Plastic possibilities
Contrasting the uses of plastic 'waste' in India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2247985 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tridibesh Dey (0000-0001-5624-9436), Mike Michael (0000-0001-9272-2294) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 11-15 |
| Publication date | 2021-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropology Today (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0268-540X • E-ISSN: 1467-8322 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-8322.12652 |
| OpenAlex | W3170618928 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 10 |
This article draws on examples of inventive plastic reuse from India and personal anecdotes of elders as an anthropological reflection on possible plastic futures. It sketches the large-scale governmental reforms in the domain of municipal solid waste management, or MSWM (which, by legal definition in India, includes plastic waste). In this regard, it draws out some of the problematic socio-political and environmental implications of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Clean India' campaign, whose technocratic policy orientations towards standardized centralized MSWM echo his cultural nationalist agenda. These reforms contrast with home-based re-engineering methods and the redeploying of plastic discards (thereby making them notuner moton ('like new again'), and their localized circulation through relatively local but uneven reputational and economic networks. Clean India sequesters and processes vast quantities of plastics through the wide-ranging adoption of a waste-to-energy techno-fix (in which plastics are incinerated). In contrast, the authors illustrate routine practices and relations whereby people reuse, repurpose and recycle plastics. While Clean India can detract from and disrupt these mundane practices and everyday relations, these are suggestive of alternative plastic futures - both socio-material and environmental
Business · Futures contract · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Reuse · Sociology · Technocracy · Waste management · Engineering · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Microplastics and Plastic Pollution · Water Governance and Infrastructure
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |