Domestic 'Disposal Work' and Plastics Recycling - Unwrapping Everyday Entanglements of Practice, Roles, and Responsibilities
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2392409 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Torik Holmes (0000-0003-4346-1272, The University of Manchester, UK, corresponding author), Helen Holmes (0000-0002-4918-2007, The University of Manchester, UK) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 535-551 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociological Research Online (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1360-7804 • E-ISSN: 1360-7804 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13607804241259550 |
| OpenAlex | W4402290963 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 44 |
This article is about household plastics recycling in England. Rates of recycling have stagnated across the country over the past decade. Fitting with an individualisation of responsibility across industry and policy, households commonly get the blame. We bring this framing into question through a conceptualisation and exploration of the 'disposal work' undertaken by households. This concerns the bundle of practices involved in the identification, preparation, and segregation of everyday discards. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research, involving a purposefully disruptive trial and 60 interviews, we consider what affects disposal work, unwrapping a series of everyday sociomaterial entanglements of practice and the constitutive roles played by bins, packaging, and lay normativities. We argue that the blame attributed to households for poor-quality recycling reflects a blinkered problem framing and an oversimplification of responsibilities. Our argument is premised on tracing out and revealing a set of relationships between practices and domains of work that intersect in and extend out beyond homes and help shape the ebb and flow of plastic recyclables. Several pragmatic responses aimed at improving matters are discussed. We also signpost this article's broader significance for sociological research on practices and sustainability, arguing that privileging work, over consumption, provides one means of attuning and attending to power dynamics and the politics of the everyday
Aesthetics · Art · Business · Engineering ethics · Environmental ethics · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Engineering · Recycling and Waste Management Techniques · Sustainable Supply Chain Management · Water Governance and Infrastructure
Shaping technology/building society
Rubbish theory
Purity and Danger
Discard Studies
Sociomaterial Practices
Sustainable Practices
From the Cult of Waste to the Trash Heap of History
The Dynamics of Social Practice
Society and consumption
It takes two to tango
Practice-ing behaviour change
A critical appraisal of Sustainable Consumption and Production research
Unpacking food to go
Human-Machine Reconfigurations
Binning, Gifting and Recovery
Individualization
Satisfying Everyday Mobility
England's municipal waste regime
Nice Save
Crossing the Threshold
Food Waste Bins
It's Kind of Saving them a Job isn't it?' The Consumption Work of Household Recycling
After Practice? Material Semiotic Approaches to Consumption and Economy
The Mangle of Practice
Economies of Recycling, 'Consumption Work' and Divisions of Labour in Sweden and England
Almost Everything in the House Now Is Plastic
Toward an anthropology of plastics
Redefining pollution and action
How Do Unsustainable Practices Remain Dominant? A Practice Theory Reinterpretation of Gramsci
Environment or Economy? Food Concerns and Sustainable Food Transitions in the UK
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |