Denmark was once at the forefront of nuclear research, operating three experimental nuclear reactors at the research facility at Risø, close to Copenhagen. However, the 1985 resolution of the Danish Parliament excluded nuclear power from the national energy mix. In 2003, the Parliament passed a resolution on the decommissioning of the nuclear facility at Risø, including plans for establishing a permanent solution for radioactive waste management. To understand the ensuing socio-technical controversy, we employ the “hybrid forum” framework (...) that emphasizes the entangled political-epistemological role of the municipalities and protest groups. They mobilized political resistance while also performing “research in the wild.” In 2016, the protest groups became part of an institutionalized “hybrid forum” where they could negotiate directly with experts and government representatives. We conclude that municipalities and protest groups were instrumental in changing the Danish position on radioactive waste management from final repository to long-term storage at Risø. (shrink)

In this article we investigate whether long-term radioactive waste management by means of geological disposal can be understood as a social experiment. Geological disposal is a rather particular technology in the way it deals with the analytical and ethical complexities implied by the idea of technological innovation as social experimentation, because it is presented as a technology that ultimately functions without human involvement. We argue that, even when the long term function of the ‘social’ is foreseen to (...) be restricted to safeguarding the functioning of the ‘technical’, geological disposal is still a social experiment. In order to better understand this argument and explore how it could be addressed, we elaborate the idea of social experimentation with the notion of co-production and the analytical tools of delegation, prescription and network as developed by actor-network theory. In doing so we emphasize that geological disposal inherently involves relations between surface and subsurface, between humans and nonhumans, between the social, material and natural realm, and that these relations require recognition and further elaboration. In other words, we argue that geological disposal concurrently is a social and a technical experiment, or better, a long-term socio-technical experiment. We end with proposing the idea of ‘actor-networking’ as a sensitizing concept for future research into what geological disposal as a socio-technical experiment could look like. (shrink)

The disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) is an issue that has seemed to defy not only solution but even a rational approach. This article reviews the development of U.S. HLRW disposal policy, focusing on the role of the scientific establishment. The failure of policymakers and their expert advisers is traced to the nature of the issues that need to be resolved to guarantee the safety of present and future generations. Scientific analysis cannot be used to predict the (...) significance and impact of human actions at disposal sites in the distant future. Consequently, it cannot provide a comprehensive risk assessment of any permanent HLRW disposal options. Perpetual management of HLRW in monitored retrievable facilities can address this issue. A management process that is guided by both science and ethics is best suited to protecting health and the environment, as well as intergenerational equity and justice. (shrink)

The nuclear community frequently refers to the concept of “future generations” when discussing the management of high-level radioactive waste. However, this notion is generally not defined. In this context, we have to assume a wide definition of the concept of future generations, conceived as people who will live after the contemporary people are dead. This definition embraces thus each generation following ours, without any restriction in time. The aim of this paper is to show that, in the (...) debate about nuclear waste, this broad notion should be further specified and to clarify the related implications for nuclear waste management policies. Therefore, we provide an ethical analysis of different management strategies for high-level waste in the light of two principles, protection of future generations—based on safety and security—and respect for their choice. This analysis shows that high-level waste management options have different ethical impacts across future generations, depending on whether the memory of the waste and its location is lost, or not. We suggest taking this distinction into account by introducing the notions of “close future generations” and “remote future generations”, which has important implications on nuclear waste management policies insofar as it stresses that a retrievable disposal has fewer benefits than usually assumed. (shrink)

The ethical matrix is a participatory tool designed to structure ethical reflection about the design, the introduction, the development or the use of technologies. Its collective implementation, in the context of participatory decision-making, has shown its potential usefulness. On the contrary, its implementation by a single researcher has not been thoroughly analyzed. The aim of this paper is precisely to assess the strength of ethical matrixes implemented by a single researcher as a tool for conceptual normative analysis related to technological (...) choices. Therefore, the ethical matrix framework is applied to the management of high-level radioactive waste, more specifically to retrievable and non-retrievable geological disposal. The results of this analysis show that the usefulness of ethical matrixes is twofold and that they provide a valuable input for further decision-making. Indeed, by using ethical matrixes, implicit ethically relevant issues were revealed—namely issues of equity associated with health impacts and differences between close and remote future generations regarding ethical impacts. Moreover, the ethical matrix framework was helpful in synthesizing and comparing systematically the ethical impacts of the technologies under scrutiny, and hence in highlighting the potential ethical conflicts. (shrink)

High-level radioactive waste is not fundamentally different from all other pollutants having long life spans in the biosphere. Nevertheless, its management has been treated differently by policy makers in the United States as well as most other nations, who have chosen permanent isolation from the biosphere as the objective of high-level radioactive waste disposal policy. This policy is to be attained by burial deep within stable geologic formations. The fundamental justification for this policy choice has (...) been provided by utilitarian ethical analysis. It, in turn, has been supported primarily by assumptions, based on expert opinion, about the ultimate safety of geologic disposal. However, close analysis of these assumptions reveals that the safety of geologic disposal is highly uncertain. Moreover, factors such as the possibility for human intrusion into repository sites make it impossible to even guess at the ultimate consequences of any policy choice pertaining to the final disposal of high-level radioactive waste. I discuss why utilitarian ethics cannot be used to determine the efficacy of such policy choices. I then develop an alternative approach which is based on egalitarian principles of procedure and utilize it to explore policy proposals which promote justice and equity in the high-level radioactive waste management process. I argue that there are two possible solutions to the high-level radioactive waste dilemma: an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to create an institution to advocate on behalf of the interests of future generations and the active management of the waste in monitored, retrievable facilities in perpetuity. Of these two options, I find maintaining surveillance and vigilance in perpetuity to safeguard high-level radioactive waste to be preferable because of its political and ethical efficacy. (shrink)

Ethical frameworks are often used in professional fields as a means of providing explicit ethical guidance for individuals and institutions when confronted with ethically important decisions. The notion of an ethical framework has received little critical attention, however, and the concept subsequently lends itself easily to misuse and ambiguous application. This is the case with the ‘ethical framework’ offered by Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), the crown-corporation which owns and is responsible for the long-term management of (...) Canada’s high-level nuclear fuel waste. It makes a very specific claim, namely that it is managing Canada’s long-lived radioactive nuclear fuel waste in an ethically responsible manner. According to this organization, what it means to behave in an ethically responsible manner is to act and develop policy in accordance with its ethical framework. What, then, is its ethical framework, and can it be satisfied? In this paper I will show that the NWMO’s ethical and social framework is deeply flawed in two respects: (a) it fails to meet the minimum requirements of a code of ethic or ethical framework by offering only questions, and no principles or rules of conduct; and (b) if posed as principles or rules of conduct, some of its questions are unsatisfiable. In particular, I will show that one of its claims, namely that it seek informed consent from individuals exposed to risk of harm from nuclear waste, cannot be satisfied as formulated. The result is that the NWMO’s ethical framework is not, at present, ethically acceptable. (shrink)

The treatment of Australia's Aboriginal people by the nuclear industry is a poorly researched topic. That is not merely a gap in the academic research on related topics, but it has “real world” consequences. Put simply, the paucity of information about the mistreatment of Aboriginal people makes it easier for nuclear interests to repeat past practices; and conversely, proper documentation and publication of past practices detrimental to Aboriginal people can make it more difficult for nuclear interests to repeat those practices. (...) Over the past decade Friends of the Earth Australia has sought to partially remedy the information deficit in the context of its work with Aboriginal communities involved in debates regarding uranium mining and proposed radioactive waste repositories. One thread of that work is the growing body of multimedia work by FoE member Jessie Boylan covering the legacy of the atomic bomb tests, uranium mining and waste repository proposals. Another thread of the project is detailed written documentation of past and present incidents of mistreatment of Aboriginal people by nuclear interests. This article builds on that research and focuses on attempts to impose radioactive waste repositories on the land of unwilling Aboriginal communities in South Australia. (shrink)

The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chemobyl have slowed the development of commercial nuclear fission in most industrialized countries, although nuclear proponents are trying to develop smaller, allegedly “fail-safe” reactors. Regardless of whether or not they succeed, we will face the problem of radioactive wastes for the next million years. After a brief, “revisionist” history of the radwaste problem, Isurvey some of the major epistemological and ethical difficulties with storing nuclear wastes and outline four ethical dilemmas common to (...) many technological and environmental controversies. I suggest two solutions to these ethical dilemmas and show why they are also economical and realistic proposals. (shrink)

Previous studies have confirmed that individual waste management behavior is influenced by both rational-based and altruistic-oriented beliefs and attitudes. Scholars incorporated personal norms in Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior and confirmed its usefulness in predicting waste management behavior. However, limited attention has been paid to the interactions between the variables in the model. Scholars also commented that the cognitive dimension was largely neglected in the current socio-psychological framework of waste management behavior. This study intends (...) to address this issue by incorporating environmental concern and environmental knowledge in the model and examining the psychological paths linking these variables to waste management behavior within the expanded model of planned behavior. Based on a cross-sectional survey among 434 university students in China, the results showed that subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, personal norms, and environmental knowledge were essential predictors of waste management behavior, whereas the direct effect of attitude was not statistically significant. Environmental concern and subjective norms could influence waste management behavior through personal norms. Environmental knowledge could influence waste management behavior indirectly through environmental concern, personal norms, and perceived behavioral control. Moreover, perceived behavioral control served as a mediator between the relationship of personal norms and waste management behavior. (shrink)

The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chemobyl have slowed the development of commercial nuclear fission in most industrialized countries, although nuclear proponents are trying to develop smaller, allegedly “fail-safe” reactors. Regardless of whether or not they succeed, we will face the problem of radioactive wastes for the next million years. After a brief, “revisionist” history of the radwaste problem, Isurvey some of the major epistemological and ethical difficulties with storing nuclear wastes and outline four ethical dilemmas common to (...) many technological and environmental controversies. I suggest two solutions to these ethical dilemmas and show why they are also economical and realistic proposals. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze the intractability of the low-level radioactive waste debate in California through the construction and examination of policy frames and their associated policy narratives. Relying primarily on reports, formal comments, and written correspondence, we reconstruct three policy frames and explore their interaction in the public debate through the policy stories told by the actors. We analyze how policy actors using these policy frames appropriate available information, value scientific input, and respond to uncertainty in technical (...) and regulatory information to create policy stories. These policy frames and their associated policy narratives demonstrate how policy actors differ in their drivers for action, bases for trusting claims, and response to uncertainty. These differences lead to divergent characterizations of the risk of low-level radio-active waste disposal. This analysis provides insight into the dynamics of intractable policy controversies. (shrink)

We conducted a survey of residents of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, (n = 107) to understand their attitudes to and experiences of waste management and governance. Currently, the municipality is emphasising waste diversion and exploring new waste processing systems (WPS; e.g., incineration) to reduce costs. Using Foucault's governmentality theory, our data suggest Kingston's reliance on an attitude-behaviour-context model of behaviour change successfully fosters an environmental citizenship identity based on waste diversion (e.g., recycling). However, we argue that (...) the neoliberal governmentality upon which the attitude-behaviour-context model is predicated elides the need for, and inhibits consideration of, broader societal change concerning urgent environmental issues involving consumption and waste. (shrink)

This paper aims to open up high-level waste management practices to a political philosophical questioning, beyond the enclosure implied by the normative ethics approaches that prevail in the literature. Building on previous insights derived from mediation theory, Foucault and science and technology studies, mediation theory’s appropriation of Foucauldian insights is shown to be in need of modification and further extension. In particular, we modify Dorrestijn’s figure of “technical determination of power relations” to better take into account the aspects (...) of imagination, and complement Dorrestijn’s work with the figures of techno-scientific mediation, and the inherently political figures of socio-technical and state-technical mediation, both based on Foucault’s notion of governmentality. Our analysis implies that the practical implementation of a high-level nuclear waste management strategy will require the “stitching together” of these different mediations, which is an inherently political task. (shrink)

Conceiving of nuclear energy as a social experiment gives rise to the question of what to do when the experiment is no longer responsible or desirable. To be able to appropriately respond to such a situation, the nuclear energy technology in question should be reversible, i.e. it must be possible to stop its further development and implementation in society, and it must be possible to undo its undesirable consequences. This paper explores these two conditions by applying them to geological disposal (...) of high-level radioactive waste. Despite the fact that considerations of reversibility and retrievability have received increased attention in GD, the analysis in this paper concludes that GD cannot be considered reversible. Firstly, it would be difficult to stop its further development and implementation, since its historical development has led to a point where GD is significantly locked-in. Secondly, the strategy it employs for undoing undesirable consequences is less-than-ideal: it relies on containment of severely radiotoxic waste rather than attempting to eliminate this waste or its radioactivity. And while it may currently be technologically impossible to turn high-level waste into benign substances, GD’s containment strategy makes it difficult to eliminate this waste’s radioactivity when the possibility would arise. In all, GD should be critically reconsidered if the inclusion of reversibility considerations in radioactive waste management has indeed become as important as is sometimes claimed. (shrink)

The management of radioactive waste, particularly of High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) containing isotopes, whose half-life exceeds one million years, is a wicked and aporetic problem. The amount of waste increases continuously, while the question of management remains technologically and politically unsolved. Not only do the technological challenges involved exceed the horizon of scientists, but the ethical problems raised by the use of nuclear power have been neglected from the beginning. The history of nuclear (...) power is as well a history of neglecting its consequences. No country is able to provide a suitable concept of storage for HLW. Instead, we have failing approaches: for example, decaying barrels in the Channel and the Atlantic Ocean, and in Germany two salt mines stuffed with unregistered amounts of waste on the edge of collapse.After the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi in March 2011, the German Federal Government decided for the second time to stop using nuclear power as an energy source, and on July 5th 2013, it passed a law mandating a new search for a storage site. In the beginning of 2013, an interdisciplinary project—ENTRIA—was launched to investigate options for radioactive waste management from the perspectives of the technical sciences and the humanities. ENTRIA is evaluating three possible options for storage: deep geological disposal, retrievable deep geological repository with monitoring, and permanent dry cask storage above ground. Each of the three options bears particular technological and ethical challenges. (shrink)

Vietnam is a vibrant and emerging South East Asian economy. However, the country faces a challenging task in meeting rising energy demand and the need to securitize energy while addressing the negative environmental impact of fossil fuel utilization. Growing concerns about sustainable development have led Vietnam to develop civilian nuclear energy for electricity generation. Nuclear power is widely recognized as a clean, mature and reliable energy source. Its inclusion in Vietnam’s energy mix by 2030 is expected to supplement other energy (...) sources from fossil fuel, hydropower plants, renewable resources and energy imports. Despite strong reservations in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, Vietnam has pursued its national nuclearization program. Civilian nuclear energy development has been widely regarded as a controversial issue, although it is intended for peaceful purposes and as a solution for long-term energy security. Anxiety over nuclear safety measures, inadequate nuclear regulatory mechanisms, lack of institutionalized radioactive waste management, the threat of nuclear accident, theft and terrorism, and nuclear proliferation have marred public perception. The apprehension towards nuclear energy development has raised serious questions on the ethics and risks of the technology. Using a qualitative approach of reviewing published scholarly research, we investigated the ethical and risk issues that manifest in civilian nuclear energy development in Vietnam. Our findings reveal that the conundrum of civilian nuclear energy revolves around balancing energy security, environment preservation and societal well-being with ethical and risk predicaments of nuclear energy. (shrink)

Sociologists of risk tend to presume that populations have static perceptions of risk that can be correlated with their degree of technical expertise or their structural relation to society. Such commentators show little interest in human agency unless it is the agency of professional risk communicators educating the public. This analysis of the conflict over a radioactive incinerator in Livermore, California, emphasizes the fluidity of public perceptions of the incinerator and the agency of activists in shaping those perceptions in (...) a battle for rhetorical position with the U.S. Department of Energy. At a historical moment when the media was publicizing decades of environmental problems in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, activists were able to defeat the incinerator by creating a transitory alliance with local developers and by using rhetorical strategies that slyly undermined the official discourse on risk. (shrink)

The International Commission on Radiological Protection — whose regularly updated recommendations are routinely adopted as law throughout the globe — recently issued the first-ever ICRP protections for the environment. These draft 2005 proposals are significant both because they offer the commission’s first radiation protections for any non-human parts of the planet and because they will influence both the quality of radiation risk assessment and environmental protection, as well as the global costs of nuclear-weapons cleanup, reactor decommissioning and radioactive (...) class='Hi'>waste management. This piece argues that the 2005 recommendations are scientifically and ethically flawed, or gray, in at least three respects: first, in largely ignoring scientific journals while employing mainly “gray literature;” second, in relying on non-transparent dose estimates and models, rather than on actual radiation measurements; and third, in ignoring classical ethical constraints on acceptable radiation risk. (shrink)

This article discusses the idea of an “Atomic Priesthood,” a religious caste that would preserve and transmit the knowledge of nuclear waste management for future generations. In 1981, the US Department of Energy commissioned a “Human Interference Task Force” that would examine the possibilities of how to maintain the security of nuclear waste storage sites for 10,000 years, a period during which our civilization would likely perish, but the dangerous nature of nuclear waste would persist. One (...) option that was discussed was the establishment of an “atomic priesthood,” an idea that science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Arsen Darney had already toyed with. Reading the HITF report alongside sci-fi novels, my article will shed light on the question of how the sheer force of nuclear power lends itself to religious interpretations and how the idea of the atomic priesthood is connected with the utopian/dystopian aspects of nuclear power. (shrink)

Strategic Environmental Assessment, as a support to strategic planning, is a starting point in the creation of a sustainable concept of managing waste that is based on the principles of a circular economy. The role of SEA is to guide the planning process towards the goal of securing the best effects in relation to the quality of the living environment and the socio-economic aspects of development. SEA is also an instrument that can be used when making optimal decisions about (...) spatial development, which further contributes to its importance and role in the planning process. The implementation of SEA allows developers to establish the benefits and implications of the proposed spatial changes, taking into account the capacity of the space to sustain the planned development, and to determine the degree of acceptability of the proposed spatial changes. This paper presents a specific method used for impact assessment in SEA for the Agro-Waste Management Plan for Oplenac Vineyard. The specificity of this method is that it combines specific goals, indicators and criteria for assessing the effect of planning solutions formulated in the simulated AWMP for Oplenac Vineyard using a semi-quantitative expert method. The results of the paper indicate the possibility of using GIS tools to increase objectivity in the expert evaluation of planning solutions, particularly in relation to a group of criteria for assessing the spatial dispersion of the impacts. This reduces the subjectivity that is characteristic of all expert methods. The graphical presentation of the results in GIS technology and the use of matrices and graphs to present the results makes them easier to understand and creates a good basis for making optimal decisions on future activities concerning the elimination of waste from wineries and viticulture. The research was carried out within the framework of the NoAW project, which is supported by the European Commission through the Horizon2020 research and innovation program. (shrink)

Proliferation of data processing and data storage devices in the Internet of Things poses significant privacy risks. At the same time, faster and faster use-cycles and obsolescence of devices with electronic components causes environmental problems. Some of the solutions to the environmental challenges of e-waste include mandatory recycling schemes as well as informal second hand markets. However, the data security and privacy implications of these green policies are as yet badly understood. This paper argues that based on the experience (...) with second hand markets in desktop computers, it is very likely that data that was legitimately collected under the household exception of the Data Protection Directive will “leak” into public spheres. Operators of large recycling schemes may find themselves inadvertently and unknowingly to be data controller for the purpose of Data Protection law, private resale of electronic devices can expose the prior owner to significant privacy risks. (shrink)

In the early 1970s, the major industrial states were preparing to shift to nuclear fission as their principal source of electrical power. But that change has not occurred. In part, this is due to a growing public recognition that techniques and institutions for management of spent nuclear fuel, separated plutonium, and long-lived radioactive wastes are not yet fully developed. The consequent pressures for resolution have spurred a series of often ill-defined and sometimes contradictory attempts to promote international cooperation (...) and control of hazardous activities. How are these varied suggestions to be compared and evaluated? By what criteria can plans be selected that are likely to be both effective and negotiable? In this study, Gene I. Rochlin, physicist and social scientist, explores the technical, political, and institutional aspects of international nuclear export and fuel cycle policies. He categorizes existing proposals and suggests way to develop new ones that better promote both national and international goals. Dr. Rochlin argues neither for nor against the use of nuclear power or plutonium fuels. Instead, he addresses the question of how international arrangements could be reached that might jointly satisfy the objective of the several key nations, yet not be too difficult to negotiate. He concludes that a major fault has been the tendency to improvise arrangements for specific technical or industrial operations. As a result, overall social and political goals have become the bargaining points for compromise. Yet attempts to simultaneously resolve all problems are unlikely to prove fruitful. Dr. Rochlin suggests instead the formation of institutions organized around more limited social, political, and technical objectives, even at the expense of excluding some nations or omitting some aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle. Only by so doing, he argues, can immediate agreements be reached that preserve the potential for more comprehensive future arrangements without sacrificing industrial, environmental, or nonproliferation goals. This important book will be of interest to scientists, social scientists, government officials, and others concerned with the problems of plutonium management and nuclear wastes. (shrink)

The main international standard-setting agencies for ionizing radiation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) both subscribe to principles which (they claim) lead to equitable protection for all generations exposed to radioactive pollution. Yet, when one examines the practices both groups support, it is clear that these practices discriminate against future generations with respect to radioactive pollution. After showing (I) that the IAEA and ICRP rhetoric of equity does not match their (...) policies and practices, the essay argues (2) that current people ought to try to treat members of future generations equitably with respect to protection from radioactive pollution. The essay also argues (3) that current policies of permanent disposal of high-level radioactive waste do not meet the second criterion, and therefore (4) that society ought to investigate whether another strategy for managing the waste would provide better equal protection among all generations. (shrink)

This article explores the technoenvironmental politics associated with government-sponsored climate change mitigation. It focuses on England’s New Technologies Demonstrator Programme, established to test the “viability” of “green” waste treatments by awarding state aid to eight experimental projects that promise to divert municipal waste from landfill and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The article examines how these demonstrator sites are arranged and represented to produce noncontroversial and publicly accessible forms of evidence and experience and, ultimately, to inform environmental policy (...) and planning decisions throughout the country. As in experimental science, this process requires that some bear witness to the demonstrators, but in a disciplined way. Whether through the extrapolation of facts about technical performance by affiliated third-party consultants, or the orchestration of visitor centers open to the general public, making the demonstrators public involves controlling the ways in which they are interpreted and perceived. However, the unstable publicity of waste management facilities proliferates unofficial accounts as well. These acts of counterwitnessing, as I refer to them, not only potentially dispute the official evidence collected from the demonstrators, they also can pose a challenge to the understanding of technology upon which such government initiatives are based. (shrink)

Electronic waste (E-waste) illustrates discarded appliances that utilize electricity for their functioning. It is one of the fastest growing waste streams across the globe. A study on the generation and management of E-waste was conducted in the city of Pune, India, involving four different stakeholders, namely, the information technology (IT) sector, banking sector, educational institutes, and households. All these stakeholders are listed by the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forest as major contributors to the problem (...) of E-waste in the country. Semistructured interviews were carried out at 4 IT companies, 10 banks, 16 educational institutes, and 50 households. Results show that the generation of E-waste with respect to computer waste is highest at the IT sector, followed by the banking sector. Apart from a few exceptions, rudimentary management practices were prevalent among the stakeholders. There is a lack of awareness on concerns related to E-waste. Establishing sustainable E-waste management practices, formulation and implementation of appropriate policy initiatives, transparency in the system, and educating people on their responsibility toward global E-waste problem are essential in order to address the emerging concern of E-waste in India. (shrink)

E-waste is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, yet it is often ignored, especially in Southeast Asia. The “tsunami of e-waste” in the region has been putting our lives and our environment at risk. With the extensive use of electrical and electronic devices, we are also contributing to harming the environment and quickening the climate change by producing and discarding e-waste. Youths are among major users of electronic devices, and hunger for upgraded and newer (...) versions. -/- However, there is still a lack of sensitization on e-waste management issues in the Southeast Asia region. Why should not the young people be pioneers in educating this challenge to the young public? Our FRE-E-WASTE project team is firm in our belief that youths should take the lead in bringing to light this aspect of climate justice, to the best of our ability. -/- Implemented by a group of ASEAN environmental enthusiasts, STEP Forward Education and supported by the U.S. Department of State and the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI), FRE-E-WASTE Project seeks to bring together a group of Southeast Asian environmental enthusiasts aged between 18 and 35 to connect and collaborate on e-waste issues in the region and eventually to create a toolkit about e-waste for the Southeast Asia region. (shrink)

One extreme example of intergenerational environmental change is given by nuclear waste. The radiation from a typical nuclear waste assembly will remain fatal for humans for millennia, creating the problem of communicating a warning about hazardous repositories to people so far in the future that we cannot assume any common ground with them in terms of languages and cultural contexts. This poses limitations to solutions proposed in the context of semiotics. The need for communicating danger and for keeping (...) future people away from certain sites may be tackled from a more sensorial and aesthetic perspective. Given the size of nuclear waste repositories, and the problem of keeping people at a distance, the dimension at which the problem must be tackled is environmental. This work argues for an exploration of what environmental aesthetics, despite and perhaps thanks to all the ongoing definitional and conceptual debates in the discipline, has to offer. (shrink)

After reviewing the use of isolation in US prisons and public restrooms to confine transgender people in solitary cells and single‐occupancy bathrooms, I propose an explanatory theory of eliminative space. I argue that prisons and toilets are eliminative spaces: that is, spaces of waste management that use layers of isolation to sanctify social or individual waste, at the outer and inner limits of society. As such, they function according to an eliminative logic. Eliminative logic, as I develop (...) it, involves three distinct but interrelated mechanisms: 1) purification of the social center, through 2) iterative segregation, presuming and enforcing 3) the reduced relationality of marginal persons. By evaluating the historical development and contemporary function of prisons and restrooms, I demonstrate that both seek to protect the gender binary through waves of segregation by sex, race, disability, and gender identity. I further argue that both assume the thin relationality of, in this case, transgender people, who are conceived of as impervious to the effects of isolation and thus always already isolable. I conclude that, if we are to counter the violence of these isolation practices, we not only need to think holistically about eliminative spaces and logic, but also to richly reconceptualize relationality. (shrink)

Waste is a major global environmental issue that assembles socio-cultural and bio-geological processes in complex indeterminate relationships. Drawing on three case studies, this article explores the shifting environmental politics concerned with waste’s material, economic, political, and cultural ‘management’. The Canadian case studies – determining a new waste management technology in a mid-sized city in central Ontario, an open dump in a remote Nunavut community, and an abandoned gold mine in the Northwest Territories – suggest (...) class='Hi'>waste occasions particular material and political mobilizations. Landfill leachate, colonialism, disinterested publics, freezing arsenic, global corporate investments, country food, land claims, neoliberal governance, permafrost, ravens, and a host of other socio-material forces both empower and thwart ‘management’ politics. Through these case studies, this article explores Isabelle Stengers’s assertion that participating citizenship is an ‘Empty Great Idea’, and a provocation to consider the contexts in which waste may generate acquiescent or objecting publics. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Temitope A. Ogunweide The study sought to assess the social context of solid waste disposal pattern of residents in Ibadan metropolis, in order to assess the Solid waste disposal patterns of people in Ibadan metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study identified solid waste disposal habits of residents, frequency of clearing the dumpsters, accessibility of waste dumpsters to people determines the (...) waste disposal pattern of people; and analyze the willingness of people in Ibadan to pay for improved service. Solid waste management has been part of human activities right from time. Efforts by Oyo State Government is seen in the collection of dirt that have been placed on the medians. Waste generation is an unavoidable product of man activities, however, sustainable management of such waste is a challenge faced in many countries today. Nigeria, a developing country in Africa, has been in a quandary of how to efficiently manage the municipal solid waste its population generates. Many states in the country lack adequate plans and infrastructure required for efficient and sustainable management of municipal solid waste. For Ibadan, the largest city in Nigeria, the problem is further compounded by its rather large and still increasing population. In this research, Ibadan metropolis is taken as a case study; the rate of solid waste handling in households as regards solid waste management from household collection to final disposal are focused upon. The study found out that 45.6% drop their refuse in the dumpsters as 18.8% burns their refuse, 17.7% of the respondents drops their waste on the median, 12% in the drainage while 6% opts to drop their waste in the streams. On the effectiveness of the Private operators collecting waste from the respondents, the study found out that 7.6% effective, 37.5% of the respondents says the operators waste collection is poor, 7% says it is abysmal while 43.5% said it is not applicable to them because they do not have storage containers in their houses and as a result did not subscribe to their service. Many countries, particularly the developed ones, have employed options in the waste management hierarchy for sustainable management of their municipal solid waste and the blend of options employed is usually highly dependent on local factors. Following the waste management hierarchy, possible options for sustainable municipal solid waste management in Ibadan are discussed. It is concluded that waste reduction, reuse, and recycling are potential management options for the state. Landfilling will remain an important option for final disposal but reliance on this method could be significantly reduced if management options are exploited to the maximum in a sustainable solid waste management structure in Ibadan metropolis. Key Words: Waste handling, Ibadan Metropolis, Landfill, Municipal Solid Waste Word Count: 435. (shrink)

Business orientation toward sustainable development goals and the circular economy are relevant research topics today in business theory and practice. The waste recycling sector is a key industry in the circular economy framework for promoting clean production and environmental sustainability. This study analyzes business performance in the recycling sector, focusing on efficiency indicators. The associations between firm efficiency and risk variables were also evaluated. The study goes through several methodological stages, including a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) multistage method and (...) multivariate modeling: tobit regression, bootstrap models, and generalized method of moments (GMM). The main results indicate that the average efficiency of waste recycling firms is at a medium level. Large-sized firms achieve higher levels of efficiency than medium-sized and small firms, supporting the economies of scale hypothesis. The evidence also suggests that risk variables (rating score and Zscore) and capital structure are key determinants of firm efficiency in the waste recycling industry. (shrink)

El estudio persigue el objetivo de contribuir a la capacitación para elevar la competencia de los trabajadores del hospital general de Kuanza Sul, Angola, en la educación ambiental para la gestión de residuos sólidos en consonancia con la preservación del medio ambiente y la promoción de la salud de los pueblos. Se caracteriza al Hospital en sus dimensiones estructural y funcional. Contiene el análisis, la interpretación y el tratamiento de los datos obtenidos a través de encuestas, entrevistas y observación. This (...) study has the objective to contribute to train the workers at Kuanza Sul, General Hospital in environmental education for the management of solid waste in keeping with the protection of the environment and peoples health promotion. The hospital is characterized in its structural and functional dimensions. it contains the analysis, the interpretation and treatment of the data obtained by means of surveys, interviews and observation. (shrink)

This article looks at the ethical quandaries, and their social and political context, which emerge as a result of international nuclear waste substitution. In particular it addresses the dilemmas inherent within the proposed return of nuclear waste owned by Japanese nuclear companies and currently stored in the United Kingdom. The UK company responsible for this waste, British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), wish to substitute this high volume intermediate-level Japanese-owned radioactive waste for a much lower volume (...) of much more highly radioactive waste. Special focus is given to ethical problems that they, and the UK government, have not wished to address as they move forward with waste substitution. The conclusion is that waste substitution can only be considered an ethical practice if a set of moderating conditions are observed by all parties. These conditions are listed and, as of yet, they are not being observed. (shrink)

Waste has often been a target of literature and policy promoting pro-environmental behaviour. However, little attention has been paid to how subjects interpret and construct waste in their daily lives. In this article we develop a synthesis of practice theory and psycho-social concepts of attachment and transitional space to explore how biographically patterned relationships and attachments to practice shape subjects' understandings of resource consumption and disposal. Deploying biographical interview data produced by the Energy Biographies Project, we illustrate how (...) tangible, intersubjective and interdependent experiences rub up against cultural and behavioural norms, reshaping the meanings and strategies through which subjects interpret and manage waste. (shrink)