Solid waste management practices and their meanings in ecologically conscious households
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4464709 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kirstin Munro (0000-0002-4103-8553, The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1515-1532 |
| Publication date | 2021-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/2514848620960410 |
| OpenAlex | W3089985681 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 8 |
This paper describes the household waste management practices of self-described sustainable households, focusing on the intentional actions the members of these households take to reduce environmental harm. Data from qualitative interviews about household waste management practices related to the disposal of trash, "packaging", and recycling are analyzed using a Marxist-feminist model of household production. For the households in this study, packaging is a powerful reminder of their collusion with capital, eliciting powerful and unexpected negative reactions in interviews. At the same time, practices that involve allowing organic matter to decompose in the backyard, leaving urine unflushed, or placing human feces in the clothes washing machine or bathtub elicited few negative reactions, and recycling made people feel happy. Packaging and waste are necessary in capitalism because of the spatial division of labor and production, part of the constitutive contradiction between social needs and private production. I show how a division of labor and production that is necessary for accumulation manifests itself in an inherent antagonism toward human well-being in a discussion of the exhaustion, frustration, and conflict generated for highly ecologically oriented parents who are just trying to do their best to live a sustainable life in capitalist society despite the limits to the efficacy of these efforts
Business · Capitalism · Contradiction · Division of labour · Economic growth · Economics · Empowerment · Harm · Market economy · Marxist philosophy · Microeconomics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Marketing
Assessing the trade-off between economic growth and solid waste generation
Dumpster diving and street scavenging
The social life of packaging
Theorising Disablement through the Collective-Materialist Approach to Disabling Capitalism
The waste of nations
Overaccumulation, crisis, and the contradictions of household waste sorting
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |