Working the Waste Commodity Frontier : Metabolic Value and Informal Waste Work
Irvine, Benjamin (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Geografia)

Date:	2022
Abstract:	Ambitions for a European "circular economy" imply waste is becoming an important "commodity frontier". Increased recycling in Europe has been accompanied by a proliferation of informal waste work. "Southern" geographies of informal recyclers provide resources for interpreting this phenomenon but studies of a commodity frontier in urban waste have tended to focus on moments when informal waste workers are displaced by capital intensive waste management systems. I draw on concepts in world-ecology and materialist ecofeminism to explore the proliferation of informal waste workers in Barcelona and the way their (re)production produces "Metabolic Value". Informal waste work is shown to emerge and persist as part of a commodity frontier process-where the appropriation of unpaid work from non-commodified spaces is the hallmark of how capitalism secures "Cheap Nature". The study suggests that, rather than internalising ecological costs, recycling often rests on the appropriation of value from uncommodified spaces.
Grants:	"la Caixa" Foundation LCF/BQ/DR21/11880008
Note:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Waste ; Informal work ; Recycling ; Metabolic value ; Commodity frontier
Published in:	Antipode, 2022 , ISSN 1467-8330

DOI: 10.1111/anti.12902

22 p, 239.6 KB

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Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles