A-Infos (en) France, UCL AL #370 - Culture - Read: Aurélie Leroy, "The World's Waste: The Other Side of the Story" (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The perspectives that intersect in this book share a common thread: a 
shift in our understanding of waste. ---- While the beneficial practice 
of individual waste management is neither underestimated nor rejected, 
the focus is on our economic and civilizational model. This shift in 
perspective is built around quantifiable individual and industrial 
realities. ---- Aurélie Leroy, a research fellow at the Tricontinental 
Centre, begins by outlining a comprehensive overview of waste in her 
introduction. Before emerging from our kitchens or homes, waste appears 
upstream, in the stages of raw material extraction and goods production. 
Using the European Union as an example, in 2023, municipal wastethat is, 
waste from households, businesses, offices, and public 
institutionsrepresented 8.9% of the 2.2 billion tons of waste generated 
annually. The remainder, the vast majority, was generated by other 
polluting actors. In 2022, the construction, mining, and manufacturing 
sectors alone accounted for over 70% of the total. Globally, 97% of 
waste produced originates from industrial activities.

So why place the burden primarily on individuals, households, and local 
municipalities? This is a miscalculation, far from it. While not 
underestimating the individual efforts required, the statistics place 
the entire responsibility on consumers, when they are merely one link in 
the waste generation chain. This leads to an accusatory discourse and an 
anthropological approach to portraying human beings as inherently 
wasteful, when in reality it is a social modelthe throwaway societythat 
has resulted in an explosion of waste production. Aurélie Leroy 
therefore goes on to question the logic of recycling and its market 
value. The cost of waste management is not negligible: $206 billion in 
2012 and $375 billion in 2025. "Rethinking the world of waste therefore 
requires moving beyond the false solutions of industrial greening and 
placing social and environmental justice at the heart of public policy. 
This transformation demands breaking with the logic of overproduction 
and rampant consumption."

A second area of focus is the various contributions from authors around 
the perspectives of the Global South, the major beneficiary of our 
marginalization, our exclusion from the mainstream, our world. 
Revisiting the tale of the Three Little Pigs, we are offered a 
reflection, complete with a moral, on three modes of recycling: 
productivist denial, reformist recycling, and degrowth.

The third area of focus on decentralization concerns toxic colonialism: 
the outsourcing of waste to the poorest countries. Curiously, while 
statistics on individual waste production abound, of the 11.2 billion 
tons of solid waste collected each year, no reliable data exists to 
assess the total amount that crosses borders. Transborder flows are 
increasing in parallel with global production and are expected to grow 
by 70% by 2050.

While the issue of waste certainly raises ecological questions, these 
remain intrinsically linked to the economic model. Market logic takes 
precedence over environmental damage. Energy recovery from waste, a 
booming sector worth over $42 billion and poised to double in the near 
future, obscures reality by failing to address the underlying economic 
logic. This value-driven management, a source of future profits, 
develops a logic that is not contradictory, but rather internal to, the 
capitalist model. More growth, more production, more wastethat's what's 
economically advantageous.

The rest of the book takes us around the world, exploring these worlds 
of remoteness, poverty, and the neglect of waste management. A book to 
ponder and, above all, not to be thrown away.

Dominique Sureau (UCL Angers)

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Aurelie-Leroy-Les-dechets-du-monde-envers-du-decor
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