Throw Away Societies: People, Places and Waste

By Cassandra Kuyvenhoven and Yvonne Rollins

How do societies affect and how are they affected by wasting processes, that is, ways in which individuals and communities throw away waste materials? This edited volume explores the differences in social meaning associated with waste materials in a number of geographic settings (from Tibet to Toronto and Lebanon to London) and at a range of geographic scales (from individual to international levels). It offers a better understanding of how the presence of waste affects these societies and how social norms and meanings associated with waste materials affects how they are managed within waste regimes. The core aim for this book is to extend the focus of social science research agendas towards wasting processes and to strengthen links with existing understandings of processes of production and consumption. In so doing this book contributes to current debates within academic and policy circles that critique solely technocratic accounts of waste management and widen the research lens to accommodate different geographic contexts and social perceptions of waste itself. As such, this volume seeks to promote understanding of the social realm of sustainability.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1472481356
• ISBN13: 9781472481351
• Release Date: January 3000
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 256 Pages