Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
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Chapter 5: Modernising municipal wastecapital. Second, it promotes stakeholder participation to manage <strong>the</strong> relation betweencontending social interests but in a way that obscures unequal relations of powerbetween <strong>the</strong> social actors representing those interests. Third, it has deployed an evermore detailed scientific language and practice for managing waste.Box 19: Household hazardous wasteHousehold items containing hazardous substances that end up in municipal wasteinclude:- Batteries- Chemical drain openers- Oven cleaners- Metal cleaners and polishers- Used motor oil, automotive fuel additives, carburettor and fuel injectioncleaners and starter fluids- Grease and rust solvents- Refrigerants in fridges and air-conditioners- Paints, paint thinners, strippers and removers- Adhesives- Herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and wood preservatives- Asbestos containing materialsHazardous elements and compounds in <strong>the</strong>se products include: metals such as lead,cadmium, mercury and nickel, and chemical compounds including acrylic acid,aniline, arsenic, benzene, chlordane, chlorinated phenols, chlorobenzene, methylenechloride, nitrobenzene, warfarin (rat poison) and xylene.Source: Pichtel 2005: 75Up to <strong>the</strong> 1970s, writes waste management professor John Pichtel, waste volumeswere scarcely measured and “<strong>the</strong> chemical, physical and biological properties of<strong>the</strong> municipal solid waste stream were of little or no concern” to waste companies,municipalities or citizens. “The primary concerns regarding waste management were,at <strong>the</strong> time, aes<strong>the</strong>tic and economic, i.e., removing nuisance materials from <strong>the</strong> curb or<strong>the</strong> dumpster quickly and conveniently, and at <strong>the</strong> lowest possible cost” [2005: 3].A series of scandals punctured this complaisance. Love Canal became a householdname in <strong>the</strong> US in <strong>the</strong> late 1970s, as production waste buried in <strong>the</strong> 1940s and 1950s<strong>Wasting</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Nation</strong> - groundWork - 129 -