From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies

Gregson, Nicky; Crang, Mike

doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-102014-021105

Cited by 116 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 151 publications

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“…It could be argued that the EMF approach is somewhat Eurocentric; Gregson and Crang (2015) argue that circular economies (plural) should be viewed in a global context. Using the notion of value recovery, they differentiate between hi-tech, capital-intensive approaches (promoted by the EMF interpretation) and labour-intensive approaches; arguing that the latter may serve a wider range of global markets.…”

Section: Theoretical Rootsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of Indicators for Measuring Product Performance in the Circular Economy

Griffiths

Cayzer

2016

Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2016

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This paper explores measurement of product performance with respect to circular economy (CE) principles. Potential indicators are assessed with special attention given to questions such as: the variables that should be measured; how these variables should be assessed; and in which format they should be presented. The resulting considerations are used to develop a prototype whose design is informed through feedback from CE experts. The prototype uses a points-based questionnaire which converges into a simple final result with minimum and maximum limits. The selected approach is critically appraised, and its utility for decision-making discussed. The prototype is tested against a product in the chemical processing industry. The strengths include: ease of use; simplicity; speed; and an effective metaphor for the diffusion of CE principles. The limitations include: the opaque and potentially misleading nature of a single metric; superficial engagement with decision-making; and the reliance on context-specific assumptions. Future developments could include refining the approach to encourage deeper reflection, and generalisation of the approach to different industry sectors or sustainability frameworks.

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Section: Theoretical Rootsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design of Indicators for Measuring Product Performance in the Circular Economy

Griffiths

Cayzer

2016

Sustainable Design and Manufacturing 2016

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“…Looking at end-of-life solar products as a potential source of revenue invites engagement with a body of literature that in recent years has been investigating the geography of the global trade in e-waste and waste more generally. Here, waste is less about pollution and more about the process and politics through which objects and materials are turned into something else, generating markets and employment in the process (Alexander and Reno 2012;Gregson and Crang 2015;Lepawsky 2018). Two things, in particular, are important to take from this literature.…”

Section: Solar Waste As Resource and Commoditymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two things, in particular, are important to take from this literature. Firstly, e-waste is an important secondary resource for developing countries and an area of significant economic activity and politics (Gregson and Crang 2015), which is complex and very difficult to trace. The geography of the global trade in electronic discards no longer reflects the assumption, which to a large extent underpins international regulations (the Basel Convention), that rich countries in the West are dumping waste on poor countries in the South.…”

Section: Solar Waste As Resource and Commoditymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sociomaterial Solar Waste: Afterlives and Lives After of Small Solar

Kumar

Turner

2019

Energy Justice Across Borders

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The problem of solar waste from off-grid technologies is attracting increasing attention. This chapter argues that solar waste represents multiple matters of concern; it is a problem of pollution, resource, and social ruin all together. It suggests that while an energy justice framework is well suited to identify issues of distributional, procedural, and recognition justice in relation to solar waste-what we refer to as "afterlives"-there is a need to engage with postcolonial theories of ethics in order to better grapple with different kinds of social ruins solar waste may represent-what we refer to as 'lives after'.

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“…The appraisal of recycling has been ambivalent in recent years: while being praised as a crucial component of the ‘circular economy’ in the Global North, recycling activities in the Global South have partly fallen into disgrace under the guise of the ‘pollution heaven thesis’, which refers to the globally unequal distribution of environmental pollution in a ‘race‐to‐the‐bottom’ (Gregson & Crang, ; Gasser et al ., ). This ambivalence points to the intricate relationship between economic activities, material transformations and the governance of associated environmental implications.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental change and the informal plastic recycling networks of Kolkata

Schlitz

2020

Singap J Trop Geogr

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This article introduces plastic recycling networks in Kolkata, India, as a case to illustrate the contradictory entanglement of economic and environmental change in urban informal contexts of the Global South. In light of the prevailing environmental critique of informal plastic recycling in India, this article discusses plastic recyclers’ environmental impact and contribution as well as the potential to enhance the environmental and economic performance of their business. Network and chain approaches in the emerging field of Environmental Economic Geography are combined with the notion of social metabolism to conceptualize the entanglement of environmental and economic processes as well as socio‐environmental inequalities entailed in recycling networks. The analysis reveals the impact that the heterogeneity and fluctuation of plastic waste supply has on the economic organization of recycling networks, giving rise to distinct forms of governance in its intermediate and down‐stream segments. Such an integrated perspective also serves to explain why environmental upgrading is hard to achieve under prevailing circumstances by plastic recyclers in Kolkata. Based on an assessment of the social and political conditions of informality under which plastic recyclers operate, the adoption of common assumptions about ecological modernization imbuing parts of Environmental Economic Geography is called into question.

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From Waste to Resource: The Trade in Wastes and Global Recycling Economies

Cited by 116 publications

References 151 publications

Design of Indicators for Measuring Product Performance in the Circular Economy

Design of Indicators for Measuring Product Performance in the Circular Economy

Sociomaterial Solar Waste: Afterlives and Lives After of Small Solar

Environmental change and the informal plastic recycling networks of Kolkata

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