Making waste management public (or falling back to sleep)

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Sociology
• Political Science

Background:

• Human waste generation presents significant environmental challenges.
• Current waste management strategies include recycling, landfilling, incineration, and waste-to-energy.
• Public engagement with waste management issues is a critical but complex aspect of policy development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore how and why publics assemble around waste management issues.
• To apply Noortje Marres and Bruno Latour's theory of public assemblage to waste management.
• To analyze the process of making waste management facilities, specifically landfills, a public concern.

Main Methods:

• Case study of a small city in Ontario, Canada, facing waste management challenges.
• Examination of the city's cost-benefit assessment for a new waste management facility.
• Application of Bruno Latour's theories on politics and the "making public" of objects.

Main Results:

• Waste management issues often remain routinized, failing to become matters of public concern.
• The assemblage of publics around waste is contingent on various factors, including political and economic considerations.
• Latour's concepts of politics effectively explain the fluctuating public engagement with waste management.

Conclusions:

• Publics do not pre-exist issues; they form around objects, transforming them into matters of concern.
• The "making public" of waste management facilities is a complex, non-linear process.
• Understanding public assemblage is crucial for effective and sustainable waste management policy.