Food Waste Bins: Bridging Infrastructures and Practices

Abstract

Recent years have seen an increasing number of councils begin separate food waste collections from domestic premises, a change that has resulted in householders having to sort food waste and keep it in separate bins until collection. Yet bins – of any kind – have been subject to little investigation, despite being a central element of the waste infrastructure. This paper attends to this omission by examining food bins. First of all, it explores the ways that bins have agency through an exploration of how their presence has affected waste practices. We find that their agency is three‐fold: it is symbolic, relational and, importantly, material – an aspect which has been overlooked all too often in analyses of material culture and consumption. Secondly, we show how this material agency can be troubling: we explore how this agency is managed by households through practices of accommodation and resistance. Examining the food bin's agency and how it is consumed gives an insight into the implementation of, and engagement with, waste policy ‘on the ground’. This allows us to make some suggestions for how to improve the implementation of this policy. This paper also opens up two new areas of study: first, a more sustained and developed exploration of bins, giving some pointers as to other possible issues. Secondly, and more broadly, the paper examines the extent to which the objects that materialize policy can be useful in the implementation of that policy, especially if the policy seeks ‘behaviour change’.

Re-Introducing Consumption to the ‘Circular Economy’: A Sociotechnical Analysis of Domestic Food Provisioning

“…Additionally, paying attention to the domestic sphere as a dynamic space in which the demands of daily life are negotiated, several scholars have considered processes through which food becomes waste [43][44][45][46][47]. This work illustrates how the intersection of material, social and cultural conditions ultimately shapes food consumption.…”

“…Nevertheless, such strategies do require specific knowledges and competencies, not just regarding what can be composted, replanted or what is suitable for wildlife to eat, but also making judgements about the value of food. As other studies have noted, the recycling of food, especially via composting, conjures up a plethora of social concerns and anxieties regarding having the appropriate skills, the right equipment, enough space, and, most of all, dealing with the material agency (smell, consistency) of food deemed inedible for human consumption [44,45]. Despite these limitations, the occurrence of these alternative strategies illustrates the plethora of pathways through which 'circularity' is enacted within the domestic sphere.…”

The water–energy–food nexus at home: New opportunities for policy interventions in household sustainability

“…Metcalfe et al. on use of food waste caddies). Certain households – perhaps differentiated by age, lifestyle or ethnicity – may produce and dispose of more FOG than others .…”

“…A crucial part of intervening in the problem of FOG in sewers is the provision of alternative waste disposal infrastructures that – from a user perspective – are effective and reliable at ejecting unwanted materials from the home, without significantly adding to competing demands on time and resources (cf. Metcalfe et al., ).…”

“…Applying these insights to FOG, it seems credible that while some household members may be willing to reuse cooking fat or wastewater, others might find this unsanitary (cf. Metcalfe et al [2013] on use of food waste caddies). Certain householdsperhaps differentiated by age, lifestyle or ethnicitymay produce and dispose of more FOG than others.…”