Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 7: The question of the futureGreening and the cityThere are a host of good ideas and technologies for the greening of waste. They includemethods of recycling and approaches to design. They are elaborated in the principlesof life cycle management and of ‘natural’ cycle production. Many of these ideas areessential for a long term project of creating economies which do not waste the earth.Thus far, however, cleaning up in the rich world – or the consumption city – amountsto displacing waste to the poor world. Waste involves risk and the distribution ofrisk is then a political question. It requires choices and, as philosopher Slavoj Zizekcomments, “the powerful do the choosing, while others do the risking” 106 [2008]. Thisdisplacement of waste and risk does not address the environmental issue because itdoes not address the human issue – that is the relation of power between people. Wasteremains a marker of class and power.Prior to industrialisation, and particularly the development of chemicals, the mostdangerous waste was human excrement. In principle, all waste materials could bereintegrated into the soil. Waste now presents a very different profile: many materialsdo not bio-degrade and, as waste, are contaminated by toxics; the volume of toxicwaste, particularly from production, is simply staggering.It is in this context that environmental justice organisations call for the eliminationof waste. This implies: reduced consumption by the rich within a more equal world;and a transformation of technologies, for example, eliminating built-in obsolescenceand toxic production; and the recycling of goods and materials that can no longer bemended.Technologies are not neutral. They are both products and embodiments of powerrelations. The incinerator, the sanitary landfill, the waste compactor truck, all embodythe power that the institutions of state and capital as well as richer consumers havein relation to waste. This includes the specific interest groups such as waste engineerswho need to protect their markets as well as the more general interest that capitalhas in externalising costs. And these are investments that then demand more waste.Otherwise they end up as devalued stranded assets.106 Zizek originally made this comment in relation to Enron where the bosses who chose the risks could gettheir money out while employees lost their jobs as well as the money they had been persuaded to invest in thecorporation. The same scenario is repeated with the financial melt-down as the managers who took the risksdepart with golden handshakes while the costs of their choices are redistributed to others.Wasting the Nation - groundWork - 183 -