Social and human sciences
axis

Excerpt

Waste management and recycling are major concerns in the move towards a “truly” circular economy. There are many technological challenges involved in developing reusable packaging, improving product recyclability and incorporating recycled materials. However, these challenges will only remain theoretical if fundamental reflections are not carried out on the place of waste in our societies, on the relationship to materiality that its existence induces, and if consumption patterns are not questioned. The relationship between waste and society and the individuals who make it up, the way in which public policy deals with these issues, the territorial structuring of industrial sectors – these are all questions on which the social sciences can build knowledge. How does or should waste circulate in today’s world, given the imperatives of sustainable development? What is the environmental, ethical, economic and social significance of the circulation of waste?

By mobilizing scientific literature on the political economy of urban production and on major technical networks, political and territorial ecology, consumer behavior, new business models, and the ethical, moral and political issues surrounding waste, this project questions the socio-technical, socio-economic and socio-political evolutions of waste management, including reuse and recycling.

Keywords: society, reuse, circularity, consumption, public policy, territories, industrial sectors, waste flows, political ecology, sustainable development

Tasks

Our researches

Political and territorial ecology of recycling: actors, territories and uses
Jean-Baptiste Bahers (ESO)

• Questioning the spatial and social dimensions of material loops
• Recycling from the angle of plural governance regimes of circularity
• Clean, recycle and reuse: the greening of urban waste management in question

Consumer behavior, new roles for public and private players
Nathalie Lazaric (GREDEG)

• Examining opportunities for behavioral change using non-monetary tools
• Environmental regulation and business model innovation through standards

Recycling practices and representations in the Anthropocene
Laurence Rocher (EVS)

• Formal vs informal: an analysis of waste practices
• The peripheral territories of waste
• Material properties and material politics of waste