 151-176. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102014-021105

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 21, 2015
Publication Date Nov 4, 2015
Deposit Date Oct 14, 2015
Publicly Available Date Oct 21, 2015
Journal Annual Review of Environment and Resources
Print ISSN 1543-5938
Electronic ISSN 1545-2050
Publisher Annual Reviews
Peer Reviewed Not Peer Reviewed
Volume 40
Issue 1
Pages 151-176
DOI https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-102014-021105
Keywords Municipal waste, Sustainable consumption, Waste pickers, Global environmental justice, Resource recovery, Global South.
Publisher URL http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-102014-021105

Files






You might also like



Downloadable Citations